On Monday, the Senate voted to confirm Biden nominee Martin O'Malley as the new Social Security Administration commissioner.
The former Maryland governor will replace acting commissioner Kilolo Kijakazi, who has led the agency since 2021 after Andrew Saul was fired. The Senate greenlit O'Malley's nomination with a vote of 50 to 11 on Monday.
Senate Confirms Martin O'Malley as SSA Commissioner
The decision comes a few months after President Joe Biden selected the former governor, who also ran in the 2016 Democratic presidential primary, for the role. The termination of Saul resulted in an uproar from Republican lawmakers at the time, who slammed the decision as "partisan."
On the other hand, the White House defended the decision and aimed Saul's actions that officials said ran "contrary" to the president's policy agenda. Senate Finance Chair Ron Wyden backed O'Malley in the Monday vote.
He also lauded the former governor's track record, saying that throughout O'Malley's career in public service, he has established an unimpeachable record of modernization and increased transparency. Wyden noted that the nominee focused on helping the people of Maryland get the services they count on, as per The Hill.
Maryland Democrat Sen. Ben Cardin said that with O'Malley's confirmation, they would have a leader at the Social Security Administration who would understand the responsibilities of the recipients. He and fellow Maryland Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen supported the nominee after Biden selected him.
On top of being Maryland's governor and a presidential candidate, O'Malley was the mayor of Baltimore from 1999 to 2007. Since his 2016 presidential attempt, he has been a visiting professor at Johns Hopkins University and a fellow at Georgetown University's Institute of Politics and Public Service in Washington.
During his time as Baltimore's mayor, he instituted CitiStat, a data-driven method of measuring the performance and efficiency of municipal agencies. It was modeled after a New York City crime-tracking system.
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Addressing the Agency's Issues
After he became Maryland's governor, he used similar strategies under the name StateStat, and his successor in Annapolis, Republican former Gov. Larry Hogan, merged the effort with another program, according to the Baltimore Sun.
In March, the annual Social Security and Medicare trustees report said the program's trust fund will not pay full benefits for roughly ten years. If the fund is completely depleted, the American government can only pay 80% of scheduled benefits.
When Biden nominated O'Malley for the position, he touted the former governor's management skills and commitment to protecting benefits. In the two years that Kijakazi led the agency, she blamed poor service and backlogs on staff turnover and budgets that have not kept pace with increased retirement claims from aging baby boomers.
Kijakazi said in a statement about the agency's accomplishments this year that the "combined effect of the pandemic and chronic underfunding has taken a toll on our employees."
She said that the bottom line is that they need well-trained employees to ensure they can meet the people's needs. O'Malley's confirmation also comes amid Democrats and Republicans' debate on how to handle the solvency of the Social Security Administration, said the Washington Post.
