Trump's nominee for small business chief primed for final vote after clearing procedural hurdle

President Donald Trump’s nominee to pb the Small Business Administration, erstwhile Sen. Kelly Loeffler, passed a cardinal procedural ballot successful the Senate connected Thursday, clearing the way for her last confirmation vote. 

The Senate’s ballot this day to invoke cloture ended the statement connected the Georgia Republican’s nomination, arsenic she present moves connected to the confirmation stage.

The last cloture ballot was 51-43 successful favour of invoking cloture.

"Like President Trump, Senator Loeffler near down a palmy vocation successful the backstage assemblage to beforehand the America First agenda," Loeffler spokeswoman Caitlin O'Dea told Fox News connected Jan. 28. 

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"Should she beryllium confirmed, she volition proceed the signifier of donating her national wage to charities and nonprofits crossed the state — and enactment her afloat absorption connected moving to marque the Small Business Administration a gateway to the American Dream for entrepreneurs crossed the country." 

Loeffler, whose nett worthy is estimated astatine astir $1 billion, antecedently donated her yearly Senate wage of $174,000 betwixt 2019 and 2021 to much than 40 Georgia charities and nonprofits. 

Those organizations included nutrient banks, religion groups and organizations opposed to abortion, foster care/adoption groups arsenic good arsenic organizations promoting wellness care, agriculture, education, instrumentality enforcement and catastrophe relief. 

Loeffler previously worked astatine respective apical fiscal firms, including Intercontinental Exchange. Her husband, Jeffrey Sprecher, whom she met astatine ICE, is the existent president of the New York Stock Exchange.

Loeffler besides antecedently bought a number involvement successful the WNBA Atlanta Dream, but is reportedly nary longer associated with the team.

Loeffler besides sparred with Sen. Edward Markey, D-Mass, during her confirmation proceeding implicit the Trump administration’s announcement that it would frost national funds and grants. 

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After Trump fired SBA inspector wide Hannibal Ware successful January, Markey -- the apical Democrat connected the Senate Small Business & Entrepreneurship Committee – expressed choler and called for a intermission connected Loeffler’s confirmation consideration.

Markey said the process should beryllium halted "either until Inspector General Ware is reinstated oregon until a qualified and impartial nominee to regenerate him is confirmed by the Senate."

Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, the committee’s chairwoman, called Loeffler the "perfect idiosyncratic for the job" successful an Osceola Sentinel-Tribune column.

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"Throughout her career, she roseate done the ranks astatine aggregate companies owed to her determination and grit. She besides started galore businesses and knows what it takes to beryllium a palmy entrepreneur," said Ernst.

"Most importantly, she knows what it means to beryllium overrun by Washington’s bureaucratic overreach — and that the authorities indispensable alternatively get retired of the mode truthful businesses tin thrive."

Fox News Digital's Diana Stancy and Deidre Heavey contributed to this report