Daschle Pulls Nomination to be Head of HHS

Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, whom President Obama nominated as U.S. Department of Health and Human Services secretary, which oversees multiple government healthcare agencies, including the Food and Drug Administration, withdrew his nomination today.

He was found to have owed more than $140,000 in back taxes, which he didn’t pay until it was revealed during the vetting process.

“This morning, Tom Daschle asked me to withdraw his nomination for
secretary of Health and Human Services,” Obama said in a statement. “I accept his decision with sadness and regret.”

Daschle said in a statement he was pulling out because he doesn’t want to be a distraction.

“This work will require a leader who can operate with the full faith
of Congress and the American people, and without distraction,” Daschle
said in a statement released by the White House. “Right now, I am not
that leader and will not be a distraction,” he said.

It is unclear whether Daschle would have been able to be successfully
confirmed, despite his network of ties in the Senate.

Daschle had also been tapped to be Obama’s health czar, but he will not fill that position either.

Republican Sen. Jim DeMint Tuesday called for Obama to withdraw the nomination, becoming the first senator to say that the former majority leader’s tax problems disqualify him from the job.

Some have speculated that Obama could tap former head of the Democratic National Party, Howard Dean.

Daschle was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1978, where he served for four terms. He was elected to the Senate in 1986, and he became majority leader in 1994. After being defeated for re-election in 2004, he took a position as a policy advisor with a lobbying firm, and also became a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a think tank. He also co-authored a book advocating universal healthcare.