WASHINGTON — The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee has scheduled a Nov. 19 confirmation hearing that includes “a nominee to be Comptroller General” of the Government Accountability Office, Congress’s audit and investigative agency, according to the committee’s hearing notice. The notice does not name the nominee, and the White House has not announced one.
The hearing, set for 9:30 a.m. in Room SD-342 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, also lists Michael LoSapio to be director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, Michael Chamberlain to lead the Office of Government Ethics, inspector general nominees for the General Services Administration, the Interior Department, the Education Department and NASA, a Postal Service governor, a Postal Regulatory Commission member and four D.C. Superior Court judges: 12 named nominees in addition to the unnamed comptroller general pick.
The scheduling came a day after Chairman Rand Paul (R-Ky.) asked members of the statutory commission that recommends candidates for the job to submit names. A Democratic committee aide told Federal News Network that Paul’s office made the request on the afternoon of Nov. 11, with a deadline of 8 a.m. on Nov. 12, and that Democrats submitted no names because “that’s not how the process works.” A spokesperson for Paul did not respond to Federal News Network’s request for comment, the outlet reported.
The Trump administration has not publicly discussed its plans for the post. Office of Management and Budget Deputy Director Eric Ueland, who has been reported as under consideration, defended the administration’s reshaping of the federal government at a conference Monday, Defense One reported. “We have a high degree of confidence that the sorts of changes and improvements that we are making throughout the federal government – how it works, how it’s able to cooperate and interact with itself, and ultimately how it delivers key services to the public – aren’t partisan. They just make sense,” he said.
What the law says
Under 31 U.S.C. 703, the comptroller general is appointed by the president with the Senate’s advice and consent. When the office is vacant, the law sets up a commission of congressional leaders: the speaker of the House, the Senate president pro tempore, the majority and minority leaders of both chambers, and the chairs and ranking members of the Senate homeland security committee and the House Oversight Committee. The commission “shall recommend at least 3 individuals,” and the president “may ask the commission to recommend additional individuals.”
The comptroller general serves a single 15-year term and cannot be reappointed. The office can be removed only by impeachment or a joint resolution of Congress, Federal News Network noted.
The post has been vacant since Gene Dodaro retired on Dec. 30, 2025. Orice Williams Brown has served as acting comptroller general since then. Dodaro’s selection took more than a year before his Senate confirmation in 2010, and he was on the commission’s list with support from both parties.
Democrats object
Four Democrats who sit on the commission, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan, the committee’s ranking member, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Rep. Robert Garcia of California, the ranking member of House Oversight, called the request “a sham” in a Nov. 11 statement.
“This is clearly a sham to enable President Trump to appoint a handpicked nominee to lead Congress’ watchdog,” they said. They said Republican leaders “have never convened the Commission for meetings, and the Commission has not interviewed a single candidate for this critical role, despite repeated requests to begin the process over the last two years.”
Daniel Schuman, executive director of the American Governance Institute, told Federal News Network that the post “is too important to rush through a lame-duck session of Congress.” He said Paul “should work to protect Congress’s independent watchdog.”
The Democratic aide also told Federal News Network that GAO received ethics paperwork for Ueland this week, before Paul’s request for names. GAO did not respond to the outlet’s request to confirm that.
The calendar
Paul will give up the committee’s gavel in January, when Democrats take the Senate majority. A nominee would need a committee vote and Senate confirmation before the 119th Congress ends on Jan. 3, 2027. Under Senate Rule XXXI, nominations still pending at the end of a session are returned to the president unless the Senate agrees to hold them over.
The administration and GAO have disagreed repeatedly over GAO’s review of executive branch spending, Federal News Network reported, with Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought among GAO’s most prominent critics.
Featured photo: The Government Accountability Office headquarters at 441 G St. NW, August 2008. (APK / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0; cropped)
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