Chai R. Feldblum, a law professor at Georgetown University who helped draft the original Americans with Disabilities Act, will become the first openly LGBT member of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.  Her confirmation had been held up by Senate Republicans, but today the White House said she is among fifteen presidential nominees to receive recess appointments.

“The United States Senate has the responsibility to approve or disapprove of my nominees.  But if, in the interest of scoring political points, Republicans in the Senate refuse to exercise that responsibility, I must act in the interest of the American people and exercise my authority to fill these positions on an interim basis,” Obama said in a statement.

Obama announced Feldblum’s nomination in September of last year.  She is one of more than 100 openly LGBT presidential appointees in the current administration.  For more information about LGBT presidential appointees and how to apply for an appointment, read about the Presidential Appointments Project here.

At least one United States senator has placed a “secret hold” on the confirmation of Chai Feldblum, an openly lesbian Georgetown Law School professor nominated by President Obama to be one of five commissioners on the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, according to Lisa Keen of Keen News Service:

A Senate committee approved all the nominations, including Feldblum’s, as a group in December.

A spokesperson for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Monday that Reid is “working to get an agreement” with Republicans to consider the nomination of Feldblum and other EEOC commissioners.

There is no indication in the Congressional Record or the Senate Calendar as to who has put the hold on the confirmation of Feldblum and the others. While the Congress recently enacted legislation to make it harder for senators to anonymously put such holds on confirmations and bills, there are still ways in which they can do so.

Feldblum’s nomination is opposed by socially conservative groups who cite her past advocacy for LGBT equality as evidence she won’t be impartial in enforcing U.S. EEO laws.  Last October, Victory Fund president and CEO Chuck Wolfe called for an end to “anti-gay witch hunts” against Obama’s LGBT nominees.

The nomination of openly lesbian Chai Feldblum to serve on the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has been approved by the Senate HELP committee, Metro Weekly reports.  Although anti-gay organizations had promised “Armageddon” over the nomination, no controversy flared beyond some mild prodding in committee hearings.  Feldblum’s nomination will now go to the Senate floor for full confirmation where, according to Metro Weekly, things could get a little more interesting:

Clearing the committee vote, while important, does not guarantee Feldblum’s nomination clear sailing on the Senate floor. Republicans have, in fact, held up action on a number of Obama nominees this year by using a Senate rule that allows any senator to delay a vote on any nomination for any reason. Senators can create these delays anonymously and, given the ferocity of the right-wing organizational opposition to Feldblum’s nomination, that prospect might be an attractive political move for any conservative senator. Already, Republicans have put holds on President Obama’s nominees for Director of the Census, Surgeon General, and for Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernecke’s second term, among many others.

Should a senator place a hold on a nomination, the Senate will have to muster 60 votes in order to force the nomination to the floor.

Chai Feldblum, an openly lesbian nominee for the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, today answered a question put to her by Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), who  asked the nominee if she supported polygamy.  The question came in response to a statement Feldblum had signed in support of alternative families while she was a professor at Columbia.  Law Dork describes the exchange:

Feldblum began, initially, by stating unambiguously, “I do not support polygamy.”  She went on to say that it was a “mistake” to sign the petition and told the Committee that it was for that reason that she asked for her name to be removed from it.  Ben Smith at Politico reported today that Feldblum had sent a letter to the petition organizers asking that her name be removed.

Harkin pushed further, asking her to explain why she had signed on to the statement in the first place.  Feldblum stated that she had been asked to sign on to the petition by “another academic from Columbia.”  She said, “I agreed with the general thrust of the statement,” and that her work at the time was very focused on efforts to “support the range of caregiving relationships.”  It was for that reason, she said, that she signed on in support of the petition.

The Committee has yet to vote on whether to send her nomination to the Senate floor for final confirmation.