WASHINGTON — The Senate on Tuesday narrowly confirmed Steven M. Dettelbach to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, giving the agency responsible for organizing the federal response to gun violence its first permanent leader in seven years.
Mr. Dettelbach, a former federal prosecutor from Ohio, was confirmed by a 48-46 vote. He was supported by every Democrat who voted, as well as two Republicans, Susan Collins of Maine and Rob Portman of Ohio.
The confirmation of Mr. Dettelbach, 57, who was President Biden’s second choice for the post, represented a victory for the White House, which has tried to piece together a response to a spike in gun crime and mass shootings without the use of universal background checks and banning assault weapons, the preferred tools of policy.
West Wing officials see Mr. Dettelbach’s confirmation as important, at least in the short term, as the modest bipartisan gun control measure passed by Congress and signed by the president last month.
Mr. Dettelbach was expected to be sworn in shortly after the vote so he could begin the difficult task of energizing a bureau struggling with an overburdened workload, implacable opposition from the U.S. gun lobby, technological limitations, deteriorating morale and chronic funding shortfalls that have left local offices understaffed to investigate crimes and screen arms dealers.
“He faces a very difficult task,” said Senator Angus King, a political independent from Maine who has caucused with Democrats and last year rejected the nomination of Mr. Biden’s first choice to run the agency, David Chipman, over concerns about his fiery temperament.
“Dettelbach’s first job, and he accomplished it with his confirmation alone, is to improve morale at the ATF after almost eight years without someone at the helm,” Mr. King added after voting for Mr. Dettelbach. “The second task is finding the right people at the top to deliver what he wants to achieve. This is a recovery exercise.
John Feinblatt, the president of Everytown for Gun Safety, a group funded by former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York, called the Senate vote “a landmark victory for the gun safety movement and further evidence that the Senate is blocking this life-or- the problem of death finally dissolves.
Opposition to Mr. Dettelbach’s confirmation, initially fierce, has waned since the recent mass shootings in Buffalo; Uvalde, Texas; and Highland Park, Illinois, prompted calls for action in Washington. Democratic leaders were forced to resort to a procedural move to break a deadlock in the Judiciary Committee last month, but while most Republicans opposed the choice, they did so without much acrimony.
“There have been questions about his record, but I agree that the ATF definitely needs a permanent leader,” Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Missouri, said after voting against the nomination on Tuesday.
Mr. Dettelbach, a graduate of Harvard Law School, served in a number of prosecutorial positions in Maryland, Washington, the District of Columbia and Ohio before becoming United States Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio, which includes Cleveland. He held that post under President Barack Obama and served from 2009 to 2016.
Since the spring, he has been quietly working the phones to reassure law enforcement and agency officials that he appreciates their hard work during his secretive nomination process, which has won him the quiet support of career officials who were hostile to Mr. Chipman.
Mr. Dettelbach ran unsuccessfully for Ohio attorney general in 2018 as a Democrat, but he has gone to great lengths to present himself publicly as a career prosecutor who believes politics plays “no role in law enforcement,” as he put it at your confirmation hearing. That stance was intended to contrast with Mr. Chipman, whose fierce criticism of Republicans and gun rights groups provoked a backlash that eventually forced the administration to withdraw his nomination.
The bureau Mr. Dettelbach succeeds has long been hampered by a series of laws passed at the behest of the National Rifle Association and other gun-rights groups that limit the agency’s ability to electronically track guns or share basic data on firearms with the public.
But the agency has played a huge role in enacting nearly all of the gun control steps Mr. Biden has taken through the executive branch — including a crackdown on the sale of homemade “ghost guns” and the administration’s promise to more closely police federally licensed gun dealers , which are often the source of weapons used in crimes.
The agency is also expected to be a central player in establishing the new gun law, particularly the provisions included in the bill that make it easier for prosecutors to bring federal gun-trafficking charges.
“It’s extremely timely and important for him to get to work right now,” said Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, Democrat of New York, who is working on the traffic regulations. “I want them to do traffic cases every day.”
Mr. Dettelbach’s path to his new job was elliptical. Justice Department officials, stung by Chipman’s fall, were skeptical about announcing a new candidate to be the agency’s permanent director. Instead, they favor continuing the tenure of the bureau’s interim director, Marvin Richardson, a career agency employee.
But after The New York Times reported that Mr. Richardson had attended a gun industry-sponsored event in Las Vegas, White House officials, under pressure from gun control groups, began a search for less polarizing potential candidates. .
They settled on Mr. Dettelbach, who was well-liked at the Justice Department and was looking for a new job after unsuccessfully trying to be reassigned to his old position as U.S. attorney in Northern Ohio.
Some gun control activists initially doubted whether Mr. Dettelbach, known for his pleasant, low-key personality, would be tough enough to overhaul the bureau. But on Tuesday, their response was celebratory, if somewhat tempered by the challenges he faces.
“This is a historic day,” said Josh Scharf, senior counsel at the legal division of Brady, a gun safety group that has pressed the White House to select a permanent director.
Mr. Scharf said he hoped Mr. Dettelbach would quickly enact changes needed to reduce gun trafficking and improve the agency’s oversight of the gun industry.
“He will be an excellent leader of ATF and will quickly and effectively modernize ATF to catalyze the agency’s public safety mission,” he added.
Add Comment