Sen. Gregg selected to guide commerce

February 4, 2009 at 12:00a.m.

WASHINGTON (AP) — In the midst of promoting his $800 billion-plus economic proposal, President Barack Obama chose for his new commerce secretary a Republican senator with such a reputation for fiscal discipline that he once voted to shut down the department.

If confirmed by the Senate, Judd Gregg will take over a sprawling agency charged with everything from creating jobs and regulating trademarks to conducting the 2010 census and issuing weather forecasts.

Obama, however, indicated that Gregg’s top priority will be his involvement in an administration team tasked with pulling the country out of recession.

“Clearly, Judd and I don’t agree on every issue,” Obama said in the White House’s Grand Foyer alongside Gregg and Vice President Joe Biden. “But we agree on the urgent need to get American businesses and families back on their feet ... And we know the only way to solve the great challenges of our time is to put aside stale ideology and petty partisanship, and embrace what works.”

In choosing Gregg — a GOP spending hawk — to lead Commerce, Obama is extending yet another olive branch to Republicans while also trying to protect himself from being tagged a big-spender.

Gregg would be the third Republican in Obama’s Cabinet, joining Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.

The secretary-designate told reporters that while he will remain in the Senate until he is confirmed, he would not participate in Senate business or votes while his confirmation is pending. That means he won’t vote on the stimulus plan or help Republicans in their arguments against it.

Gregg, 61, is a former New Hampshire governor who previously served in the House. He has been in the Senate since 1993 and currently serves as the top Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, where he is known as a crusader against big spending.