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It took just three short paragraphs for Robert Califf to earn the public support of an undecided senator for his bid to become the next commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), the powerful chair of the Senate Finance Committee, announced Thursday that he would support Califf’s nomination. It came just days after he implied he would need additional commitments about how the nominee would crack down on companies that thwart the rules of the FDA’s so-called accelerated approval pathway before voting to confirm him as the head of the agency. (Florko, 2/10)

President Biden's nominee for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Wednesday picked up a key Democratic endorsement from Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.). The support of the chair of the Senate Finance Committee is crucial for Robert Califf's potential confirmation in the closely divided Senate. (2/10)

No vote has been set on Califf’s nomination as Senate Democrats, the White House and other administration officials make a full-court press to lock up the votes needed to pass the 50-50 chamber. Former FDA officials warn that failure to move on Califf’s nomination will make it even harder to find and confirm future nominees. “If he can’t get confirmed it bodes poorly for almost anyone else who could be nominated,” said Dr. Stephen Ostroff, who twice served as acting FDA commissioner. “What you’re seeing here is a lot of extraneous issues inserting themselves into the confirmation process and the same thing would happen to virtually anyone else nominated.” (Perrone, 2/9)

An effort to strictly control stock ownership by members of Congress is gathering momentum on Capitol Hill for the first time in a decade, fueled by politically vulnerable lawmakers who recognize the potency of signaling to voters that they will act on the perceived corruption in Washington. ... The drive to ban congressional stock trading was touched off in 2020 by a spate of revelations that senators from both parties had traded health care stocks after closed-door briefings on the then-nascent coronavirus pandemic. (Weisman, 2/9)

A bipartisan group of senators on Wednesday announced that they had reached an agreement on a reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, after months of negotiations in the chamber. The legislation offers resources for victims of domestic abuse and sexual violence. Democrats Dick Durbin and Dianne Feinstein and Republicans Joni Ernst and Lisa Murkowski led the Senate talks. Durbin, the No. 2 Democrat in the chamber, noted that neither party achieved everything they wanted in the reauthorization, but hailed the compromise as a step toward better addressing the needs of domestic abuse survivors. (Wise, 2/9)