Senate panel to vote this morning on nominees to lead OPM, Census Bureau

Two Obama administration candidates for nuts-and-bolts jobs are scheduled to get confirmation votes at 10 a.m. today from the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

First up, according to a committee advisory, is the nomination of John Thompson to head the Census Bureau. Thompson, who previously worked for the bureau as far back as the 1970s in such posts as associate director for the decennial census, is currently president and CEO of the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago, according a White House bio.

The Senate panel is also supposed to vote on the nomination of Katherine Archuleta for director of Office of Personnel Management. Archuleta, who has held an array of jobs in and out of government, helped run Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign and also spent about two years from 2009 to 2011 as chief of staff for the Labor Department.

Confirmation hearings for both Thompson and Archuleta produced no fireworks, so presumably this morning’s votes will be similarly routine. For anyone wanting to watch the action online, however, here’s a link to the committee’s site. Assuming that the two win the panel’s approval, the only thing standing between them and another stint of public service is a vote by the full Senate.