The Senate on Tuesday voted to confirm Steven Dettelbach as Director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, making him the first leader of the agency approved by the chamber since 2015.

What You Need To Know

  • The Senate on Tuesday voted to confirm Steven Dettelbach as Director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives

  • With the 48-46 vote, Dettelbach becomes the first Senate-confirmed leader of the ATF since 2015

  • Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Rob Portman of Ohio joined all present Democrats to confirm Dettelbach, a former U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Ohio during the Obama administration
  • Dettelbach racked up endorsements from law enforcement officials, former Justice Department officials who worked for both Republican and Democratic administrations and victims of violence

The final vote was 48-46, with Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Rob Portman of Ohio joining all present Democrats to confirm Dettelbach, a former U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Ohio during the Obama administration.

The vote came amid a spate of mass shootings which have rocked the country, including recent massacres in Buffalo, New York, Uvalde, Texas, and Highland Park, Illinois. It also took place after Congress passed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act in response to the violent shootings, the first major gun safety legislation approved by the legislature in decades.

Dettelbach racked up endorsements from law enforcement officials, former Justice Department officials who worked for both Republican and Democratic administrations and victims of violence.

President Joe Biden hailed Dettelbach’s confirmation and said Dettelbach “will play a leading role in ensuring robust implementation” of the widest ranging gun violence bill Congress has passed in decades and other action to drive down violent crime.

“We have so much more to do,” Biden said in a statement. “I will continue to call on Congress to build on this momentum and ban assault weapons, expand background checks, and pass safe storage laws.”

Biden called Dettelbach an ”extraordinarily qualified and decorated career prosecutor with strong support across the law enforcement community.”

Dettelbach is a former federal prosecutor who served as U.S. attorney in Ohio from 2009 to 2016 and has run in the past for attorney general of Ohio. He worked in several other positions in the Justice Department and was involved in the prosecution of a man who firebombed an Ohio courthouse. He also served as the chairman of the civil rights subcommittee as part of the attorney general’s advisory committee under former attorneys general Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch.

Biden had to withdraw the nomination of his first ATF nominee, gun control advocate David Chipman, after it stalled for months because of opposition from Republicans and some Democrats in the Senate.

Both Republican and Democratic administrations had long failed to get nominees for the ATF position through the politically fraught process since the director’s position was made confirmable in 2006. Since then, only one nominee, former U.S. Attorney B. Todd Jones, has been confirmed. Jones made it through the Senate in 2013 but only after a six-month struggle. Jones was acting director when President Barack Obama nominated him in January 2013 and left the role in 2015.

Earlier this year, the Biden administration removed the agency’s acting director, Marvin Richardson, from his position and replaced him with the U.S. attorney in Arizona, Gary Restaino. Restaino has juggled both jobs as Dettelbach’s nomination waded its way through the Senate. Richardson has been the agency’s deputy director.

Dettelbach’s confirmation was immediately hailed by advocates who highlighted his experience as a prosecutor and his work with law enforcement.

“Steve Dettelbach’s bipartisan confirmation vote is a watershed victory for the gun safety movement and further proof that the Senate logjam around this life-or-death issue is finally breaking,” said John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety.

His nomination had been staunchly opposed by gun rights groups, including Gun Owners of America, which wrote a letter Tuesday to Senate leaders urging them to vote against him.