The Spat Over a Fed Seat for Peter Diamond

Peter A. Diamond, a professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology since 1966 and a diehard Boston Red Sox fan, last year shared the Nobel Prize in economics and was invited to throw out the first pitch at a home game in Fenway Park. He's getting a chillier reception in Congress, which has refused since August to confirm him as a Federal Reserve Board governor. President Barack Obama has nominated him three times, but Diamond, 70, has become a pawn in a game of political tit-for-tat.

Diamond's nomination cleared the Senate Banking Committee in July, only to be rejected for a floor vote by Republicans, who invoked an obscure Senate procedural rule. Obama renominated him, and Diamond again won the banking panel's recommendation after the midterm elections and winning the Nobel. The clock ran out when lawmakers, preoccupied with tax-cut legislation, adjourned in December without voting on him.