Dem
47
GOP
53
You might want to stock up on N90 masks and vitamins, because Robert F. Kennedy is now the United States' Secretary of Health and Human Services. Although maybe that office should now be known as United States' Secretary of "Health" and Human Services.
In the end, the vote broke along party lines, except that Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) crossed the aisle to vote with the Democrats. Despite many of them expressing "concern" about Kennedy, no other Republican found it within themselves to oppose the anti-vaxxer and conspiracist, despite knowing full well that his ascension means that people—and, in particular, innocent children—will die needlessly.
Besides "public health" and "the American people," we'll point out two big losers here. The first is McConnell, whose career is clearly winding to an end, and who is clearly going to go out with a whimper. He was the most powerful man in the Senate for the better part of two decades, and in that time, he secured passage of not a single bill of his own, while at the same time laying the groundwork for the rise of a president he finds abhorrent. Now that he's a backbencher, his influence seems to have evaporated. It's a pretty lousy final chapter for a career that, we would guess, history was already going to view harshly.
The other loser here is Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), who might have brought Kennedy down if he came out strongly against the nominee, but who instead publicly waffled, and then meekly fell into line. It is hard to imagine how he could have played his hand worse, heading into next year's reelection campaign. The Trumpers are already unhappy with him because he voted to convict Donald Trump after the second impeachment trial. This just served to reaffirm their suspicions and their dislike. Meanwhile, pulling a Susan Collins and expressing "concern," while not actually doing anything about that concern, is not going to please Never Trumpers, or independents, or Democrats who might otherwise have thought about crossing the aisle to support a Trump resister. Cassidy is going to face a fierce primary challenge, and he may well not survive.
We will admit that we are at least a little surprised that Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) did not join McConnell in voting "nay," since she usually doesn't express "concern" unless she means to act on it. But she was apparently more concerned about other matters, introducing a bill to switch Mt. McKinley back to "Denali." After all, if you're a Republican and you're going to push back against Trump, you've got to pick only the truly important battles.
And as long as we are on the subject of confirmations, we'll note one other story. Because of the budget battles on the horizon, Republicans really don't want to be down one seat in the House, if they can avoid it. So, the Senate is currently slow-walking the confirmation of Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) as U.N. Ambassador. How long that might last, and exactly how Trump and Stefanik might feel about that, is not currently known. (Z)