WASHINGTON — The Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday voted to approve Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for secretary of Health and Human Services, paving the way for the full Senate to start the process of confirming as early as this week.
The panel voted 14-13 along party lines, with Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., voting in favor of Kennedy despite expressing concerns last week about Kennedy’s history of anti-vaccine advocacy. Shortly before the vote, Cassidy wrote on the social platform X that discussions with Vice President JD Vance helped him make a decision.
“With the serious commitments I’ve received from the administration and the opportunity to make progress on the issues we agree on like healthy foods and a pro-American agenda, I will vote yes,” Cassidy posted on X.
Cassidy admitted he was “struggling” with Kennedy’s confirmation during the Senate, Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing last week, saying that he was concerned that Kennedy’s history on vaccines could encourage people to not get vaccinated. Cassidy tried repeatedly and unsuccessfully to get Kennedy to unequivocally disavow an unproven link between autism and vaccinations, which has discouraged vaccine uptake in children.
Cassidy did not address those concerns in his announcement Tuesday, but thanked Vance for his “honest counsel.”
Speaking on the floor following the Senate Finance Committee vote, Cassidy said Kennedy made numerous commitments to him that were enough to secure his support.
He said Kennedy agreed to meet or speak with Cassidy “multiple times a month” and to quarterly appearances before the Senate HELP Committee if requested. Cassidy said Kennedy committed to maintaining the vaccine recommendations made by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine advisory panel.
He said Kennedy agreed not to take down any information on the CDC website that debunks the link between vaccines and autism. He also said Kennedy agreed to consult with Cassidy on HHS hiring decisions beyond Senate confirmed positions.
He said Kennedy committed to allowing the Senate HELP Committee chair, whether it’s Cassidy himself or another senator, to select a representative on any board or commission to review vaccine safety.
HHS will provide a 30-day notice to the committee if it plans to make any changes to federal safety monitoring systems, Cassidy said.
“These commitments, and my expectation that we can have a great working relationship to make America healthy again, is the basis of my support,” Cassidy said.
Opposition
Democrats, meanwhile, uniformly voted against Kennedy, citing his record on vaccines.
“Last week, Mr. Kennedy was given ample opportunity on a bipartisan basis to recant his decades-long career peddling anti-vaccine conspiracies,” said Finance ranking member Ron Wyden, D-Ore. “Instead, he dodged and weaved, and gave no indication that if confirmed as HHS secretary, he would stand by the long-settled science surrounding routine vaccinations.”
Wyden told reporters after the hearing that he would “pull out every stop” to halt Kennedy’s nomination from going through. He cited comments from Samoa’s top health official on Monday disputing Kennedy’s claims that not everyone who died in the 2019 outbreak on the island actually had measles.
“This is not over yet,” Wyden said.
Democrats face an uphill battle if they want to defeat Kennedy’s nomination: Kennedy can lose the support of three Republicans and still get confirmed, assuming all Democrats vote no and Vance breaks a tie.
GOP Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Mitch McConnell of Kentucky — a polio survivor who expressed concern about Kennedy’s associations with a lawyer who tried to get approval for the polio vaccine revoked — have not said yet how they will vote. No other Republican senators have publicly questioned the nomination.
Del Bigtree, the CEO of the Make America Healthy Again PAC and Kennedy’s communications director when he ran for president last year, told reporters after the hearing that the group had aggressively targeted lawmakers urging them to vote in favor of Kennedy. Bigtree said the group had received “thousands” of letters from supporters that they passed on to lawmakers.
Story by Jessie Hellmann and Lia DeGroot CQ-Roll Call. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC, via Associated Press.
