The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee voted Thursday to advance three of President Trump’s nominees, pushing them toward full Senate confirmation despite unified Democratic opposition.
The panel voted 12-10 to approve Erica Schwartz to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 12-11 for Sean Kaufman to head the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response, and 12-11 to move Keith Sonderling to serve as Labor secretary, The Hill reports.
Committee Chairman Bill Cassidy (R-LA) announced his support for all three nominees at the start of Thursday’s session, including Kaufman, whose past social media posts criticizing the hepatitis B birth dose had drawn Cassidy’s scrutiny during his confirmation hearing.
“Mr. Kaufman has said some pretty stupid things and irresponsible things regarding immunization. He has owned up to that in his conversations with me,” Cassidy said Thursday. “I am assured that if he is confirmed, he will not be involved in vaccine policy, and nor will he be the ultimate decisionmaker on certain issues like mRNA because of his past statements.”
Cassidy said Kaufman’s assurances satisfied his concerns, adding: “You can’t have perfection.”
Committee ranking member Bernie Sanders (I-VT) argued against the nominations, saying he was not convinced the nominees would stand up to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. when necessary.
“We have a secretary of Health and Human Services who fosters and propagates conspiracy theories on vaccines and other important issues. And the question, I think, big question before this committee: Are nominees going to be prepared to stand up to those conspiracy theories, those dangerous theories?” Sanders said. “I do not, unfortunately, think that Dr. Schwartz is prepared to do that.”
The three nominations now head to the full Senate for final confirmation votes. All three cleared the committee on party-line votes, with Democrats uniformly opposed.
