The Senate voted 72-28 on Thursday to confirm Brooke Rollins’ nomination to serve as U.S. Secretary of Agriculture.
All Republicans agreed to pass Rollins, but more Democrats voted against her than expected — including Sens. Tina Smith (D-Minn.) and Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), who initially helped advance her out of the Senate Agriculture Committee to the full Senate floor.
Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vt.), who voted in favor of Rollins, said “a lot of Democrats” are voting against most of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet nominees in response to his efforts to overhaul the federal workforce.
“There’s a lot of outrage about Trump’s unlawful conduct,” Welch said.
Rollins, who was a domestic policy chief during Trump’s first term in the White House, will be responsible for nearly 100,000 department employees and a budget of more than $200 billion. She’ll also lead USDA’s nutrition, rural developments, farm safety net and trade programs, as well as the federal response to the bird flu outbreak.
Lawmakers and agriculture industry leaders are hoping that Rollins, a longtime Trump ally who joins the administration after leading the America First Policy Institute, will stand up for agricultural interests during Cabinet discussions about Trump’s tariffs and deportations.
The Senate Agriculture Committee unanimously advanced her nomination last week.
Many Democratic senators have indicated they’ve had productive conversations with Rollins about their states’ agricultural priorities. They’ll have to work with her on ongoing farm bill negotiations, workforce issues and other USDA programs that their constituents rely on.