John Kerry on Tuesday was confirmed by a Senate vote of 94-3 to serve as Secretary of State replacing Hillary Clinton who steps down after a tumultuous four-year term that ended with the Benghazi debacle.
The only Senators to vote against their Democratic colleague from Massachusetts were Republicans Sens. John Cornyn of Texas, James Inhofe of Oklahoma and Ted Cruz of Texas.
Inhofe, who has not released a statement explaining why he voted against Kerry’s confirmation, may have been irked at an indirect reference Kerry made to the work of Inhofe and other far-right senators to defeat the Law of the Sea and other controversial UN treaties.
“There are times around here in recent days only, where certain arguments that are not necessarily based on fact or science or anything except the point of view of some outside entity have prevented certain things from being done,” Kerry said during his confirmation hearing last week.
The 69-year-old faced relatively easy questions from his colleagues during his one-day hearing on issues dealing with Iran, Syria, climate change and contentious UN treaties.
Tuesday morning, Kerry’s nomination was passed out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on a unanimous vote.
