The shape of the Capitol Hill defense establishment in the post-John McCain era formally gelled Wednesday, as Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) became chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and former Arizona senator Jon Kyl was sworn in to serve the remainder of the McCain’s term.
McCain died on Aug. 25 after ceasing treatment for brain cancer.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Wednesday announced Inhofe’s ascension to chair of the powerful Senate Armed Services Committee. The senator had performed the chairman’s duties for much of the past 12 months and shepherded the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act through the Senate while McCain was ill.
Inhofe is far friendlier to President Donald Trump than was McCain — a military hawk and critic who favored American engagement in international affairs, and who pointedly and publicly feuded with Trump before and following the New Yorker’s election in 2016.
The Senate Armed Services Committee sets annual budget ceilings and policy for the active nuclear weapons, nonproliferation, and naval nuclear reactor programs managed by the Department of Energy’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration. It also has oversight of defense environmental funding for cleanup of the Department of Energy’s nuclear complex.
Also on Wednesday, Vice President Mike Pence swore Kyl into the Senate. Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R) appointed Kyl to fill the seat Tuesday in a press conference webcast from Phoenix. He will finish McCain’s term, which expires in 2020.
Kyl was a U.S. senator from Arizona from 1995 to 2013, serving alongside McCain for all three of those terms. He was less directly involved with military policy than McCain, and is widely regarded as a more traditionally conservative politician than his predecessor. In his previous Senate stint, Kyl was the minority whip and the ranking member on subcommittees of the Judiciary and Finance committees.
