Josh Hawley is only senator to vote no on all Biden cabinet confirmations
Hawley is one of the most prominent members of the ‘sedition caucus’
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Missouri senator Josh Hawley is the only Republican to have voted against all of Joe Biden’s nominations for cabinet positions.
On Tuesday he voted “nay” at the confirmations of both Pete Buttigieg as transportation secretary and Alejandro Mayorkas as homeland security secretary.
One of the most prominent members of the “sedition caucus” — those that backed Donald Trump’s effort to overturn the certification of the electoral college vote by Congress — has now given a thumbs down to all six nominees put before the upper chamber for confirmation.
Before the Buttigieg and Mayorkas votes, he voted against Antony Blinken as secretary of state; Janet Yellen as treasury secretary; Lloyd Austin as defence secretary; and Avril Haines as director of national intelligence.
For his unwavering support of former president Trump and his baseless allegations of voter fraud, and because of his role in allegedly encouraging the mob that stormed the US Capitol, Senator Hawley faces calls to resign, allegations of being complicit, and ridicule for claiming to be muzzled while appearing on cable news and writing newspaper op-eds.
Most recently the St Louis Post-Dispatch, a newspaper from his home state, called on him to “bring Trump to justice” or resign.
However, on 26 January, Mr Hawley and 44 other Republicans voted to object to the second Trump impeachment, arguing it wasn’t constitutional to impeach a former president.
The barrage of recent anger against Mr Hawley includes John Danforth, a former Republican senator from Missouri who had boosted Mr Hawley in the past, saying that backing him was "the worst mistake I ever made in my life.’'
On most of the confirmation votes between ten and twenty of his Republican colleagues joined him in voting no, with the exceptions of the confirmations of Mr Mayorkas, when that number hit 43, and Mr Austin when it was just him and Senator Mike Lee of Utah.
Indeed Mr Lee is in second place in terms of opposition to the Biden appointments, alongside Ted Cruz of Texas and Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee. The three have rejected five of the six appointments.
Mr Lee voted in favour of Mr Buttigieg; and Mr Cruz and Ms Blackburn both voted in favour of Mr Austin.
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