From the Associated Press:

Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius has won Senate confirmation to serve as the nation's health and human services secretary.

She already has a public health emergency on her hands with the swine flu sickening dozens of Americans.

The 65-31 vote came after Democrats urged quick action so that Sebelius could get to work leading the federal response to the flu outbreak. Sixty votes in the 100-seat Senate were necessary for approval.

Taking a look through the roll call vote, every member of the Senate Democratic caucus, save for Senators Ted Kennedy and Jay Rockefeller who did not vote, voted in favor of invoking cloture on Kathleen Sebelius' nomination -- including Arlen Specter, who is still listed as a Republican on the Senate.gov website. Among Republicans, Sebelius earned eight votes (plus Specter) from Senators Kit Bond, Sam Brownback, Susan Collins, Judd Gregg, Dick Lugar, Pat Roberts, Olympia Snowe and George Voinovich. Senator Jeff Sessions did not vote. For a nomination vote on which the GOP didn't have the juice to successfully filibuster, this battle dragged out for an awfully long time, but at least the President's cabinet is finally complete now.

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The right is very concerned about swine flu. But are Republicans and their right wing allies concerned enough that they're going to stop working to keep President Obama's staff from being fully staffed -- including the key position of Health and Human Services? Here's First Read:

If you hadn't realized it, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano might have the toughest public relations job in Washington these days. [...] [N]ow it's swine flu. This is the ultimate job in government where you have to have a thick skin, because you only are in the news when the news is bad. (Here's the latest on swine flu: U.S. officials have declared a health emergency as 20 cases of the flu have been confirmed in the United States. In Mexico, there have been more than 1,600 illnesses and 103 deaths.) Indeed, the flu frenzy seems to be falling on Napolitano's shoulders, given -- as Politico writes -- that HHS secretary-designate Kathleen Sebelius hasn't been confirmed yet (due to GOP concerns over abortion) and that we have an acting CDC director. If there was one subject area this administration wished they could have waited a few more weeks before dealing with its first mini-crisis, it was something in the public health arena. [emphasis added]

Republicans may believe that it's worthwhile for them to try to score political points in futile efforts at obstructionism (as I have noted before, Kathleen Sebelius appears to have sufficient support to overcome a Republican filibuster in tomorrow's expected cloture vote), but they need to realize that their posturing comes with real costs. In this case, the federal government is without one of the key players who could help manage the response to the developing threat of swine flu (or other potential health issues, for that matter). Of course Republicans haven't been known to put much stock in placing good governance over politics (see: Michael "Heckuva Job Brownie" Brown), so perhaps I shouldn't be too surprised. That said, there are real costs to the Republicans' tactics, and it is definitely time for Sebelius to be confirmed by the Senate.

Update [2009-4-27 17:11:40 by Todd Beeton]:Ah, yes. Sweet right-wing conspiracy theories. This from Wendy Wright, President of Concerned Women of America:

“Some people think that declaring a state of emergency about the flu was a political thing to push the Sebelius nomination through,” said Wright. She pointed at news stories that ask whether the slow-walking of the Sebelius choice will hurt the response to the flu. “If there’s even a hint that [Department of Homeland Security] is manipulating the health situation to push a political appointee through, well, it almost defies imagination that they’d be willing to that.”

Wright said that she’d heard the speculation “on talk radio,” and wanted to be skeptical, but “there’s too much of a basis in that argument to easily dismiss it.”

I guess it's hard not to indulge in this type of cynicism about the nature of government after 8 years of Bush.

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The Associated Press has the details:

Gov. Kathleen Sebelius won Senate committee approval as health and human services secretary Tuesday despite opposition from Republicans critical of her ties to a late-term abortion doctor.

The Finance Committee voted 15 to 8 to send the Kansas Democrat's nomination to the full Senate for a final vote. Sebelius wasn't present the day before when President Barack Obama held his first formal Cabinet meeting.

[...]

Only two of 10 Finance Committee Republicans supported Sebelius. They were Sen. Pat Roberts from her home state of Kansas, and moderate Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine.

The AP goes to great lengths to recount all of the faux Beltway sniping over Kathleen Sebelius while at the same time burying the lede -- that Sebelius has sufficient support to get through the Senate. It's certainly true that there are some on the right fringe of the Republican Party who are trying to make an issue out of this or that, but with two Republican Senators supporting the Sebelius nomination in committee, and presumably more open to supporting her on the floor, a filibuster of her nomination is no longer tenable. So the real news here -- not the Washington claptrap, but what actually matters -- is that after more than three months, Senate Republicans may finally allow President Obama to enjoy the counsel and support of a complete cabinet.

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Remember those last minute regulations Bush slipped in on his way out the door in December? One of them was the truly dangerous Health and Human Services "conscience" rule, which, as WaPo explains:

...cuts off federal funding for thousands of state and local governments, hospitals, health plans, clinics and other entities if they do not accommodate doctors, nurses, pharmacists or other employees who refuse to participate in care they feel violates their personal, moral or religious beliefs.

The rule was sought by conservative groups that argued that workers were increasingly being fired, disciplined or penalized in other ways for trying to exercise their "right of conscience."

Many groups advocating on behalf of women's health, abortion rights and end of life choice have called for the Obama administration to overturn the rule and last month Obama-appointed officials at Health and Human Services concurred:

"We've been concerned that the way the Bush rule is written, it could make it harder for women to get the care they need," said an HHS official who spoke on the condition of anonymity for the same reason. "It is worded so vaguely that some have argued it could limit family-planning counseling and even potentially blood transfusions and end-of-life care."

On March 10th, the proposal to rescind the rule entirely was announced and a 30-day public comment phase instituted. That public comment period ends April 9th. What's likely to happen at the end of this phase? One would think all out repeal, but the administration has signaled its willingness to move on the issue. WaPo again:

Administration officials stressed that the proposal will be subject to 30 days of public comment, which could result in a compromise. They said they remain committed to seeking a middle ground but acknowledged that will not always be possible.

Which underscores how important it is that the public comments they do receive between now and April 9th are not overwhelmingly against rescinding the rule. We need to represent. To that end, Compassion and Choices, a nonprofit that seeks to improve care and expand choice at the end of life, has launched an easy to use public comment tool on their website.

Compassion and Choices President Barbara Coombs Lee at HuffPo:

Now is the time to raise our voices for patient choice and autonomy. From now until April 9th we must urge the Obama administration to repeal Bush's last-minute rule shielding health care workers who withhold from patients any treatment they consider morally objectionable. [...]

The rule protects refusals even if they endanger the patient. It does not require refusers to give notice of a pending refusal. They're not even required to make sure "non-refusing" staff is ready to cover for them during a crucial treatment or procedure. [...]

Should federal law protect the person who delayed a critical treatment or prevented it altogether, even if your loved one suffered or died as a result?

We value our freedoms, especially religious freedom. But every freedom stops at the place where it would injure others. This so called "conscience" rule neither recognizes nor respects that boundary between religious freedom and harm to others.

Let's repeal the HHS "conscience" refusal rule in its entirety. The Bush administration should not be allowed to thwart good medical care for the sake of religious zealotry.

Go to C&C and send a strong message to the Obama administration that you support the repeal of this dangerous holdover from the Bush administration.

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By almost every indication, the right is going to try to make a stink about Barack Obama's choice of Kathleen Sebelius to serve as his Secretary of Health and Human Services because -- gasp -- the Kansas Governor is pro-choice. But it's going to be awfully difficult for conservatives to mount much of a successful faux-outrage effort with Kansas' two conservative Republican Senators backing her nomination.

A setback to the attempt to rally conservative Catholics against Kathleen Sebelius at HHS: Conservative Catholic Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas voices his support, in a joint statement with fellow Kansas Republican Pat Roberts:

Congratulations to Governor Sebelius on being nominated to be the Secretary of Health and Human Services. It's an honor for the State of Kansas to have an elected official appointed to the president's cabinet. We look forward to working with her on issues important to the state including a National Cancer Institute Designation at the University of Kansas Cancer Center.

Also, kind words today from Governors Schwarzenegger of California, Purdue of Georgia, and Huntsman of Utah, all Republicans.

It's too early to call Sebelius' approval by the United States Senate a done deal, because as we've seen so far with the nomination process, unexpected bumps can arise. But with two Republican Senators seemingly approving of her selection, presumably putting her level of support above 60 votes in the Senate, it's difficult to see how conservatives would be able successfully block Sebelius from joining the Cabinet -- putting the establishment media, which is used to acting at the beck and call of the right on faux-outrages like Sebelius' support of a woman's right to choose, in the tough position of either following their normal inclinations or bowing to the reality that the right's whining doesn't actually matter in this instance.

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