WASHINGTON — The Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday swiftly and unanimously approved President Barack Obama’s choice of Sen. John Kerry to succeed Hillary Rodham Clinton as secretary of state.
By voice vote, the panel approved the nomination of the five-term Massachusetts Democrat, who has been a member of the committee for 28 years and led it for the past four. The full Senate likely will vote on Tuesday afternoon.
Kerry did not attend the session.
Also Tuesday, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, said he plans to leave the administration.
The 67-year-old LaHood, a former GOP congressman from Illinois, pushed for greater safety on the highways and in the air.
Obama thanked LaHood in a statement, saying they were “drawn together by a shared belief that those of us in public service owe an allegiance not to party or faction, but to the people we were elected to represent. And Ray has never wavered in that belief.”