Roger Marshall on Cabinet Confirmations: Deciding Votes for Pete Hegseth and Todd Blanche, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and What Their Agencies Did to Kansas

Kansas Senator Roger Marshall voted to confirm each of the nominees on this page, and two of his votes decided the outcome: Pete Hegseth as secretary of defense, confirmed 50 to 50 with the Vice President's vote, and Todd Blanche as attorney general, confirmed 50 to 49. Hegseth then ran the Iran war, in which 21 service members have died.

Marshall, a physician, said "As a physician, I stand firmly behind RFK Jr.'s nomination" and voted to confirm Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose department canceled public health grants that forced Kansas to lay off 56 people while it fought measles and tuberculosis outbreaks. He also voted to confirm Kristi Noem and Markwayne Mullin, whose ICE agents swept through southwest Kansas in September 2026; Russell Vought, who directed federal layoffs; and the leaders of the VA, Social Security and Agriculture, which all lost Kansas staff.

Roger Marshall's Confirmation Votes and What Each Official's Agency Did

• Marshall Cast One of the 50 Votes That Confirmed Pete Hegseth, Who Ran the Iran War. On January 24, 2025, Roger Marshall voted to confirm Pete Hegseth as secretary of defense, and the vote was 50 to 50 with the Vice President breaking the tie, so Hegseth would not have been confirmed without him. Marshall also voted to confirm Stephen Feinberg as deputy secretary of defense and General Dan Caine as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. They led the war with Iran that began February 28, 2026, in which 21 U.S. service members have died and 865 have been injured, at a Pentagon-estimated cost of $43.6 billion as of this month in September 2026.
• Marshall Voted to Confirm Pam Bondi and, With a Deciding Vote, Todd Blanche to Run the Justice Department. Marshall voted to confirm Pam Bondi as attorney general on February 4, 2025, Todd Blanche as deputy attorney general on March 5, 2025, and Blanche as attorney general on August 8, 2026, when his vote was needed. Their department indicted the President's critics James Comey and Letitia James in cases a judge tossed after finding the prosecutor unlawfully appointed, its January 2026 release of the Epstein files had thousands of redaction failures on behalf of nearly 100 individual survivors, and it terminated crime-prevention and victim-services grants initially valued at about $820 million, according to the Council on Criminal Justice.
• Marshall Backed and Voted to Confirm Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Whose Department Cut the CDC and Rewrote Vaccine Policy. On February 4, 2025, Marshall said "As a physician, I stand firmly behind RFK Jr.'s nomination," and on February 13, 2025 he voted to confirm Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as secretary of health and human services, 52-48. The CDC lost 30%, or more than 3,800 employees, between March 2025 and May 2026. In June 2025 Kennedy fired and replaced all the members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, and the U.S. has reported nearly 3,887 confirmed cases of measles as of October 1, more than in any year since 1991, KFF reported in 2026.
• Marshall Voted to Confirm the Homeland Security Leaders Whose Agents Swept Through Southwest Kansas. Marshall voted to confirm Kristi Noem as secretary of homeland security on January 25, 2025, Rodney Scott as commissioner of Customs and Border Protection on June 18, 2025, and Markwayne Mullin as Noem's successor on March 23, 2026. Nationally, nearly 70,000 people were in ICE detention in March 2026, and ICE recorded 31 detainee deaths, a two-decade high, in 2025. In September 2026 ICE agents arrived in Dodge City, Liberal and Garden City, where the federal government reported more than 100 arrests.
• Marshall Voted to Confirm Mehmet Oz, Whose Agency Projects 2.3 Million Fewer People on Medicaid. On April 3, 2025, Marshall voted to confirm Mehmet Oz as administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, 53-45. In June 2026 his agency issued the rule carrying out the Medicaid work requirement, projecting that "enrollment would be reduced by 2.3 million individuals in FY 2027" nationwide.
• Marshall Voted to Confirm Russell Vought, Who Directed Federal Layoffs and Canceled Funds Congress Approved. On February 6, 2025, Marshall voted to confirm Russell Vought as budget director, 53-47. His office directed agencies to plan large layoffs, and by August 2026 the government workforce was 264,000 employees smaller, a decrease of about 12%. His office also used a pocket rescission to claw back $4.9 billion in funding in August 2025, a method the Government Accountability Office says is not allowed: "The President may not force the expiration of budget authority Congress has already enacted and did not rescind."
• Marshall Voted to Confirm the Commerce Secretary and Trade Representative Behind the Tariffs Still in Force. Marshall voted to confirm Howard Lutnick as commerce secretary on February 18, 2025 and Jamieson Greer as trade representative on February 26, 2025. Their agencies' tariffs still in force include steel and aluminum duties raised from 25 percent ad valorem to 50 percent ad valorem and Greer's July 2026 tariffs on 60 economies, and the Yale Budget Lab estimated that tariffs under current law cost households about $1,100 a year.
• Marshall Voted to Confirm the Leaders of the VA and Social Security as Both Lost Thousands of Staff. Marshall voted to confirm Doug Collins as veterans affairs secretary on February 4, 2025 and Frank Bisignano as Social Security commissioner on May 6, 2025. The VA was "on pace to reduce total VA staff by nearly 30,000 employees" in 2025, and Social Security pushed out more than 8,000 Social Security Administration (SSA) workers from January 2025 to April 2026, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found.
• Marshall Voted to Confirm the Agriculture, Education and Housing Secretaries Who Cut Their Departments. Marshall voted to confirm Brooke Rollins at Agriculture on February 13, 2025, Scott Turner at Housing and Urban Development on February 5, 2025 and Linda McMahon at Education on March 3, 2025, whom he had called a "phenomenal Secretary of Education" before her nomination hearing. USDA cut its staff by about 20 percent in 2025, Civil Eats reported; HUD went down to roughly 6,300 workers; and the Education Department's workforce fell from 4,133 employees to 2,183, the Hechinger Report found.
• Marshall Voted to Confirm the EPA Administrator Who Repealed Vehicle Emission Standards. Marshall voted to confirm Lee Zeldin at the EPA on January 29, 2025. Zeldin's EPA finalized its repeal of all greenhouse gas (GHG) emission standards for cars and trucks. In August 2025 it also terminated the $7 billion Solar for All program for low-income households; on September 18, 2026 a federal judge ruled the EPA had illegally terminated a $7 billion Solar for All program, and she vacated the termination.
• Marshall Voted to Confirm the Civil Rights Chief Who Shrank Voting-Rights Enforcement. On April 3, 2025, Marshall voted to confirm Harmeet Dhillon to lead the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division. The staff of its voting section dwindled from approximately 30 lawyers down to about 6, the Brennan Center found, and the division moved to dismiss lawsuits against the Louisville, Kentucky and Minneapolis police departments.
• Marshall Voted to Confirm Kelly Loeffler, Who Cut the Small Business Administration's Staff by 43 Percent. On February 19, 2025, Marshall voted to confirm Kelly Loeffler to lead the Small Business Administration. A month later the agency said "the agency will reduce its workforce by 43%", leaving fewer staff to process small-business and disaster loans.

What the Officials Roger Marshall Confirmed Did to Kansas

• Public health. After Kennedy's department canceled public health grants, the cancellation of federal grants has forced the state to lay off 56 people, KWCH reported in May 2025, and Governor Laura Kelly said Kansas is in the midst of fighting two outbreaks, tuberculosis and measles. Kansas did not sue, and it and neighboring states that did not sue collectively lost 55 grants, with none retained. The state's 2025 outbreak reached 90 measles cases, with 87 of them concentrated in the southwest.
• Social Security offices. Kansas's Social Security workforce fell by 44 people, 11 percent, from January 2025 to April 2026, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
• Farm agency staff. Kansas lost 32 percent of its USDA staff under the Agriculture secretary Marshall confirmed, and farmers are waiting longer for help applying for financial assistance, Harvest Public Media reported.
• VA hospitals. The VA Eastern Kansas Healthcare System in Topeka designated 70 occupations as severe staffing shortages in fiscal 2026, the VA inspector general found.

Frequently Asked Questions About Roger Marshall on Cabinet confirmations

Last updated: 2026-10-25

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