Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R) on Tuesday officially nominated Rep. Martha McSally (R-Ariz.) to become Arizona’s junior senator in the 116th Congress.
McSally would be taking over for Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), who announced last Friday that he would resign from Congress at the end of 2018. Kyl himself was nominated to the post following the death of Republican Sen. John McCain this past August. McSally will have to run for reelection in a special election in 2020, and, should she win, she will have to run again in 2022 once McCain’s original term is completed.
An Air Force veteran and former A-10 combat pilot, McSally ran to fill retiring Sen. Jeff Flake’s (R-Ariz.) seat in the November midterm elections, and conceded to Rep. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) after a tight race (Defense Daily, Nov. 13). Ducey said Sinema would be sworn in first on Jan. 3, 2019 in a televised press briefing on Tuesday, which would make her the senior senator for Arizona.
A current member of the House Armed Services Committee, McSally is widely expected to become a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee when she is sworn in. Her addition to the upper chamber brings the number of veterans serving on the Hill in the 116th Congress up to 96, with seven female veterans overall. She’ll join Sens. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) and Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) as the third female veteran in the Senate.
McSally is a member of HASC’s tactical air and land forces, and oversight and investigation subcommittees, as well as the House Homeland Security Committee’s emergency preparedness, response and communications subcommittee. She chairs the Homeland Security Committee’s border and maritime security subcommittee.