The Senate voted 84-8 Tuesday to confirm Xochitl Torres Small as deputy secretary of the Agriculture Department, a post in which she will act as chief operating officer for a sprawling department.
Torres Small, who became undersecretary for rural development in late 2021, is a former House member who represented a largely rural New Mexico district. She was a water rights lawyer before she entered the 116th Congress and grew up in southwestern New Mexico as the daughter of educators and the granddaughter of Mexican immigrants who were farmworkers.
As deputy secretary, Torres Small will be responsible for strategic planning for a department that operates 29 agencies and offices and employs about 100,000 people who largely work outside the Beltway. President Joe Biden nominated her for the department’s No. 2 spot after Jewel Bronaugh resigned and left the department in February.
