Regardless of the outcome of next week’s elections, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will make history in 2025 when the panel for the first time will have a woman as one of its two leaders.
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., is poised to succeed Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin, D-Md., as either the chair or ranking member of the panel, depending on which party wins the Senate. Cardin is retiring at the end of the 118th Congress.
Shaheen, now in her third term, has specialized in foreign policy, particularly transatlantic issues. She also has a strong working relationship with the current ranking member and possible next chairman, Jim Risch, R-Idaho. The two previously overlapped as leaders of the Senate Small Business Committee for one year in 2017.
“He has great respect for her,” said a source familiar with Risch’s thinking about Shaheen. “Regardless of what hand we’re all dealt [in Senate elections], I expect it to be a very positive working relationship because they really do have a very solid genuine foundation to start off on.”
Shaheen and Risch volunteered as election observers in 2012 in Georgia, where they supported a historic peaceful transition of power. The two have a shared concern about democratic backsliding in recent years in the Eastern European country and have issued joint statements on the matter as well as co-sponsored legislation that would impose sanctions on foreign officials that undermine Georgian sovereignty and stability.
They are both former governors and for the last five years have led a bipartisan delegation to the Halifax International Security Forum.
“The senators have a proven track record of working well together, harkening back to their time leading the Senate Small Business Committee and frequent overseas travel together, including leading the CODEL to the Halifax Security Forum,” said a source close to Shaheen. “I think that that hopefully lends itself well to a productive relationship with Sen. Risch and his team in 2025.”
That relationship could be tested, particularly if Donald Trump returns to the White House. Conflict in the Middle East, the war in Ukraine, the solidifying military ties between Russia, Iran, North Korea and China, and the strategic competition with Beijing are likely to dominate committee activity regardless of who wins the presidency and the Senate. But Trump, both as president and as a candidate, has been willing to disrupt decades of foreign policy consensus, especially in Europe.
Risch brought committee work to a halt in recent months over legislation that would sanction the International Criminal Court. Republicans are angry because an ICC prosecutor requested arrest warrants in May for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant over actions in the Gaza Strip. The prosecutor also sought warrants for three officials from the Palestinian militant group Hamas over the attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Risch could mark up the ICC legislation in committee if he becomes chairman — or hold up nominees if Kamala Harris becomes president. Both Risch and Shaheen would face pressure to defend the long-time foreign policy consensus around the importance of an engaged and internationalist U.S. if Trump becomes president.
Shaheen has deep national security expertise. She also sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee as well as the Appropriations subcommittees for the State Department and Pentagon. She joined the Foreign Relations Committee when she came to Congress in 2009 and ever since has been on the panel’s Europe subcommittee and was its chair or ranking member at multiple junctures.
Shaheen can be expected to continue to prioritize support for the Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania and to pursue policies that empower women and girls around the world.
There’s also a chance she and Risch will revive provisions they worked on previously that were included in 2021 strategic competition with China legislation that the committee approved but that didn’t make it into the 2022 law known as the CHIPS and Science Act.
Outlook for new members
With multiple key races too close to predict which party will win control of the Senate, let alone by how much, it’s too early to know how many seats the majority will be able to get on committees.
At least three vacancies are coming next year with the retirements of Cardin and Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, and the end of the placeholder tenure of Sen. George S. Helmy, D-N.J., but more could open up in the musical chairs game of Senate committee assignments.
Some likely incoming freshmen who have served in the House have done work on foreign affairs and national security that suggests they would have a strong interest in joining Senate Foreign Relations.
Those lawmakers include Rep. Adam B. Schiff, D-Calif., who is overwhelmingly expected to win the open California Senate seat, and former Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., who is narrowly trailing in the race for Michigan’s open Senate seat. Both previously led the House Intelligence Committee.
Both of them, but especially Schiff, are expected to seek seats on the prestigious Senate Intelligence Committee if they win their races. But if they aren’t given seats on Intelligence, they could be interested in Senate Foreign Relations or Senate Armed Services or both.
In New Jersey, Rep. Andy Kim, D-N.J., is the strong frontrunner to fill the seat that Sen. Bob Menendez resigned after he was found guilty this summer of federal corruption charges stemming from his abuse of his former position as Senate Foreign Relations chairman.
Kim has a deep foreign affairs background that suggests a potential interest in a seat on Senate Foreign Relations. He currently is on the House Foreign Affairs and Armed Services panels as well as the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party. Prior to joining the House, he was a foreign affairs officer at the State Department, worked in Afghanistan as an adviser to U.S. generals, and was the Iraq director on the National Security Council in the Obama administration.
Rogers’ opponent in the Michigan race, Rep. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., is also a national security heavyweight in the House, serving on the House Armed Services Committee. Slotkin was a CIA officer in Iraq in addition to holding top postings at the State and Defense departments before entering politics. That resume would also lend her credibility should she decide to seek a Senate Foreign Relations seat.
Shaheen has said she hopes more women will join the committee. She and Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., are now the only women on the panel.
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