Senate Confirms Martin as Secretary of Labor, 94-0

The Senate, by a vote of 94 to 0, on Thursday confirmed Lynn Martin as labor secretary, filling one of four vacancies in President Bush’s Cabinet.

Martin, 51, is expected to be sworn in within the next few days and to start her day-to-day duties at the Labor Department next week, an aide said. She fills the post vacated by Elizabeth Hanford Dole, who resigned to head the American Red Cross.

The former five-term Republican congresswoman from Illinois was saluted as a street-smart politician who knows the ways of Congress and can hold her own at the White House.

At her confirmation hearing last week, Democrats noted that she had opposed Bush’s vetoes of minimum wage and parental leave bills.

“She was willing to support the President when she believed he was correct, but she was also prepared to demonstrate an independent judgment on some important issues,” Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) said of Martin.

However, the AFL-CIO was cool toward her nomination, saying that she voted against workers more than two-thirds of the time in Congress.

Martin has pledged to focus on skills training and to continue a Labor Department initiative to help more women and minority members enter upper-management ranks.

The Senate still must act on the nominations of former Gov. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee as education secretary, Rep. Edward R. Madigan (R-Ill.) as agriculture secretary and former Gov. Bob Martinez of Florida as drug policy adviser.