Senate Backs Hagel for Defense Post

WASHINGTON�The Senate on Tuesday confirmed Chuck Hagel as the nation's next defense secretary largely along party lines, after several Republicans earlier in the day ended their effort to stop a vote on the former senator.

The 58-41 vote brings to a close a contentious battle that some experts believe could leave Mr. Hagel in a weaker position to take up the mantle at a challenging time for the Pentagon, which faces a series of deep budget cuts.

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Former Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel testifies before the Senate Armed Services Committee during his confirmation hearing in Washington.

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Mr. Hagel, a former Republican senator from Nebraska who will take the reins from Leon Panetta, had run afoul of some members of his own party who believe he isn't supportive enough of Israel and is too weak on Iran. Republicans repeatedly pushed for delays on voting on his nomination, and a handful of outside political groups with anonymous donors have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars attempting to derail the process.

Earlier Tuesday, the Senate agreed to end debate and move Mr. Hagel's nomination forward. He needed to win 60 votes on a procedural motion. Seventy-one senators voted for the motion and 27 voted against it, with 18 Republicans voting to proceed with the nomination.

Sen. John Cornyn (R., Texas), who voted against the motion to proceed, was among the Republicans who continued to voice their opposition. "We should not be installing a defense secretary who is obviously not qualified for the job and who holds dangerously misguided views," he said.

Mr. Hagel became the first defense-secretary nominee in history required to garner 60 votes to win confirmation. Senate Republicans blocked a motion to allow Mr. Hagel's nomination to proceed more than a week ago, effectively filibustering the nominee.

GOP senators have attempted to play down the 60-vote requirement.

"It happens all the time, it's a normal thing," said Sen. James Inhofe (R., Okla.).

The 60-vote requirement has been applied only to five nominees who would now be considered cabinet rank, since rules creating that standard were set in 1975, according to a 2012 Congressional Research Service report.

"You can find individual examples of this kind of bitterness and stridency, but they're fairly infrequent when it comes to major cabinet nominees," said Norm Ornstein, an expert on Congress and politics at the conservative American Enterprise Institute think tank.

It is far more common for the Senate to bear down on nominees during their confirmation hearings, as was the case for Treasury secretary nominee Jacob Lew, and then proceed to a vote. Mr. Lew's nomination cleared a committee vote Tuesday with bipartisan support, 19-5. His nomination could move to a full Senate vote Wednesday.

Arizona Sen. John McCain, a Republican who voted more than a week ago to block Mr. Hagel's nomination but who voted Tuesday to let the nomination proceed, brushed aside the filibuster as a minor delay.

"I'm aware of the history of nominees, and this is not a big deal," Mr. McCain said. "It's not a big deal as compared to the destruction of John Tower."

Mr. McCain once railed against his Senate colleagues as obstructionists for rejecting Mr. Tower, President George H.W. Bush's nominee for defense secretary. Mr. Tower ultimately was rejected amid allegations of womanizing and alcohol abuse.

As Mr. Hagel's nomination fight ended, President Barack Obama was facing another battle over his pick lead to the Central Intelligence Agency, John Brennan.

Republicans in the minority have used Messrs. Hagel's and Brennan's nomination fights to obtain more information about a terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, that left four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador, dead. The series of nomination fights has laid bare the increasing tensions in a chamber that has long been seen as more collegial and more bipartisan than the House.

"This body used to operate very differently than it does today," Sen. Tom Carper (D., Del.) said on the Senate floor Tuesday. He warned of the risks of the GOP's strategy. "Someday, we're going to have a Republican president again," he said. "I would just say to our Republican friends, just be careful. Just be careful."

Write to Sara Murray at sara.murray@wsj.com