WASHINGTON — Sen. Markwayne Mullin’s appointment to lead the Department of Homeland Security would shake up the Appropriations Committee and create a vacancy atop the Legislative Branch Subcommittee.

President Donald Trump announced Thursday that he was nominating Mullin, R-Okla., to replace Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. A White House spokesman said the administration would “work to confirm” Mullin “as quickly as possible.”

Mullin’s departure from the Senate would open a seat on the coveted spending panel, as well as the chair of the smallest of its dozen subcommittees.

The Legislative Branch perch often falls to one of the most junior members of the panel, and it wasn’t immediately clear who would step into that role.

Sen. Deb Fischer, R-Neb., is next in line of the current members of the committee. She served as the Legislative Branch Appropriations Subcommittee ranking member from 2023 to the start of the current Congress in January 2025.

Mullin won the gavel last year thanks to Republican rules that say members may not be the chair of more than two subcommittees. His two potential competitors at the time, Fischer and Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., already held two subcommittee gavels.

That restriction moved Mullin into the Legislative Branch role.

Fischer said shortly after the news of Mullins’ nomination broke that she “assumed” she would move back into the role, though she wasn’t sure.

“We have rules on how many things you can have, but I think Rounds and I are about the same,” she said.

However, it’s also possible that whoever joins the committee could take the role, for the same reasons that Mullin leaped over Fischer and Rounds last time. But that will depend on who the new committee member is and which subcommittees he or she already serves on.

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