The CDC director vote is waiting on Lisa Murkowski

The Senate health committee couldn't vote Thursday on who should run the CDC, because Alaska's senior senator wasn't in the room.

Republicans hold a one-seat edge on the committee, so with Lisa Murkowski away tending to a family emergency, Erica Schwartz's nomination didn't have the votes to advance — she would have needed a Democrat to cross over. The committee pushed the vote to next week.

That leaves Murkowski as the deciding vote on who leads the nation's public health agency, at a moment when the job has proven anything but routine. Schwartz's predecessor, Susan Monarez, was fired less than a month into the job after pushing back on Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s vaccine agenda. The central question at Schwartz's confirmation hearing was whether she would hold up any better. "I will never betray the science," she told senators, while declining to say whether she would defy an order to restrict vaccine access.

Chairman Bill Cassidy said Thursday he would back her, citing measles cases at a 35-year high and pointing to a federal revision of the CDC's autism-and-vaccines webpage as a sign of good faith. Ranking member Bernie Sanders said he was impressed by her credentials but doubts anyone can dissent inside Kennedy's department.

With Cassidy behind her, Schwartz is expected to advance once Murkowski is back.