WASHINGTON — Republican Jon Kyl of Arizona, who served three terms in the Senate before retiring in 2012, has been sworn in to fill the seat left open by the death of Sen. John McCain. Kyl has only committed to serve until the end of the current congressional session on Jan. 3. Still, he'll have the chance to cast key votes, including whether to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court. His support will give Republicans more cushion to confirm Kavanaugh before the midterm elections in November. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says he could not be happier that the "new, not-so-junior senator" will be working during a time that he described as "all hands of deck for the American people." Vice President Mike Pence swore Kyl in. CORRECTION (Sept. 5, 2018, 2:38 p.m.): An earlier version of this article misspelled the first name of the senator replacing John McCain. He is Jon Kyl, not John.<doc-sep>Former Senator Jon Kyl (R, Ariz.) leads a news conference in Washington, DC, December 21, 2010. (Jonathan Ernst/File Photo/Reuters) He is from a different era, figuratively and literally. Conservatives should cheer Governor Doug Ducey’s wise appointment of former senator Jon Kyl — for whom I worked from 2003 to 2008 — to serve as John McCain’s replacement in the Senate. This was a smart move that gives Congress a seasoned leader from whom other legislators can, and should, learn. First and foremost, we should cheer Senator Kyl’s basic sense of decency and commitment to principled advocacy. Kyl is laser-focused on effective persuasion, and effectiveness means more than just speaking louder or faster. He is unafraid to engage, but he is always looking for areas of shared purpose, without insulting or disparaging. Burn no bridges! Congress is full of repeat players who need to trust each other and to be prepared to deal honestly over time, but who among us believes that ethic is dominant today? Advertisement During his previous stint in Congress, Senator Kyl’s recognition of the need for relationships meant that he very rarely voiced his views of other senators’ motives, but chose to treat their positions as policy-driven, confronting them on those terms. Sometimes this approach entails embracing a fiction, and your opponent’s untoward motives are plain as day, but he saw no value in highlighting that. This tendency was a frustration to staffers outraged at Senate Democrats for various cynical or hypocritical positions, but Senator Kyl insisted on taking the temperature down. “Focus on the policy!” We should welcome that approach in Congress, even when it means passing on easy attacks. Conservatives also should cheer Senator Kyl’s own policy focus, one that is anachronistic in the all-politics-all-the-time Washington of 2018. He’s a Reagan conservative of the three-legged-stool variety, and he spent a great deal of time on the nitty-gritty, whether it was in national security, tax reform, immigration, or even arcane areas like patent law and federal water policy. Even if Senator Kyl dives into only a handful of issues, we can expect to get better policymaking. Advertisement We should also cheer how Senator Kyl approaches politics. Senator Kyl ran for election seven times, and he wasn’t afraid to tangle with Democrats while campaigning, but he also wasn’t terribly interested in launching partisan attacks or maneuvering for the next election. He isn’t going to the Senate to critique his colleagues, Republican or Democrat, nor is he going there to attack President Trump. He has been candid that he doesn’t approve of the president’s style, but his reason is instructive: It makes the president less “effective.” Kyl wants to move policy forward, not to get caught up in the day-to-day news cycles. Let others tweet. Jon Kyl will be focusing on legislating and, if history is a guide, helping Congress to be more worthy of its primacy in our political order. Jon Kyl is from a different era, figuratively and literally. Although he retired less than six years ago, only 61 current senators served with him, and more than half the House of Representatives is new. Moreover, Senator Kyl has committed to serving only until January, although many are urging him to serve until the 2020 election. Regardless of his tenure in this second tour, Senator Kyl’s approach to service is a worthy model, and he has much to teach, not through lecturing, but simply by example.<doc-sep>“I think sometimes, his desire to jump into the middle of a fight or maybe even create a fight — by the way, that reminds me of somebody — but sometimes, that can be detrimental to what he’s trying to achieve,” Kyl said. “That’s what I said, and I stand by that comment.”<doc-sep>
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The late U.S. Senator John McCain’s seat was filled on Wednesday when Jon Kyl, a former senator, took the oath of office in time to help Republicans in their push to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court. Kyl, 76, was sworn in as the new senator from the southwestern state of Arizona in a brief ceremony on the Senate floor. Vice President Mike Pence, who also serves as president of the Senate, administered the oath. In replacing McCain, a maverick who at times went against his party, Kyl is expected to bring a somewhat more conservative political viewpoint to the Senate, which is controlled by Republicans. They hold 51 seats with 47 Democrats and two independents who align with Democrats - unchanged from when McCain held the seat. McCain died on Aug. 25 after being diagnosed last year with brain cancer. He was buried on Sunday following tributes in both Arizona and Washington. Senate Judiciary Committee hearings began on Tuesday to consider President Donald Trump’s nomination of Kavanaugh to fill a vacant U.S. Supreme Court seat. Kyl, as a private citizen, had been helping usher Kavanaugh’s nomination through the Senate. Slideshow ( 4 images ) A full Senate vote on Kavanaugh could come later this month. Kyl likely will give Republicans a little more of a cushion in what is expected to be a close vote, given Democratic opposition. Kyl, who had been working as a lobbyist at the law firm Covington & Burling, had a previous stint as senator, rising to serve in Republican leadership before retiring in 2013. “He has great judgment, an even keel, he’s a team player, a true friend and an inspiring example of what a senator can and should be,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said of Kyl shortly before the swearing-in. Kyl was appointed on Tuesday by Arizona Governor Doug Ducey, also a Republican, to temporarily fill McCain’s seat. In a news conference on Tuesday, Kyl said he would not be a candidate in a special election in 2020 to finish McCain’s term that ends in January, 2023.