Floor votes are expected this week on Robert F. Kennedy Jr., in line to be the nation’s health secretary, and Tulsi Gabbard, the choice for director of national intelligence.

Kyra Kennedy, 29, is the youngest daughter of health secretary nominee Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

WASHINGTON — A Senate panel divided starkly along partisan lines voted on Tuesday to advance the nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the controversial environmental lawyer turned public health critic, sending his bid to oversee the $1.7 trillion U.S. Health and Human Services agency to the Senate floor.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. cleared a crucial hurdle for confirmation as Health and Human Services secretary. Here's what happens next in the Senate

Sanders, the senior minority party member on the committee, pressed Kennedy to concede that health care was a human right, as his father, Robert F. Kennedy, and his uncles, John F. Kennedy and Edward Kennedy, had done. Kennedy again did not give a definitive answer.

Trump tapped RFK Jr. for director of the agency, which oversees drug, vaccine and food safety as well as Medicare and Medicaid.

Maine, told CNN on Monday she intends to support the nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Health and Human Services secretary—news that comes ahead of the expected Senate-wide vote to confirm one of President Donald Trump’s most controversial Cabinet picks after some GOP lawmakers remained on the fence.