Yvette Herrell, a former state legislator, was appointed by the president in June to be an assistant secretary for congressional relations in the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
She has not yet been confirmed by the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, where her nomination was sent. U.S. Sen. Ben Ray Luján, D-N.M., is a member of that committee.
Herrell has worked as a real estate broker in Alamogordo since leaving Congress. Herrell confirmed that due to her service with the Trump administration she will not seek the CD 1 seat in the U.S. House in the 2026 election that she formerly held.
New Mexico Business Coalition congratulates Assistant Secretary Herrell on the appointment! We look forward to a continuation of her proven record of pro-business advocacy that she displayed as a New Mexico State Representative and a member of Congress. Herrell has decades of local, state and federal policy experience and coming from a rural Ag community makes her uniquely qualified for a top level position in the U.S. Department of Agriculture. NMBC encourages Senators Ben Ray Lujan and Martin Heinrich to place the needs of our state and country above party politics and advocate to swiftly advance the full Senate confirmation for Yvette Herrell.
As assistant secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Herrell would hold a key post in a federal agency that employs nearly 100,000 people and oversees the U.S. Forest Service and other departments. If confirmed, she would replace Adrienne Wojciechowski, who stepped down in January after Trump took office. The U.S. Department of Agriculture is currently led by Brooke Rollins, who announced during a June meeting of the Western Governors Association in Santa Fe that her agency intends to repeal a rule that prohibits road construction and logging on 91,000 square miles of Forest Service land.
