The newest American Religious Freedom Ambassador is Kansas Governor Sam Brownback:

The chamber voted 50–49—calling on Vice President Mike Pence to break a tie vote for the second time that day—to install Brownback in the vacant State Department position, which monitors persecution and discrimination on a global scale through the Office of International Religious Freedom (IRF).

The at-large ambassadorship was created in 1998, though most Americans probably couldn’t name a single appointed ambassador to date. Brownback is the first politician — and Catholic — to take the role.

Gov Brownback has a long (and positive) history on issues of religious liberty, which has made him an occasional target of Michael “Mikey” Weinstein and his assistant, Chris Rodda. As a US Senator, Brownback was a “key sponsor” of the legislation that created the office he now leads.

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