Embattled Congressional Budget Office Director June E. O'Neill told congressional budget leaders Tuesday she does not want to be appointed to a second term.
O'Neill's four-year term is scheduled to expire in January and she is slated to return to Baruch College in New York, where she is director of the Center for the Study of Business and Government as well as a professor of economics and finance.
During the past year, GOP leaders-most notably House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga.-have criticized O'Neill's office for the accuracy of its budget estimates. But after a series of meetings, it appeared the differences between the budget director and the speaker had been patched up.
A search for a new CBO director will begin shortly, a Senate Budget Committee aide said Wednesday. Technically, the selection is made by the speaker of the House and the Senate president pro tempore. Traditionally, however, the selection is made by the Budget committees in a bipartisan manner. The aide said the political affiliation and lead house in the process is rotated, adding that since O'Neill was perceived as a House appointment, the Senate is likely to take the lead in the forthcoming process.
Precedents are unclear as to which party will take the lead. In the past, the political affiliation of CBO directors often has rotated between Democratic and Republican. That would mean the next director should be a Democrat.
Past CBO directors have stayed for two four-year terms, but Democrats already are staking a claim to the office, according to an aide to one House Budget Committee Democrat.
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