Scramble likely for seats on House Armed Services Committee
As many as seven slots have opened up on the high-profile panel.
Lost races and retirements have opened up as many as seven slots on the House Armed Services Committee in the 111th Congress, likely causing several members of the incoming freshman class to jockey for coveted assignments to the panel.
Still undecided is the committee's ratio of Democrats to Republicans and its size, which now has 62 members. There are some rumblings that House Armed Services Chairman Ike Skelton, D-Mo., wants a smaller panel, although a committee spokeswoman said she had not heard of any efforts to reduce its size, adding that it ultimately would be a leadership decision.
House Democratic leadership sources noted that all chairmen want to cut the size of their committees, but such a move is a practical impossibility given the increased number of seats the majority picked up in Tuesday's elections. That increase means that Democratic leaders may be forced to cut Republican seats to accommodate more Democrats on the committees.
Three senior Republicans on the Armed Services panel are retiring at the end of this Congress -- Armed Services ranking member Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., Strategic Forces Subcommittee ranking member Terry Everett, R-Ala., and Air and Land Forces Subcommittee ranking member Jim Saxton, R-N.J. Another committee member, Rep. Mark Udall, D-Colo., won his Senate race Tuesday. Meanwhile, three members -- Reps. Nancy Boyda, D-Kan., Robin Hayes, R-N.C., and Thelma Drake, R-Va. -- lost their re-election bids, although Drake is awaiting the count of more than 26,000 absentee ballots in her southern Virginia district and has not conceded.
Democrat Glenn Nye now leads in that race by nearly 8,000 votes, but Republicans hope many of the absentee votes were cast by military personnel who could boost Drake to victory in the defense-heavy district.
During the campaign, House Democratic leaders promised Nye, a former Foreign Service official who served in Iraq as an adviser to the U.S. Agency for International Development, a seat on the panel. Democratic leaders also have promised Alabama Democratic Rep.-elect Bobby Bright, who won Everett's seat, an assignment to the committee. Rep.-elect Larry Kissell, a high school teacher who ousted Hayes, could also make a strong case for taking a seat on the panel because the district includes Fort Bragg, home to the Army's 82nd Airborne Division. Other possible Democratic contenders for an Armed Services seat may include Rep.-elect John Boccieri, who won Ohio's 16th District. Although the Canton-area district does not contain any military bases, Boccieri is a C-130 pilot who has done four tours in Iraq and Afghanistan and could add heft to his party's national security agenda.
On the Republican side, GOP leaders will almost certainly assign Rep.-elect Duncan Duane Hunter, who won the San Diego-area seat being vacated by his father, to the panel. His district includes several Navy installations and defense firms, and Hunter served in Iraq and Afghanistan as a Marine Corps officer. Rep.-elect Lynn Jenkins of Kansas, an accountant who defeated Boyda, could claim a seat. The district, which is home to Fort Leavenworth, has long had representation on the committee.
Christian Bourge contributed to this story.