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Republican senators to battle over Craig’s place on Approps |
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By Elana Schor
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Posted: 09/05/07 07:43 PM [ET] |
A battle is looming over the open Appropriations Committee seat that Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) will leave behind when he resigns following his disgrace in a police sex sting.
Appropriations seats are highly coveted, and competition to replace Craig, who has served on the panel for a decade, is likely to be heated within the Republican Conference. Still, the shocking chain of events that pushed Craig toward resignation less than a week after his June arrest was revealed may limit open campaigning for the committee slot.
Sen. Lamar Alexander (Tenn.) easily won the lone GOP Appropriations seat that became open at the start of this Congress, a valuable salve after Alexander lost a close leadership race to Senate Minority Whip Trent Lott (R-Miss.). Alexander’s assignment also silenced questions about whether the Tennessean would decline to run for reelection in 2008, meaning that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) could dangle an Appropriations seat before another Republican now considering retirement.
Of the two GOP senators whose political future is most in doubt, however, Sen. Thad Cochran (Miss.) already is the senior Republican on Appropriations and Sen. Chuck Hagel (Neb.) is a long shot at best, given his senior post on the Foreign
Relations Committee and his votes with Democrats on the war in Iraq.
This could benefit Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.), who has a safe reelection race next year and who lost out on a Finance Committee opening earlier this year. Enzi spokeswoman Elly Pickett declined to address the senator’s interest in the Appropriations seat, noting that Craig does not plan to leave office until Sept. 30.
“Until that time there is no vacancy and Sen. Enzi is not likely to comment about the possible open seat,” Pickett said in an e-mail.
Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio), whose state lost an Appropriations seat last year with the defeat of former Sen. Mike DeWine (R), and Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.) also could be in the mix for an appointment to the top-flight spending panel. Yet both would have to cede their seats on the Foreign Relations panel under a rule that prohibits Republicans from sitting on more than one of the four so-called “Super A” committees.
While Craig remains in the Senate, he is no longer senior Republican on the subcommittee that steers more than $25 billion in Interior Department spending. It is unclear who will take over the helm of that subcommittee, or even if a new ranking member is necessary at this point, one Appropriations aide said.
The decision to fill the Appropriations seat is McConnell’s, but Cochran is likely to discuss it with the leader before a choice is made, the aide added.
Meanwhile, Craig has retained a high-powered legal team to begin fighting his Aug. 8 guilty plea to disorderly conduct and preventing an Ethics Committee probe of his June arrest in the Minneapolis airport.
Former House Democratic counsel Stan Brand, of the Brand Law Group, Craig’s counsel for Ethics Committee issues, challenged the GOP leadership’s request for a Senate investigation and asserted that the Ethics panel does not have the authority to look at Craig’s conduct.
“The Senate, in its history, has never asserted jurisdiction over purely personal conduct — here, a misdemeanor that doesn’t relate in any manner to performance of official duties,” Brand said. “In resolving his situation fully with the Senate before he leaves, we’d like the committee to make that clear so he doesn’t leave under any type of cloud.”
Craig’s decision to resign on Sept. 30 leaves an opening for the conservative to reverse his plans if his new attorneys make progress on fighting the guilty plea. Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), a fellow appropriator, suggested on Sunday that Craig could hang on if he cleared his name, but McConnell was cool to that idea on Tuesday.
Craig called McConnell a day before his Saturday resignation announcement, the GOP leader told reporters, “and I believe that’s a firm decision.”
Craig remained in Idaho on Tuesday, and McConnell said no discussions have taken place about whether Craig would show up for Senate votes where his presence would affect the outcome. McConnell dismissed comparisons between Craig’s case and that of Sen. David Vitter (R-La.), who acknowledged contact with the alleged prostitution service of the “D.C. Madam” but was never charged with a crime.
“The episode is over,” McConnell said, taking several questions without mentioning Craig by name. “We’ll have a new senator from Idaho at some point in the next month or so, and we’re going to move on.”
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