Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has promised to govern from the middle next year, but her new House leadership team is shaping up to be more liberal than her old one. The departure of Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), coupled with left-leaning additions to the leadership lineup, is causing angst among Democratic centrists and conservatives.
House Democrats managed to add at least 20 new members to their caucus, many of whom hail from traditionally Republican areas of the country. But despite the additional centrist Democrats, the caucus may move to the left because many committee chairmen and members of leadership are liberal.
(snip)
Barring a last-minute change, the only centrist in House leadership will be Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), a longtime friend to the conservative Blue Dog Coalition.
The shift began with the sudden departure of Emanuel, who declined a certain reelection to his leadership post to become White House chief of staff.
Emanuel leaves behind a reputation as a fiery partisan, but he also bucked liberal leaders on a number of key votes, such as on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the Patriot Act extension, bankruptcy reform and Iraq funding without withdrawal timetables. But Emanuel is being replaced by current Democratic Caucus Vice Chairman John Larson (Conn.), who, while well-liked and generally respected within the caucus, is regarded as far more liberal than Emanuel. And Larson’s replacement as vice chairman is expected to be Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.), a former Congressional Hispanic Caucus chairman who leans even further to the left than Larson.
Becerra, who is now assistant to the Speaker, was the only member of the Democratic leadership to vote against the $700 billion financial rescue bill twice, claiming it “fell short of embodying the elements of an economic recovery package that we need for taxpayers, workers, small businesses and homeowners.”
With Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Chris Van Hollen (Md.) poised to remain in his post for a second cycle and possibly assume some of Becerra’s present duties as assistant to the Speaker, centrists are privately worrying that they will be less represented at next year’s leadership table than they were in the 110th Congress.
(snip)
Meanwhile, some conservative Democratic voices are concerned that liberal Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), a Pelosi ally, could oust Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell (D-Mich.), who is considered more conservative than most House Democrats.
“A lot hinges on the Waxman-Dingell fight,” an aide to a centrist Democrat said. “And that will be the true indicator of where this Congress goes on the left-versus-moderate scale.”
http://thehill.com/Just an interesting counter-perspective to the liberal blogosphere's paranoia over her politically-driven "govern from the center" remark.
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