Dem Leaders Split Over Heated Committee Chair Race

The top two Democratic leaders in the House are expected to vote for different lawmakers to lead the Energy and Commerce Committee in the next Congress.

Both House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) have taken neutral public stances in the high-profile contest between Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell (D-Mich.) and his challenger, Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.).

But lawmakers, aides and lobbyists following the race believe that Pelosi will vote for Waxman and Hoyer will back Dingell when the vote takes place later this week.

Read the whole story here.

Comments

[Ping]

Dingell is a GM enabler. I have never been impressed with Dingell. That's part of Michigan's problem, they need a change of leadership at home.

[ErnestineBass]

Typical "good cop, bad cop" crap.

We desperately need new Democratic leadership...in the House AND Senate.

[research]

What can we do got get them to change leadership?

[Ozarks]

Dingell's wife has a high paying exec job with GM. That should be considered a conflict of interest and Dingell booted from that Committee Chair

[SEQUOIABISON]

Waxman is a mountain of integrity, Dingall put the Detroit auto manufacturers in the bankrupt position they are right now by never demanding a return to the CAFE regulations or greener cars with better mileage.

Raise the price of gas and give the difference back in the form of tax breaks to people who buy energy efficient cars, before people start getting complacent again and return to the gas guzzlers, we need to get rid of the combustible engine before this outdated mode of transportation and the pollution they cause destroys our planet.

[blueskybigstar]

We can only implement that tax while prices are low. Do it now.

[gpmdem]

Waxman a mountain of integrity? HA! Then why did he stop the extension of the Red Line? Could it be because it would have linked a large African American community to Waxman"s 30th District that consists of the affuent Hollywood, Beverly Hills and Century City west though Westwood,Brentwood, Santa Monica and Malibu. Sounds real a Progressive lion to me!!! What a joke!How much of a carbon footprint did blocking extention of Red Line create for that area? How much is it gonna cost taxpayers now to build it as opposed to when it was proposed 20 yrs ago?
Waxman is just fueled by his personal ambition of getting all the limelight he can get.
Go after steroids in baseball again Waxman!!! Chairman Dingell is what President Obama needs to pass tough legislation!

[weatherwaxx]

Waxman is what a public servant is supposed to be. To hell with the photogenic phonies -- he's got integrity and I can only think of a handful of politicians who could claim that.

[Roxanna]

I want to see Waxman... He would be great.

[marinade]

Dingell is from Michigan, as in Detroit, as in American car manufacturers. To have him on the Energy committee is counter productive to energy independence.

Waxman would be a huge improvement.

[ibsteve2u]

I concur.

Detroit tells Dingell that they must make huge vehicles in order to make sufficient money to keep everybody employed (I am being nice), and Dingell takes them at their word (again, I am being nice) and follows their agenda regardless of the negative impact on national security that addiction to foreign oil brings - not to mention the additional pollution load that gas guzzlers bring or the impact of gas guzzlers on the price of gas due to the supply and demand linkage.

Every time I see somebody driving a huge SUV, I know that they are taking the food out of somebody's child's mouth while poisoning that child, to boot. And if that child should survive, he or she may do so only to die in a war that those (e.g., Bush and Cheney) who put the oil industry before the American people inspire or initiate.

Yet people like Dingell keep "going along"...

Put Dingell on Veteran's affairs committees. Then he can deal with the results of his kow-towing.