Committee Rumblings

The committee structure in the Senate is about to undergo a major overhaul, which is healthy. The chairmanships play a key role in shaping policy, and that's never been more important. In addition to Vice President-elect Biden leaving Foreign Relations, and Joe Lieberman about to get dumped, one way or the other, from Homeland Security and Government Affairs, Robert Byrd is stepping down as chair of the Appropriations Committee.

“To everything there is a season and a time for every purpose under heaven,” said Byrd, who had fended off earlier challenges this past spring and summer. “Those Biblical words from Ecclesiastes 3:1 express my feelings about this particular time in my life.

“I have been privileged to be a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee for 50 years and to have chaired the committee for ten years, during a time of enormous change in our great country, both culturally and politically,” Byrd continued in a statement released by his office. “I have learned that nothing is quite so permanent as change. It is simply a part of living and should not be feared.”

Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), who is 84, will take over for Byrd on the powerful panel, which oversees hundreds of billions of dollars annually in federal spending. Byrd will officially hand off the gavel on Jan. 6, 2009.

That probably means Hawaii becomes the new Alaska in terms of porkbarrel spending.

What I'm looking for is to get a fighting, reform Democrat on one of the high-profile committees. That could happen with Russ Feingold at Foreign Relations.

Vice President-elect Joe Biden leaves an open chairmanship on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that could end up being filled by one of the most outspoken critics of the Iraq war.
Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.), among the chamber's most liberal members, is the fourth Democrat in line on the committee, behind Biden, Sen. Chris Dodd (Conn.) and Sen. John Kerry (Mass.).

Dodd said Thursday he plans to stay on as chairman of the Senate Banking Committee. Kerry is reportedly lobbying to be President-elect Barack Obama's Secretary of State.

That leaves Feingold, an unapologetic champion of civil liberties and a staunch opponent of the Bush administration's war in Iraq, next in line. Feingold opposed the war from the start and was the first senator to call for a U.S. troop withdrawal timetable.

For accountability and judgment, there could be no better captain at the helm of Foreign Relations than Feingold. One of the Iraq War's strongest opponents (and the sole dissenting voice on the PATRIOT Act), Russ would be the perfect prescription after eight years of Bush foreign policy. And he's not one to pull punches or bow to politics, even with members of his own party: just over a week ago (and right before a Presidential election), Feingold wrote an op-ed in the Christian Science Monitor questioning the conventional wisdom of sending more troops to Afghanistan.

That was a superlative op-ed. I'd be very interested in having this happen. It'd be something to see anyone who got the Iraq war right succeed upwards, wouldn't it?