In one week, House Republicans will hold internal elections to determine their new leadership, after the dismal results of last Tuesday’s elections. Because of so much interest by FR readers, I reached out to longtime FR friend Rick Dykema, who is Chief of Staff to California Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, and asked him if he would give us an overvue of the process, and a roundup of who is running for what. Also, look for something soon on these elections from FR’s Beltway Correspondent, Congressman John Campbell…
The Upcoming Republican Leadership Elections
An overview penned by Rick Dykema
The House Republican leadership elections scheduled to begin at 8 a.m. Eastern Time, next Friday, November 17, are shaping up to be the most completely contested elections in history. The shift from majority to minority status has stirred the ambitions of several Republican congressmembers and promoted a wide-ranging debate over the future of the Republican Party in the House of Representatives. Below is a list of the positions to be filled, including who occupies the position currently, and who is competing for the position in the next Congress, which begins January 3. The order of the positions is in order of rank within the party leadership, which is the order in which the elections will be held.
#1-Republican (Minority) Leader. The candidates for this position are the current #2 Republican, Majority Leader John Boehner; Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Joe Barton; and Mike Pence, Chairman of the Republican Study Committee, which functions as the conservative caucus within the Republican Conference. The current #1 Republican, Speaker Dennis Hastert, has announced that he will not run for any leadership position in next Friday’s election.
#2-Republican (Minority) Whip. The current #3 Republican, Majority Whip Roy Blunt is running for this position against John Shadegg, who was Chairman of the Republican Policy Committee until this past January, when he resigned to run an unsuccessful race for Majority Leader.
#3-Republican Conference Chair. The current Republican Conference Chair, Debra Pryce, has announced that she will not run for re-election. There are currently four candidates for this position: Jack Kingston of Georgia, the current Vice Chair of the GOP Conference; Adam Putnam, the Chairman of the Republican Policy Committee, who has served in that position since January, when he was elected to succeed John Shadegg (see above); Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, bidding to be the highest-ranking woman in the House Republican leadership; and Dan Lungren of Folsom.
#4-Republican Policy Committee Chair. The current chair, as noted above, is Adam Putnam. Running to succeed him in what is now the #4 Republican leadership position are: Darrell Issa of Vista, who unsuccessfully ran against Adam Putnam for this position in January, and Thaddeus McCotter of Michigan.
#5-Republican Conference Vice Chair. The incumbent in this position, Jack Kingston, is running for Conference Chairman. The sole declared candidate for Vice Chair is conservative Rep. Kay Granger of Texas, though moderate Rep. Mark Kirk of Illinois is rumored to be a likely candidate.
#6-Republican Conference Secretary. John Doolittle of Roseville is the incumbent in this position, and though he initially announced his bid for re-election, he has decided to pull out of this contest. Currently, the only candidate for this position is Rep. John Carter of Texas.
#7-National Republican Congressional Committee Chair. Rep. Tom Reynolds has led this committee, which is responsible for assisting Republican House campaigns nationwide, for the last two years. After our electoral disaster, he is not running for re-election to this position. The candidates for this position are Reps. Phil English of Pennsylvania, Tom Cole of Oklahoma, and Pete Sessions of Texas.
Each election can have multiple rounds of voting if there are three or more candidates. Whenever a round of voting does not result in a candidate getting a majority, another round is held with the last place candidate in the previous round being dropped from the next ballot.
November 11th, 2006 at 12:00 am
I’ll join the WSJournal and others who support my fellow Hoosier John Pence for Minority Leader. He lacks Boehner’s baggage – shipped COD from Ohio and Texas – and is at the right point in life and his political career to provide both guidance to those senior to him and inspiration to those younger. His immigration plan made sense and would make even more if toughened up a bit on the penalty side, but having dithered that opportunity away while we held power in both houses – TYVM Snarlin’ Arlen! – can we complain in good faith if we’re deprived of it now?