House Panel Heads Targeted by Democrats
Democrats are giving notice that committee chairmen who stray from party positions risk losing their posts, House Speaker Thomas S. Foley (D-Wash.) said Tuesday.
But Foley predicted that the Democratic Caucus would stop short of dethroning the 11 subcommittee chairmen who failed to vote for President Clinton’s economic program.
The caucus planned to meet today to discuss the chairmanships. About 80 of the chamber’s 257 Democrats requested the meeting in a petition calling for the ousters.
Foley told reporters that, instead of immediate action against the chairmen, he supports a new rule to require all subcommittee chairmanships be approved by the Democratic Caucus at the beginning of each Congress.
Under current rules, only full committee chairmen and those of a handful of subcommittees are cleared by the full caucus. The rest have been left to the committees to decide, in the interest of saving time.
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