GOP Goes With Experience for New Committee Chairs

House Republicans decided to fill three vacant committee chairmanships Friday with the men next in line by seniority, including two lawmakers who were passed over for the posts under Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.).

The selections, endorsed by Speaker-to-be Bob Livingston (R-La.) and ratified by voice vote of the House Republicans, were closely watched by fellow legislators wondering how much power Livingston is trying to accrue. He is widely expected to allow committee chairmen more independence than did Gingrich, who at times ordered changes in committee-written legislation.

In the 106th Congress that convenes in January, Rep. Larry Combest of Texas will head the House Agriculture Committee; C.W. Bill Young of Florida will replace Livingston as Appropriations chairman; and David Dreier of California will head the Rules Committee. The three, along with all other committee chairmen, will have to be formally approved by the House.

Livingston, whom Gingrich vaulted into the Appropriations chairmanship over longer-serving legislators four years ago, said Friday’s decision did not mean he was strictly adhering to the seniority system.

“I don’t have any hard and fast rules that have guided us,” Livingston said.

But with House Republicans facing deep ideological divides even as they prepare for a new Congress in which they will have a razor-thin 12-seat majority, some analysts say Livingston had little real choice but to pick chairmen who were already next in line. To do otherwise could ignite factional battles at a time when Republicans are preaching the need for unity.

Young, Combest and Dreier are widely popular among House Republicans. And with conservatives willing to allow Livingston a honeymoon period, the selections, all of which were known for some time, never threatened to evolve into internal GOP fights.

Combest, 53, just elected to his eighth two-year House term, seemed next in line to take over the Agriculture Committee two years ago.

But that year, Gingrich persuaded former Rep. Robert F. Smith (R-Ore.) to run anew for the House because Republicans feared that they would otherwise lose that seat to Democrats. It had been held by GOP Rep. Wes Cooley, who was beset by scandal.

For his trouble, Smith was promised the Agriculture chairmanship, and Combest was given a subcommittee chairmanship instead. Smith won but decided not to seek reelection this year.

Young was among several more senior Appropriations Committee members whom Gingrich ignored in appointing Livingston to head that panel in 1995. Gingrich believed Livingston would do a better job of fighting for the spending cuts that the speaker wanted as a GOP hallmark.

Like Livingston, Young, 67, and just elected to his 15th term, has long operated within his committee’s tradition of working closely with the panel’s Democrats and eschewing ideology in favor of deal-making.

Dreier, 46, is an 18-year conservative House veteran who will replace the retiring Rep. Gerald B. H. Solomon of New York to head the Rules Committee, which sets the procedures by which bills are considered by the full House.

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California House Republicans

After electing its new leadership, House Republicans got busy Friday placing their 223 members on various committees--where the real work of Congress is done.

What follows is a sampling of a few significant assignments among the state’s 23 Republican members, which will help determine Califorina’s muscle in the 106th Congress. The Democratic committee members will be decided next month.

Rep. David Drier (R-San Dimas)

* Will head the all-powerful Rules Committee, the so-called traffic cop of the House that determines which bills go to the floor and how they are debated.

Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Redlands)

* Will chair the National Security Appropriations Subcommittee which oversees a $250 billion national defense budget.

* Rep. Ron Packard (R-Oceanside)

* The new Chairman of the House Energy and Water Subcommittee on Appropriations. The committee funds the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Bureau of Land Reclamation, the Department of Energy and several independent agencies.