[Ip-health] Waxman wins chair of House Energy and Commerce Committee

[robert weissman]

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1108/15822.html

Waxman dethrones Dingell as chairman
  By PATRICK O'CONNOR | 11/20/08 10:53 AM EST


California Rep. Henry A. Waxman on Thursday officially dethroned
longtime Energy and Commerce Chairman John Dingell, upending a seniority
system that has governed Democratic politics in the House for decades.

In a secret ballot vote in the Cannon Caucus Room, House Democrats
ratified an earlier decision by the Steering and Policy Committee to
replace the 82-year-old Dingell with his 69-year-old rival. The vote was
137-122 in favor of Waxman.

The ascension of Waxman, a wily environmentalist, recasts a committee
that Dingell has chaired since 1981 with an eye toward protecting the
domestic auto industry in his native Michigan. The Energy and Commerce
Committee has principal jurisdiction over many of President-elect Barack
Obama's top legislative priorities, including energy, the environment
and health care.

The vote Thursday allows Waxman to unseat the dean of the House just
three short months before he was set to become the longest-serving
chairman in the history of the institution.

Waxman's unexpected challenge has quietly divided members of the
Democratic Caucus since the election and forced wavering colleagues to
cast a gut-wrenching vote. And the results Thursday could leave a bad
taste in the mouth of Dingell supporters, who led a vocal effort to keep
the chairman while Waxman=92s team led the quiet coup that led to Thursday
morning=92s stunning vote.