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

[Dalindyebo Bafana Shabalala]

Holy crap!!

robert weissman wrote:
> 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 Thursda=
y
> morning=92s stunning vote.
> _______________________________________________
> Ip-health mailing list
> Ip-health@lists.essential.org
> http://lists.essential.org/mailman/listinfo/ip-health
>
> ______________________________________________________________________
> This email has been scanned by the MessageLabs Email Security System.
> For more information please visit http://www.messagelabs.com/email
> ______________________________________________________________________
>

--
Dalindyebo Shabalala
Director, Project on Intellectual Property and Sustainable Development
Center for International Environmental Law
Rue des Savoises 15
1205 Geneva, Switzerland
Phone: +41 22 321 4774
Fax: +41 22 489 0739
www.ciel.org