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Politics

No. 2 vote to be key Pelosi test

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published November 16, 2006

WASHINGTON - House Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi faces a major leadership test today, barely a week into her new role, as Democrats vote on her choice for majority leader. She's supporting a lawmaker once caught up in a bribery scandal and known more recently for trading votes for pork projects.

Pelosi's prestige is on the line after endorsing longtime ally John Murtha of Pennsylvania to be the No. 2 Democrat in place of her longtime rival Steny Hoyer of Maryland.

Senate Republicans, meanwhile, rewarded Mississippi Sen. Trent Lott with their No. 2 post, four years after the White House helped push him out of his job running the Senate for making remarks that some critics claimed indicated he endorsed segregation. President Bush, on a trip to Russia and Asia, telephoned Lott on Wednesday with congratulations.

Pressured to step down from the Senate's top spot in 2002, Lott returned to the Republicans' second-ranking position by nosing out Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., who had made an 18-month bid for the post. Lott promised to defer to Minority Leader-to-be Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

House Republicans, in the minority for the first time since 1994, will meet in private today to hear presentations from candidates for their half-dozen leadership posts. Their election is scheduled for Friday.

House Speaker Dennis Hastert of Illinois is leaving the leadership ranks. Current Majority Leader John Boehner of Ohio is favored in a three-person race to replace him as the House's top Republican.

Hoyer entered the Democratic leadership race as the favorite but has been scrambling to keep supporters since Pelosi's surprise intervention on Sunday. Hoyer said he was confident going into today's secret ballot despite Pelosi's opposition.

"I think we're in very good shape. I expect to win," Hoyer said. "I expect that we will bring the party together and become unified and move on from this."

Murtha, too, said, "We're going to win. We got the votes," on MSNBC's Hardball.

Allies such as Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., have been working this week to peel away votes from Hoyer. Pelosi also has intervened more directly, making the case for Murtha in one-on-one meeting with Democratic freshmen - sessions in which the incoming lawmakers ask for committee assignments.

Murtha, a former Marine, has the support of many liberals for his criticism of the Bush administration's Iraq war policies. But Murtha also has some considerable personal baggage; he was investigated in 1980 as part of the Abscam bribery sting, although he was not charged criminally.

Murtha also has been criticized by nonpartisan ethics watchdog groups such as Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, who say Murtha steered defense projects to clients of KSA Consulting, a lobbying firm that until recently employed his brother Kit.

[Last modified November 16, 2006, 01:33:00]