New Chairmen in the House

The Associated Press

Judiciary: John Conyers Jr., D-Mich.

Conyers, 77, is the second-longest-serving House member. In August, Conyers and the minority staff of the committee released a lengthy report, "Constitution in Crisis," that detailed what they said were 26 laws and regulations that President Bush has violated. That prompted Republicans to hint that Conyers would use his new chairmanship to try to impeach the president.

But Conyers will probably be kept on a tight leash by Democratic leaders, who have promised conservative Democrats they will keep close tabs on the investigations sure to come. And in many ways, the committee may be less busy than it was in Republican days, because social issues such as abortion, judicial activism and the public expression of religion are not high on the Democratic agenda.

Conyers will have strong input on one issue likely to be addressed quickly: the fate of Bush's warrantless wiretapping program. Conyers has called the program illegal and unconstitutional. He may also try to reopen legislation authorizing military tribunals, especially if the Supreme Court strikes down part or all of the law passed in September.

Energy and Commerce: John Dingell, D-Mich.

Dingell, 80, has spent nearly 51 years in the House and was chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee for 14 years.

Dingell, known as a forceful and sometimes feared chairman, oversaw the breakup of AT&T and the sale of Conrail. He helped reach a compromise to produce the 1990 Clean Air Act. An ally of organized labor, he opposed NAFTA and other trade accords. He is a hunter and longtime advocate of gun rights. For decades, he has introduced the bill for national health insurance that his father, who preceded him in the seat, co-sponsored in 1943.

Dingell was the only Michigan Democrat to vote for the Persian Gulf War resolution in January 1991, but he voted against the Iraq war resolution in October 2002.

Financial Services: Barney Frank, D-Mass.

Frank, 66, an openly gay man, is a leader of the liberal wing of the House Democrats and was elected in 1980. Under his leadership, the committee will almost certainly change gears to focus less on Wall Street and more on the social-policy issues under the panel's purview, especially expanded availability of affordable housing.

Although Vice President Dick Cheney often roused Republican crowds by raising the specter of Frank as a chairman, it is the congressman's quick, sometimes vicious wit, not his partisanship, that has made him feared by his adversaries.

He is likely to ensure that the tough corporate-management regulations in the Sarbanes-Oxley law will stand, despite growing clamor in the business community to revisit the issue. And Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke will face some tough questioning in his annual visits to the committee's hearings.

Intelligence: Alcee Hastings, D-Fla.

Hastings, 70, is the leading candidate for chairman of the committee.

He has the distinction of being the only sitting member of the House to have been impeached by the same chamber. In 1988, he was tossed out of his federal judgeship over allegations of extorting a bribe.

But four years later he was elected to the House, and since he has become a charismatic inside player. Hastings has visited dozens of intelligence outposts around the globe and has not been among the Democrats calling for an immediate withdrawal from Iraq.

If the top Democrat on the panel, Jane Harman of California, steps down, as is expected, Hastings is the next in line; the Congressional Black Caucus has made it clear that it does not want him to be passed over.

International Relations: Tom Lantos, D-Calif.

Lantos, 78, was born and raised in Hungary and is Congress's only Holocaust survivor.

Lantos founded the Congressional Human Rights Caucus and in 1990 became the first U.S. official to visit Albania since 1946. A strong supporter of Israel, he supported the Iraq invasion, proposed converting a quarter of military aid to Egypt to economic assistance and criticized human rights violations in China.

In 2004, Lantos persuaded the House to pass a bill suspending aid to Ethiopia and Eritrea until they settled their border dispute. He got the House to vote for $300 million in humanitarian relief in Sudan, with two-thirds targeted at Darfur.

Education and the Workforce: George Miller, D-Calif.

Miller, 61, is a Bay Area liberal, a labor booster and one of the closest allies of Rep. Nancy Pelosi, soon to be the House speaker.

But he formed a relationship with President Bush early in his presidency over their mutual frustration with inadequate classroom standards. Miller helped to write the House version of Bush's No Child Left Behind bill but has since complained that funding is inadequate.

Despite his left-leaning politics, in recent years Miller has helped to transform his committee from one of the most partisan in the House to one of the most productive under the chairmanship of John Boehner of Ohio, the No. 2 House Republican.

Transportation and Infrastructure: James Oberstar, D-Minn.

Oberstar, 72, has been hanging around the committee since the 1960s, when he was chief aide to fellow Minnesotan John Blatnik, the chairman of what was then called the Public Works and Transportation Committee. Now, the low-key legislator from the Iron Range has a chance to run the place.

Oberstar is not expected to move the committee from its roots. The panel has always been a conduit for home-district projects such as roads, waterways and mass transit. If it rolls, flies or floats, Oberstar has been a supporter of it.

Hardly a liberal partisan, Oberstar has been known to break with his leadership, but he is strongly pro-union. He is also likely to raise environmental concerns as a priority for the committee.

Appropriations: David Obey, D-Wis.

Obey, 68, was chairman of the committee briefly before the 1994 GOP takeover.

He opposes gun control and abortion rights but is liberal on many other issues. Obey opposed NAFTA and advocated a single-payer system for national health care.

As an appropriator, Obey has tried to the limit the executive branch's ability to spend at will. When President Bush sought $40 billion in emergency funding after the 2001 terrorist attacks, Obey and allies required that the president consult with congressional leaders or obtain approval before spending the money.

Agriculture: Collin Peterson, D-Minn.

Peterson, 62, won a House seat in 1990 on his fifth try. He opposes abortion rights and gun control, generally supports labor unions and farm subsidies, and opposed President Bill Clinton on his 1993 budget, NAFTA and normal trade relations with China. He co-founded the "Blue Dog" coalition of conservative Democrats.

Peterson has advocated a national sales tax to replace all income, payroll, corporate and estate taxes, and he was one of 16 Democrats to vote to add the prescription drug benefit to Medicare three years ago. He has supported President Bush's tax cuts and the invasion of Iraq.

Ways and Means: Charles Rangel, D-N.Y.

Rangel, 76, is one of the most fiery members of the House and soon will be one of the most powerful, leading the panel that sets tax and trade policy and presides over Medicare and Social Security.

One of the big questions of the new Democratic-led House: How aggressively will Rangel target major GOP initiatives such as tax cuts and the Medicare drug benefit? The Harlem native served for six years as the chief Democratic foil to the current chairman, the harshly partisan Bill Thomas, R-Calif.

But Rangel has earned respect as a serious legislator and has quietly backed milder versions of Republican priorities, including a phased-in reduction of the corporate income tax in 2003, which was rejected in favor of a more aggressive cut.

Armed Services: Ike Skelton, D-Mo.

Skelton, 75, has represented west-central Missouri for 30 years, a district that includes Harry S. Truman's birthplace and two major military bases: Fort Leonard Wood and Whiteman Air Force Base.

Skelton, tough but little-known nationally, initially supported the Iraq war but has turned against the conflict. He called last month for troop withdrawals to start immediately.

Skelton helped write the 1986 act creating joint commands and also has advocated expanded troop levels to prevent burnout. He has vowed to improve conditions for military families and increase oversight of military policy.

Budget: John M. Spratt Jr., D-S.C.

Spratt, 64, is a courtly Southerner and a wonkish moderate from an old South Carolina family. A graduate of Yale and Oxford, he has a reputation as a hard worker.

He has been a member of Rep. Nancy Pelosi's leadership team while in the minority, as well as the second-ranking Democrat on the Armed Services Committee.

Spratt is a military-policy specialist who is expected to demand from the Bush administration a more thorough accounting of Iraq war costs. He played a key role in the 1997 balanced-budget agreement and is expected to be a stickler for fiscal austerity and realistic growth projections in a Democratic-led House. That could cause friction with colleagues who are eager to loosen the purse strings for their long-deprived home districts and pet causes.

Bennie Thompson, D-Miss.: Thompson, 59, has been in public office since he was 21 years old, when he was elected alderman in his rural hometown of Bolton.

In Congress since 1993, he funneled aid to his many impoverished constituents through his perch on the Agriculture Committee and also made a name as one of the House's most outspoken civil rights proponents.

In 2005, he was named the ranking Democrat on the Homeland Security Committee. He championed the cause of first responders and stirred controversy by laying off top staffers and hiring more minorities. As chairman, he is likely to press for more grants for rural areas and to conduct oversight hearings critical of the Department of Homeland Security.

Government Reform: Henry Waxman, D-Calif.

Waxman, 67, will try to reinvigorate oversight of the executive branch.

The panel once known as the Government Reform and Oversight Committee has more than a dozen investigators on staff, and its Democrats have never stopped prodding.

That is because the current chairman, Tom Davis, R-Va., has worked well with Waxman and, unlike other Republican chairs, did not gut the minority-party staff. Because he has the manpower, and because he is close to House Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi, Waxman has been given the lead in oversight. First up: allegations of contract abuse in Iraq and after Hurricane Katrina.