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 interpreted as an endorsement of 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, finding themselves 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. Speaker Dennis Hastert of Illinois is leaving the leadership ranks. Current Majority Leader John Boehner of Ohio is favored in a three-man race to replace him as the House’s top Republican.
In the Democrats’ leadership race, Hoyer started with a substantial lead by most counts, but has scrambled to hold on to supporters since Pelosi’s surprise intervention on Sunday. He appeared to carry a lead into Thursday’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.”
With characteristic gruffness, Murtha said the opposite was true: “We’re going to win. We got the votes,” he said Wednesday afternoon on MSNBC’s “Hardball.”
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