WASHINGTON-Last week’s retirement announcement by House Commerce Committee Chairman Thomas Bliley (R-Va.) has thrust into the spotlight a battle royale between Reps. Billy Tauzin (R-La.) and Mike Oxley (R-Ohio) for the right to head the prestigious panel in coming years.
For competition between the gregarious Tauzin and the button-down Oxley to mean anything, though, Republicans must retain the House in this fall’s elections. That is not a given.
If the Democrats regain control of the House, Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.)-who as much as anyone came to symbolize the raw power and influence of a committee chairman during the 1980s and early 1990s-likely will return to his old seat atop the Commerce Committee.
The Tauzin-Oxley feud has deep roots, going back to the GOP takeover of the House and Senate after the 1994 mid-term elections. After switching parties in August 1995, Tauzin was poised the next year to run for the Senate seat vacated by Sen. Bennett Johnston (D-La.). But Tauzin put on the brakes after the House Republican leadership told him he would replace House telecom subcommittee Chairman Jack Fields (R-Texas), even though Oxley was in line for the job and wanted it.
As a consolation, the finance arm of the telecom subcommittee was spun off as a separate subcommittee and given to Oxley.
Even before Bliley’s decision to step down after 20 years in Congress, talk lately has intensified of a Tauzin-Oxley power struggle.
“Nothing’s really changed,” said Ken Johnson, Tauzin’s spokesman.
Johnson said the decision about who chairs the Commerce Committee will not be made until next year.
However, earlier this year, Tauzin suggested in an interview he had the blessing of House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.)
“Billy’s confident he’s done everything possible to become the next chairman. Billy has his ducks in a row,” said Johnson.
When asked whether Oxley is angling for the top post of the Commerce Committee, Peggy Peterson, his press secretary, responded, “Absolutely.”
But she played down head-to-head competition for now. “He’s doing everything he can to retain and expand the House.” As far as Oxley lobbying for the job, she said, “It’s not time for that.”
The deciding factor may ultimately be money: Who is the better GOP fund raiser? According to Roll Call, a leading Capitol Hill newspaper, Tauzin appears to hold an edge in that department.
To avoid an ugly fight in public, House leaders may be forced again to cut a political deal agreeable to Tauzin and Oxley. But clearly, the Commerce Committee chairmanship is what both lawmakers want most.
In addition to (or because of) having enormous influence over a wide range of industries and the federal agencies that regulate them, the House Commerce Committee chairman is a magnet for political campaign contributions from well-heeled industries from telecom to electric utilities.
Bliley, for his part, is remembered as playing a key role in shepherding the 1996 telecom act through Congress. Bliley then was viewed as favoring long distance companies over local Baby Bell companies since AT&T Corp.-the No. 1 long distance carrier-has a plant close to the Virginia lawmaker’s home in Richmond.
