*NEW HOUSE GOP LINEUP: Along with re-electing Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (Ill.) for his third term, House Republicans chose as their leadership team last week Tom DeLay (Tex.) as majority leader; Roy Blunt (Mo.) as majority whip; Deborah Pryce (Ohio) as conference chairman; Jack Kingston (Ga.) as conference vice chairman; John Doolittle (Calif.) as conference secretary; and Tom Reynolds (N.Y.) as chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee. Christopher Cox (Calif.) was re-elected chairman of the Policy Committee. The only disappointment for conservatives came with the election of moderate Pryce over two solidly conservative lawmakers, J. D. Hayworth (Ariz.) and Jim Ryun (Kan.). In the other contested race, Rep. Reynolds won the NRCC chairmanship over another conservative, Illinois’ Jerry Weller. *NEW SENATE GOP LINEUP: Senate Republicans re-elected Trent Lott (Miss.) as their leader and unanimously chose Mitch McConnell (Ky.) to succeed Don Nickles (Okla.) as whip. (Nickles, forced to leave the whip post because of term limits, will become the new Budget Committee chairman.) Others in the leadership lineup are Jon Kyl (Ariz.) as Policy Committee chairman, Rick Santorum (Pa.) as conference chairman, and Kay Bailey Hutchison (Tex.) as conference vice chairman. Freshman Sen. George Allen (Va.) was also picked without opposition as chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, replacing outgoing Chairman Bill Frist (Tenn.). * TWO JUDGES MAKE IT: Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D.-Vt.) had a sudden, post-election change of heart last week about two of President Bush’s "controversial," "right-wing" judicial nominees. On a voice vote, so he and his Democratic colleagues would not have to go on the record, Leahy allowed two of President Bush’s circuit court of appeals nominees—District Court Judge Dennis Shedd and University of Utah professor Michael McConnell—to be voted out of his committee, where they had both been languishing for more than a year. Capitol Hill veterans point out that the move makes no real difference—they would have been approved by the new Republican majority anyway—but it does give Leahy and his allies a better statistical defense of their much-criticized treatment of Bush’s appeals court nominees during his brief stint as chairman. Democrats also hope that moving the two nominees will make it harder for Republicans to use the judge issue against Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu (La.) in her run-off race December 7. *DEATH TAX BAN RETURNS: The Republican victory could also mean a final end to the estate tax, so long an instrument with which the government has destroyed the wealth that families worked so hard to accumulate and maintain over generations. Two days after the election, House Policy Committee Chairman Rep. Chris Cox (R.-Calif.) announced that he will reintroduce HR 330, the death (or estate and gift tax) tax repeal, with a new effective date. "Delaying death tax repeal makes absolutely no sense from a policy standpoint," said Cox. "Why should a family business be broken up to pay death taxes if the owner dies in 2003, but not if the owner dies in 2010?" Cox noted that not only does the grim death tax reap little revenue, "repealing the death tax now will mean more government revenue and less government debt, as capital is employed more efficiently than it is today in tax-minimization schemes. Forcing small businesses and family farmers to create multiple estate plans to create this revenue is a cruel form of taxation. The expense of such plans drains tax revenue from the treasury." Cox was ahead of the latest trend, spurred by President Bush, to repeal the estate tax. He first introduced a bill to eliminate it in 1993. *PELOSI UNDER INVESTIGATION: San Francisco liberal Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the newly elected House Democratic leader (see coverbox story), is being investigated by the Federal Election Commission (FEC) for trying to evade campaign contribution limits. According to Roll Call (October 24), in April Pelosi began operating Team Majority, a duplicate of her leadership political action committee, PAC for the Future. Leo McCarthy, former Democratic lieutenant governor of California, was treasurer of both PACs. " ‘The main reason for the creation of the second PAC, frankly, was to give twice as much hard dollars’ to candidates, McCarthy said," reported Roll Call. Problem is, that’s illegal. The FEC denied McCarthy’s claim that it had approved the duplicate PAC. On October 25, the National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC) filed a complaint with the FEC, and shortly thereafter Pelosi closed up Team Majority and asked for the return of contributions. The FEC told NLPC last week that it was investigating the matter. To top it all off, Pelosi has been a supporter of campaign finance "reform."
