Word: caucus
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Clinton is hoping that Rostenkowski was not as crucial to the passage of health-care reform as he once supposed. Though he can regain his chairmanship if acquitted, Rostenkowski was compelled by Democratic caucus rules to hand over the post to the committee's ranking Democrat, Florida Representative Sam Gibbons, who has shown no special gift for horse trading. So the Administration is expecting its health-care point man to be majority leader Richard Gephardt. But like the rest of the House leadership, Gephardt is also more liberal than the crucial centrists whose support Clinton needs on health care...
...Congress, Gray was the head of theCongressional Black Caucus and was the Housemajority whip. Gray, who served in the House for12 years, was the highest-ranking Black member incongressional history...
Either way, Rostenkowski would have to give up the Ways and Means chairmanship. That would be part of any plea bargain, and if he is indicted, it would be required by the rules of the House Democratic Caucus. Technically, if he is tried and acquitted, he could resume the chairmanship some years down the road. It seems likely, though, that Rostenkowski will resign even as an ordinary member of Congress, whether he cops a plea or has to start preparing, at the age of 66, for an almost certainly long and exhausting trial...
...timing is excruciating. Rostenkowski has promised to unveil his outline of a health bill immediately after Congress's Memorial Day recess. Yet under the rules of the House Democratic Caucus, if a committee chairman is indicted for a felony punishable by more than two years in prison, he must cede his chairmanship, though not his committee membership. (He can return later if vindicated.) And so at precisely the moment when he planned to move Bill Clinton's most important legislation through the key House committee, the chairman might be stepping down in shame...
...enough force to take them literally overnight, put those thugs in jail," said Rep David Obey (D-Wisconsin), in a gross miscalculation of how long it would take to subdue and pacify a nation of over six million people. Rep. Kweisi Mfume (D-Maryland), chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, said he is pleased that President Bill Clinton has put the military option "on the table." He may be pleased that Clinton is paying lip service to affirmative military action, but it gives the rest of the nation, especially the President cause for worry...