The House subcommittee that oversees federal personnel issues will most likely have a new chairman next year.
Though no official announcements have been made, Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., the current chairman of the House Government Reform and Oversight Subcommittee on the Civil Service, will probably take a new assignment, said Ned Lynch, a subcommittee staffer.
Mica is eyeing the chairman's seat of the House Government Reform and Oversight Subcommittee on Human Resources, which oversees federal agencies that manage human services programs. A staffer on the human resources panel declined to comment.
Mica's vice chairman on the civil service panel in the current Congress, Rep. Michael Pappas, R-N.J., lost his re-election bid.
Brad Thaler, legislative representative for the Federal Managers Association, said rumors were circulating that the civil service panel would go to Rep. Mark Souder, R-Ind. Souder is a budget hawk who two years ago pushed for 1.9 percent across-the-board cut in agency appropriations. He also was one of only two Republicans to vote against the balanced budget amendment, because it did not require a supermajority to raise taxes. Souder is currently vice chairman of the Government Reform and Oversight Subcommittee on National Security, International Affairs and Criminal Justice.
Rep. Connie Morella, R-Md., the most senior member of the civil service subcommittee, is now chairman of the House Science Subcommittee on Technology. Morella, whose suburban Maryland congressional district is home to many federal employees, may be too federal-friendly for the tastes of Government Reform and Oversight Committee Chairman Dan Burton, R-Ind.
Morella, for example, has sponsored a bill that would allow federal employees to contribute more money each year to their Thrift Savings Plan accounts, a move that some budget hawks say would cost too much money. The bill failed to make it to the House floor in the last Congress.
Sources following the subcommittee action don't expect Morella to be the next civil service panel head.
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