California Republican wins chairmanship of House oversight panel
Rep. Darrell Issa has served as the committee’s ranking member for two years and plans to put the Obama administration under the microscope.
House Republicans on Wednesday officially selected California Rep. Darrell Issa to be the next chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
Issa, who has served as the panel's ranking member since 2008, was widely expected to assume the post after raising his profile during the past two years with investigations of White House operations and activities.
In a statement, Issa called the government's decision-making "systemically dysfunctional," pointing to the recent disclosure that the Obama administration had made $125 billion in improper payments in fiscal 2010.
"It's always easier to be careless with other people's money and the fact that Washington has somehow institutionalized waste, fraud and abuse is indicative of how broken this place has become," said Issa, who led the oversight panel's Subcommittee on Energy and Resources from 2005 to 2006.
Incoming speaker of the House Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, supported Issa's bid for the chairmanship.
"Darrell has built a strong record of conducting vigilant and meaningful oversight that has exposed a federal bureaucracy overrun by inefficiency and waste," Boehner said. "He understands how critical it is to address the waste, fraud and abuse from within government so that we can be better stewards of the taxpayers' dollars and as we work to deliver to the American people a government that is more transparent and accountable"
Issa has promised an aggressive schedule of hearings and has signaled he could change the name of the committee back to Government Reform and Oversight. Former committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., flipped the name when he took the gavel in 2007, as a sign he would step up oversight of the George W. Bush administration.
During a speech in late November at the National Procurement and Grant Fraud Conference in Philadelphia, Issa said the "committee is going to focus on places where money can be saved, where we can literally close agencies or subagencies or programs."
It remains unclear who will serve as the top Democrat on the committee. Rep. Edolphus Towns, D-N.Y., the current chairman, is seeking the ranking member spot, but he faces a challenge from Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich.