BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON

 Reprinted from The Hill.

The Washington Examiner on Nov. 8th, joined the lobbying campaign to prevent Michigan Congressman Fred Upton from becoming the new Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. 

The editorial was not up to the normal standards of Editor Mark Tapscott, for whom I have great respect.  It was a demeaning piece laced with personal invective: ” … Upton has a lot of nerve to campaign to succeed California Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman…,”the paper huffed.  Nor did the editorial seem to be the independent work of the Examiner, but a collaborative effort, part of a broader lobbying campaign by Washington interest groups. 

That is certainly not unusual.  It is reminiscent of the way the Washington Post and New York Times collaborated with the White House on its desperation campaign to make villains of John Boehner, the U.S. Chamber and those independent expenditure groups.   Each time the President made an accusation a whole phalanx of reporters and commentaries were Johnny-on-the-spot making the same arguments, singing from the same song sheet.

The anti-Upton campaign is predictable in a political environment in which there is power to be apportioned.  Struggles for that power are inevitable, among those who hunger for it, with good intentions and bad, for right reasons and wrong ones. 
But in the case of leadership races, including committee chairmanships, the decisions and the infighting may be better left to the members themselves, not staff, not interest groups, and not newspapers with ideological agendas.

Leadership elections within the House Republican Conference (the official body of all Republicans) are about philosophy to be sure, but they are more about governance and who the members believe is best able to fulfill their agenda and give the public desperately needed renewed confidence that someone in Washington actually knows how to govern.  The country, it seems to me, wants leadership with an ability to govern more than it wants leadership intent on imposing ideological purity on the Republican Party and the country.

So for those who want to stick their nose in the internal business of the Republican conference, and everyone with an interest has the right to do it, there ought to be at least some consideration given to the qualifications and characteristics that best describe an effective committee chairman.  For example, qualities like:

• personal character;
• experience;
• expertise in the issues that will top the committee’s agenda;
• a firm commitment to work with the leadership in meeting the agenda, and the confidence of the leadership to get it done;
• the trust and confidence of the members of the committee;
• the leadership, parliamentary and management skills to move legislation;
• the communication skills to frame the legislation and demonstrate to the American people an ability to govern, and
• most importantly in a divided Congress, the ability to work across the aisle and across the Capitol in order to see a piece of legislation through to enactment. 

The Examiner declared that the prospective Speaker-to-be John Boehner should appoint a “genuine conservative” to the chairmanship and presumably to all chairmanships, leaving unsaid of course, the definitions of ‘genuine’ and ‘conservative’, definitions on which the late Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan, Jack Kemp, William Buckley and other fathers of modern-day conservatism would genuinely disagree when applied, not to cherished principles, but the minutia of public policy and federal programs.

Fortunately, Mr. Boehner, who knows best what it takes to chair a committee, and the members of the Republican Steering Committee have a large talent pool from which they can select the new chairmen of the committees, including Energy and Commerce with Joe Barton, Upton, John Shimkus and Cliff Stearns all being mentioned and all qualified. 

Hopefully, the principal criteria, however, won’t be a litmus test drawn from the archives of each individual’s vote on every piece of legislation over the last 20 years, or the influence of outside interests, particularly lobbyists and media who harbor some sense of entitlement about controlling the process of governance, rather than contributing something positive to it.  

Editors’s Note: Mike Johnson is a former journalist, who worked on the Ford White House staff and served as press secretary and chief of staff to House Republican Leader Bob Michel, prior to entering the private sector. He is co-author of a book, Surviving Congress, a guide for congressional staff.   He is currently a principal with the OB-C Group.