DeLauro wins Steering Committee vote for Appropriations chair

Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) is on track to become the next House Appropriations Committee chairwoman after securing the recommendation of an influential panel of her colleagues on Tuesday.

The House Democratic Steering Committee, which makes recommendations for members’ committee slots, also made a decision on two other contested House committee gavels: Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.) for Foreign Affairs and Rep. David Scott (D-Ga.) for Agriculture. Both Meeks and Scott would be the first Black people to chair their respective committees.

The full House Democratic Caucus will vote Thursday on the Steering Committee’s recommendations, which are usually ratified. House Democrats will also vote Thursday to select a new chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee to lead the party’s 2022 midterm election efforts.

The Steering Committee voted handily in DeLauro’s favor over fellow Democratic Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (Fla.) and Marcy Kaptur (Ohio) in the three-way race. DeLauro won 36 votes over Wasserman Schultz’s 11 and Kaptur’s six, according to aides.

DeLauro would replace retiring Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.), who last year became the first woman to chair the powerful panel responsible for funding the federal government.

Lowey has served as the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee since 2013.

She has served in the House since 1991 and prevailed in the race to replace Lowey even though she ranks lower than Kaptur in seniority on the Appropriations Committee.

Meeks won the recommendation for the Foreign Affairs gavel with 29 votes, prevailing over Reps. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) and Joaquin Castro (D-Texas), the chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, who won 10 and 13 votes, respectively.

Scott, meanwhile, won the recommendation for the Agriculture gavel with 32 votes, while his only rival for the post, Rep. Jim Costa (D-Calif.), won 19 votes. Scott ranks the highest in seniority on the Agriculture Committee after the outgoing chairman, Rep. Collin Peterson (D-Minn.), who lost reelection last month in a competitive swing district.

The current House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman, Rep. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.), lost his primary over the summer to Rep.-elect Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.).

Four other Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) members chair House committees, meaning that the powerful bloc will have six members holding chairmanships in the next Congress assuming House Democrats ratify Meeks’s and Scott’s recommendations.

The other four CBC members atop House committees are Reps. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) at Financial Services; Bobby Scott (D-Va.) at Education and Labor; Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Texas) at Science, Space and Technology; and Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) at Homeland Security.

Scott Wong contributed.