Conservatives inside and outside the Senate were taken aback by the recent decision of the Senate Republican Steering Committee to name Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas as the replacement for the previous chairman, Larry Craig. When it was started, the Steering Committee was designed to be a forum for conservatives at a time when the Senate Republican leadership was decidedly moderate.
The irony now is that with the Senate leadership dominated by conservatives, Steering will be led by someone without solid right-wing credentials (Hutchison is pro-choice). Fueling the discontent was the fact that Hutchison was named without an official vote, after her incessant lobbying for the job. Now there’s talk that Sen. John Ashcroft might form a new Steering offshoot to undertake the committee’s original mission.
