U.S. Rep. Chris Van Hollen, a rising star in the Democratic firmament who helped organize his party’s victory in the last election, has been rewarded with an assignment on the House Ways and Means Committee.
Van Hollen, 47, helped recruit and raise funds for Democratic candidates. The Democrats retook Congress in November in what President Bush called “a thumpin’.”
The three-term Maryland Democrat was assigned to the vital House Ways and Means Committee.
Ways and Means has jurisdiction over the U.S. tax code, Social Security and trade.
Van Hollen told The Examiner Thursday that he wanted to use his seat on the committee “to break our addiction to fossil fuels,” to overhaul the nation’s health care system and to refocus America’s foreign policy.
“I think the committee can be an important place for that,” he said.
Van Hollen had served on the Education and the Workforce, Judiciary and Government Reform Committees. Ways and Means is usually an “exclusive” committee, which means that members have to give up other assignments to serve on it.
But a Congressional source said that Van Hollen — a favorite of new House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. — may be given permission to keep his Government Reform seat, too.
Van Hollen is the son of a diplomat and a former staff member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
He has also been appointed chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which gives him responsibility for running the party’s next Congressional elections.
