Last week the House Republican leadership selected Rep. Ken Calvert (R-CA) to temporarily fill an open seat on the House Appropriations Committee. That vacancy opened up when another California Republican, Rep. John Doolittle, stepped down from the committee last month in the wake of an FBI search of his home as part of the broader Jack Abramoff scandal. Because of that appointment, Calvert had to give up his position as ranking member of the space subcommittee of the House Science and Technology Committee. Rep. Ralph Hall, the ranking member of the overall committee, announced today that Rep. Tom Feeney (R-FL) will take over as ranking member of the space subcommittee. Feeney, whose district includes NASA KSC, said he would focus on implementing the Vision for Space Exploration and managing the transition from the shuttle program to Constellation with “minimal impact on the human spaceflight workforce.”
The Orlando Sentinel notes it’s a little ironic that Feeney got the leadership position as an indirect result of L’affaire Abramoff: Feeney himself was caught on the fringes of the scandal because of a golf trip to Scotland that he took with Abramoff; Feeney has since paid his share of the trip. Feeney, though, may not want to get too comfortable in his new position, and not because of anything he’s done: the GOP leadership’s decision to appoint Calvert to the open appropriations seat has met with staunch opposition from some conservative bloggers and activists, concerned about Calvert’s own alleged ethical lapses.
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