The U.S. House of Representatives Committee on
Transportation and Infrastructure will look very different when the 112th
Congress convenes in January. In this month's elections, 18 Democratic
committee members lost their congressional seats to Republicans, including
committee chair James Oberstar of Minnesota.
Oberstar lost to former Northwest Airlines pilot Chip
Cravaack after serving since 1974. From 1989 to 1995, Oberstar served as
chairman of the aviation subcommittee and in 2007 became chairman of the full
transportation and infrastructure committee. In recent years, Oberstar
advocated for legislation that would after three years "sunset all
immunity grants" given to airline alliances, argued against loosening
rules governing foreign ownership of U.S. airlines and generally opposed
mergers between U.S. carriers. Republican control of the House means Oberstar's
tenure as chair would have ended in January anyway.
Other defeated transportation committee Democrats include
Arizona's Harry Mitchell, Colorado's Betsy Markey, Illinois' Phil Hare,
Michigan's Mark Schauer, Mississippi's Gene Taylor, Nevada's Dina Titus, New
Mexico's Harry Teague, New York's Michael Arcuri, John Hall and Michael
McMahon, Pennsylvania's Christopher Carney, Ohio's John Boccieri, Texas'
Solomon Ortiz, Virginia's Thomas Perriello and Wisconsin's Steve Kagen.
Democrat Brian Baird of Washington did not run. His House
seat was won by Republican Jaime Herrera.
Boccieri, Hall, McMahon, Mitchell, Oberstar, Ortiz,
Perriello, Schauer and Titus all serve on the aviation subcommittee. Chair
Jerry Costello (D-Ill.) kept his seat. Most Republican committee members won
re-election, including ranking member John Mica of Florida and aviation
subcommittee ranking member Tom Petri of Wisconsin.
Meanwhile, most Democrats serving on the House Committee on
Homeland Security won re-election, including chairman Bennie Thompson of
Mississippi and vice chair Loretta Sanchez of California. Along with Carney and
Titus, however, Ohio's Mary Jo Kilroy and Arizona's Ann Kirkpatrick lost their
re-election bids.
Meanwhile, the National Business Travel Association's
political action committee contributed to the campaigns of several winners,
including Sens. James DeMint (R-S.C.) and Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Reps.
Thompson, Peter King (R-N.Y.), Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.) and Lamar Smith
(R-Texas). NBTA PAC also contributed to Titus' unsuccessful re-election
campaign.
This report appears in
the Nov. 29 issue of Business Travel News.