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New Leader For House Oversight Committee
Va.'s Rep. Davis Viewed As Breath of Fresh Air

By Spencer S. Hsu and Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, January 10, 2003; Page A19

Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.), former chairman of the House Government Reform Committee, spent his down time pursuing a suspicion that the Vincent Foster suicide was a conspiracy.

Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.), Burton's successor, stalked an obsession of a different kind in his spare time -- joining another Clinton aide, government-reinvention czar Steven J. Kelman, to brief Harvard students on federal procurement policy.

In a change with wide implications for Washington's armies of policymakers, civil servants and government contractors, Davis's promotion by GOP House leaders Wednesday night to chairman of the committee marks a clean break from the panel's turbulent past.

Where Burton was a bomb-thrower who enraged Democrats through his tenacious pursuit of Clinton-era scandals -- he reenacted the Foster shooting with a pumpkin to test a personal theory and called former president Bill Clinton a "scumbag" during a political fundraising investigation -- Davis is a natural dealmaker who government watchers say will deftly wield the power of the House's largest oversight committee.

In private life, Davis, a 54-year-old Falls Church-area lawyer, worked as general counsel to the computer services firm PRC Inc., now part of defense giant Northrop Grumman Corp. He led one of the country's largest county governments in Fairfax County, and then came to Congress representing a district housing more federal employees -- 40,000 -- than nearly any other.

"It is a different time, when Dan had [the chairmanship]," Davis said yesterday after taking over a major committee in his fifth term. "Dan still has his crusades but we're going to focus legislatively on areas of reform -- civil service, federal procurement. Those are issues where I think we can reform government and we can make it work."

Davis said he expects Burton, who had to step down from the chairmanship because of a term limit rule, to continue investigating a trail of FBI abuses in Boston -- an inquiry resisted by the Bush administration -- but added, "We're going to move the ratio from 75-25 investigative to legislative, to maybe 60-40 legislative to investigative."

He said he will focus on updating the government's technological capacity as well as streamlining the procurement process.

In elevating Davis over four committee members with more seniority, including two main rivals, Reps. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.) and Christopher Cox (R-Calif.), House GOP leaders rewarded him for his tireless work to preserve the party's hold on power over the past four years as head of the National Republican Congressional Committee and acknowledged his political skills. "If Davis does half as good a job at Government Reform as he did at the NRCC, he's probably going to be one of the best chairmen ever," said John Feehery, spokesman for House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), a key Davis backer.

Davis was dogged in both recruiting candidates and asking donors for cash he could funnel into a handful of competitive districts. In the last election, for example, the NRCC raised $173 million.

He backed up the money with party loyalty, senior GOP aides said. Even with his reputation as a moderate, Davis supported conservative candidates and causes. He passed a test in GOP circles when his chumminess with federal labor unions did not keep him from voting to curtail union and civil service protections for homeland security jobs as the Bush administration sought.

Government employee unions, contractor trade associations and reform advocates and even Democrats praised him yesterday, calling him pragmatic and hands-on.

Known on Capitol Hill for his encyclopedic recall of political data, Davis is considered a House expert on civil service rules and federal procurement policy.

"Tom Davis is the most knowledgeable member of Congress on procurement issues," said Kelman, now a Harvard professor. "This is good news for friends of good government -- and I'm a Democrat."

Davis is particularly close to the technology sector, which hailed his appointment. He has championed legislation to privatize key federal jobs, secure government technology, encourage e-government and share personnel and best practices with the private sector.

Rep. John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) said Republicans also recognize Davis's special ties to public employee unions in a conference often at odds with labor. "Nobody [else] had the credibility to do that," he said.

Colleen Kelley, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, said Davis's promotion will be well-received. "Even when we have disagreed, I have known ahead of time we were going to disagree," she said.

Democrats say they look forward to working with Davis, although they note the panel's less aggressive stance comes at a time when there is a Republican in the White House.

"He's a real, professional lawmaker," said Rep. Henry A. Waxman (Calif.), the panel's senior Democrat who waged fierce partisan fights with Burton. "As chairman, I think his focus is going to be strongly on the issues before the committee."

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