The freshman from Utah, a rising star and favorite of incoming Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa, will run the subcommittee that oversees the Department of Homeland Security. I spent some time in August profiling Chaffetz for Washington City Paper, as the congressman was in line to take over the subcommittee overseeing Washington, D.C., and said – at the time – that he wanted that job again. But Chaffetz, who quickly established himself as one of the quickest studies and best media presences in the GOP conference, will now get to be one of the Republican faces of TSA investigations and investigations into spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
If you’re one of those people fretting about the TSA’s invasiveness or “porno” scanners, you’re in luck – Chaffetz was one of the first Republicans to oppose whole-body imaging, and kept opposing it after the Christmas bomber debacle inspired the DHS to take a second look at the scanners.
If you’re one of those people who spent a lot of time analyzing the role Chaffetz might play in oversight of D.C., well, sorry about that. The likely D.C. subcommittee chairman at this point is Brian Bilbray.
