Murkowski left in place as top committee Republican

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) will remain the ranking Republican on the Senate energy committee despite her running as a write-in candidate for reelection against GOP leadership wishes. In a 20-minute meeting Wednesday, Senate Republicans accepted Murkowski's resignation as vice chairman of the Senate Republican Conference. They selected Sen. John Barrasso (Wyo.) to succeed her. But they declined to remove her from the post on the energy committee. GOP leaders have voiced strong displeasure with Murkowski running as a write-in after she lost the Republican primary last month to her conservative challenger, Joe Miller, and they were expected to remove her from the energy committee post, as well as from the conference leadership. The Energy and Natural Resources Committee, as the panel is formally known, won't be holding any substantive hearings for the remainder of this year...more

It's not the hearings folks are worried about. It's the potential for shenanigans during the lame duck session.

Murkowski has bills that have cleared the committee but have not been acted on by the full Senate. What kind of deals might she cut with the dem's just to get those last bills passed?