Murkowski wants to keep top GOP slot on Natural Resources

Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee ranking member Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) on Monday defiantly said she would retain the top Republican spot on the panel in the next Congress if reelected in her write-in campaign. “I don’t lose anything; I didn’t switch my party affiliation; I’m still a Republican, still a member of that caucus, still have that seniority that I have accrued,” Murkowski told reporters in the Capitol Building Monday. “And I am the most senior member so I will be the ranking member.” Senate Republican leaders, however, do not appear to have decided to back Murkowski’s seniority status and may end up supporting Sen. Richard Burr’s (R-N.C.) bid to head the panel instead. Burr was in line in September to become acting ranking Republican when Murkowski lost her Republican primary to Joe Miller. But while Senate Republicans on the panel agreed to make that change, the full GOP caucus did not act on that recommendation despite lobbying by Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.). DeMint argued that Republicans should be helping out their own and not Murkowski, who waged a write-in campaign as a Republican against Miller and Democrat Scott McAdams...more