Wamp, Alexander eye leadership posts in respective chambers

Wamp announced his intention to seek the majority whip post after House Majority Leader Tom DeLay was indicted Wednesday on a charge of conspiracy to violate campaign finance laws. DeLay is being temporarily replaced by the current whip, Rep. Roy Blunt of Missouri.

Sen. Lamar Alexander also said Thursday he had his eye on the majority whip position in his chamber. That position is set to be vacated in the next Congress when current whip Mitch McConnell of Kentucky runs for majority leader following the scheduled retirement of Sen. Bill Frist, also of Tennessee.

Both men face stiff competition. In the House, Chief Deputy Whip Eric Cantor of Virginia is expected by many, including Wamp, to be a front-runner. Sen. Rick Santorum is also expected to vie for the Senate role, but first faces a tough re-election campaign in his home state of Pennsylvania.

“Whip” is a British parliamentary term believed to derive from the English fox hunt, which would include a “whipper-in” whose job it was to keep the hounds together. In Congress, each party in each chamber appoints a whip, whose job it is to enforce party loyalty and gauge the outcome of votes.

Elected in the Republican sweep of 1994 that took control of the House, Wamp was a signatory of the Contract with America. He does not currently hold any leadership positions, but said he wanted to get involved with policy at the highest levels of the Republican party.

“We get too wrapped up in holding the majority instead of doing the right thing, but if we do the right thing we will hold the majority,” Wamp told the Associated Press. “I want this to be about ideas, the agenda of the party — not necessarily about raising money or buying friends.”

The House majority whip is third in line behind the majority leader and speaker of the House. The House minority whip, Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland, and his senate equivalents, McConnell and Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, are second only to the leader in their respective caucuses.

Wamp said he spoke Wednesday with DeLay and Blunt, who is temporarily replacing DeLay as majority leader, about his bid for the number three job. An internal election could be held as early as January, he said.

“I think it’s time for me as a person to stand up and for the heart of the Republican party — and that’s the class of ’94 — to take a leadership role,” Wamp said.

Alexander, a former governor and presidential candidate, said he was interested in the whip role as an end in itself. He is not interested in later vying to be majority leader, he said.

“I’m at the point in my career where I have no ambition to be the senate leader. I think I’m the first one in memory who hasn’t been angling for the top job,” he told the Associated Press.

Alexander, who first publicly discussed his bid in The Hill newspaper Thursday, said he hoped Santorum would win re-election to the Senate, and looked forward to a good-natured contest. “It’s like having two or three quarterbacks, all of whom would like to start,” he said.