House Panels' Staff Directors Outline Goals for New Congress

When the Democrats take control of the House next month, the new majority staff directors of the major committees will range from grizzled Capitol Hill veterans to relatively fresh-faced newcomers. All anticipate that their committees will mount aggressive oversight of the Bush administration. Here is a sampling of those staff chiefs. Senate Democratic staff directors will be featured on Tuesday's Federal Page.

Armed Services

Erin C. Conaton, who holds a doctorate in foreign relations, will be in charge of the 67-member staff of a committee with plans for aggressive oversight. No one expects any radical departures under the new chairman, Rep. Ike Skelton (D-Mo.), but Skelton has promised hearings on Iraq, Afghanistan, the war on terrorism and what he called "fixing U.S. forces."

Conaton, 36, who will become the committee's second female staff director, joined the Democratic staff in 2001 after three years as research staff director for the U.S. Commission on National Security -- better known as the Hart-Rudman commission.

Despite the new emphasis on closer oversight of administration policy, Conaton said the committee's traditional bipartisanship would endure. For one thing, she said, "we have an integrated bipartisan staff that serves all the members, so we are keeping on board a number of the current [Republican] staff."

Appropriations Committee

Robert Nabors, the new staff director, is a native of Fort Dix, N.J. Nabors worked for five years in the Office of Management and Budget before joining Appropriations in 2001. He has been the Democratic staff director since 2004. Nabors holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Notre Dame and a master's from the University of North Carolina.

He said his top priorities for 2007 are to finish work on the nine spending bills that Congress failed to pass last year and to increase oversight. He said he also wants to make sure that bills passed by the new Congress will strike the right balance between investing in critical programs and being financially responsible, a Democratic theme.

Budget Committee

Thomas S. Kahn, the new staff director and chief counsel, is a former Wall Street lawyer who has been the Democratic staff director for the past decade. Before that, Kahn worked as chief counsel for Rep. John M. Spratt Jr. (D-S.C.), and as a staffer on the House Democratic Policy Committee. Upon coming to the Hill after a year as a corporate lawyer at New York's Sullivan and Cromwell, Kahn became chief counsel and acting staff director of a House subcommittee on trade and banking.

Kahn, 51, has twin goals on the Budget Committee, one obvious and one, less so. The obvious: "Writing and passing a federal budget that is both fiscally responsible and at the same time funds critical national priorities," he said.

"I think the other challenge," he said, "is for the Congress to restore its traditional role as a co-equal branch with the executive, and to maintain the system of checks and balances that has eroded over the last six years."