Stark Runs Into Stiff Resistance

Chairmanship Could Be Brief

• By Tory Newmyer and Steven T. Dennis
• Roll Call Staff
• March 3, 2010, 7:52 p.m.

Rep. Pete Stark (Calif.) may have the shortest chairmanship in the young history of the House Democratic majority.
House Democratic leaders were scrambling Wednesday to fill a vacuum at the top of the Ways and Means Committee after Rep. Charlie Rangel (N.Y.) surrendered the gavel in the wake of an ethics wrist slap. And at least temporarily they were forced to hand the job to Stark, next in line on the panel behind the embattled New Yorker.