Senate Democrats give Jeffords committee chair

Sen. Jim Jeffords, I -Vermont.

By Dana Bash
CNN Capitol Hill Producer

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Sen. James Jeffords, I-Vermont, was officially named as chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee Tuesday -- the position Democrats had promised him to woo him away from the GOP, resulting in Democratic control of the Senate.

Jeffords is the first senator not affiliated with the Democratic or Republican party to chair a Senate committee in 68 years.

Jeffords' new chairmanship was approved by Senate Democrats at their weekly policy lunch, along with committee assignments for the rest of the Democratic caucus.

With the shift in power, Democrats won an additional seat on most committees.

Sen. John Edwards, D-North Carolina, a successful trial lawyer and potential candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004, got a seat on the Judiciary committee -- a high profile perch for battling White House judicial nominations.

A couple of Democratic senators up for re-election in 2002 got a boost with plum new assignments: Sen. Paul Wellstone of Minnesota is now on the Agriculture Committee and Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island was appointed to the Appropriations Committee.

Meanwhile, down the hall, Vice President Dick Cheney went to the Republicans' weekly policy lunch, urging attendees not to let Democrats get the best of them by saying the tax cut has hurt the economy.

"The reason we are not much worse off from an economic standpoint is because of the tax cut. That the president's tax cut was approved by the Congress has been the best-timed dose of fiscal medicine the economy has ever received," Cheney told reporters after the meeting.

According to sources in the lunch, Cheney -- without prompting -- reassured his colleagues that his health is good and he is feeling fine.

One source said Cheney joked about all the attention his health was getting and quipped that it was hurting his ability to be a typically anonymous vice president.

Another interesting and rare moment in Tuesday's lunch, according the sources attending, was Sen. John McCain's outspoken support of the administration's decision to retire the B-1 bomber.

Cheney, according to sources, asked the GOP caucus for its support on the issue.

But Republican senators from states where the bomber is made, like Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, and Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kansas, expressed their frustration with the Bush administration's decision and are co-sponsors of an amendment set for a vote later Tuesday to delay the move until at least 2002.

As Craig, Roberts and others vocalized their opposition to the move, McCain, sources said, came to the defense of the administration, saying Republicans should support their first attempt at streamlining at the Pentagon.

McCain, who bucked President Bush in sponsoring campaign finance reform and patients' rights legislation the administration opposed, told his colleagues they are all on the same team and should be working together.

"There was lots of shocked faces in the room," said one source at the lunch.