TRAFICANT Aide: GOP assignment would pose problems

The congressman can live without a committee assignment and still be effective, his spokesman said.
By DAVID SKOLNICK
VINDICATOR POLITICS WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- U.S. Rep. James A. Traficant Jr. will be able to conduct his own caucus in a phone booth after all.
In all likelihood, he'll be the only rank-and-file congressman without a committee assignment, Charles Straub, his spokesman, said.
"I'm starting to sense that's the way we are heading," Straub said.
Democrats refused to give Traficant, of Poland, D-17th, a committee assignment after he crossed party lines in January to vote for Republican Dennis Hastert as speaker of the House.
Traficant said he would either beg Republicans for a committee assignment or convene his own caucus in a phone booth.
Seat available: The Republican leadership is holding a seat on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee for the maverick Democrat, but there simply isn't an easy way for him to take the seat because there's no precedent for one political party seating a member of another party on a committee, Straub said.
For Traficant to take the seat, there would have to be unanimous consent of the House, which Straub said would not happen because there will be at least one Democrat who would oppose it.
Traficant could leave the Democratic Party and become either a Republican or an independent to get a committee assignment, but Straub said that is out of the question.
"He's not prepared to do that," he said. "His problem is with the Democratic leadership. He's not going to be manipulated out of the party. ..."
Previous positions: Traficant has served on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee for the past several years and until recently, was the ranking Democrat on the committee's subcommittee on oversight, investigations and emergency management. That subcommittee was abolished this year.
Traficant "can live without a committee seat" and still be an effective congressman, Straub said.
During recent years, Traficant has obtained more than $25 million in federal funding for a Youngstown civic center and had his language included in a major IRS reform bill, even though he did not sit on the committees that handled those issues.
Traficant would become the first rank-and-file congressman in 96 years to serve without a committee assignment. Claude A. Swanson did not get a committee assignment in 1905 because he had been elected Virginia governor and was leaving the House.