WASHINGTON — Sen. Jeff Sessions is poised to become chairman of the upper chamber's panel that oversees the country's nuclear weapons arsenal.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who was officially named Senate Armed Services Committee chairman on Wednesday evening, asked Sessions if he would lead SASC's Strategic Forces subcommittee during a recent conversation, the Alabama Republican told reporters.
"He asked me what I wanted, and I said that, and he said fine," Sessions said, recounting the conversation.
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During the last Congress, Sessions was the ranking Republican on the Strategic Forces subpanel.
But he also was the second-ranking GOP member of the Seapower subcommittee — and hails from a state with a large shipbuilding sector. McCain was the ranking member of that subcommittee during the last Congress, but full committee chairs almost never head subcommittees, opening the Seapower chairmanship.
Sources indicate that slot likely will go to Sessions. another GOP senator.
"Senator Sessions will not be leading the Seapower subcommittee," one Senate aide saidtells CongressWatch. "And given his involvement with Strategic Forces in the past, he is most likely to remain there."
The Seapower post could go to a member from another shipbuilding state, Mississippi's Roger Wicker, R-Miss., who has new clout within the GOP caucus as the new head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC).
Wicker was the third-ranking Republican on the subcommittee in the 114th Congress, behind McCain and Sessions.
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