Who Will Head Friends of Ireland?

WITH the midterm elections now in the history books, one of the main questions is who will be the new head of the Friends of Ireland group in Congress now that the House and Senate have changed hands.

Currently Congressman Jim Walsh of Syracuse is the head, but it comes down to Congressman Richie Neal of Massachusetts or Congressman Joe Crowley of New York to fill the top position.

Already there is strong lobbying to bring Neal on board as chairman. The Irish American Democrats (IAD), headed by Stella O’Leary in Washington, have already circulated a memo calling for Neal to fill the post.

“Ireland’s best friend in the House of Representa-tives is Rep. Richard Neal of Massachusetts. Irish American Democrats strongly support Rep. Neal for chairman of the Congressional Friends of Ireland,” says the IAD letter.

They are likely to have their wish granted. Crowley, while an active member of the group, also has many other foreign priorities, including Bangladesh and India. A large part of his electorate in Queens comes from South Asia so that is understandable.

Meanwhile, on the Senate side, there is no dispute that senators Edward Kennedy, Chris Dodd, Pat Leahy and Joe Biden will be in charge of the Friends of Ireland group there. On the Republican side expect Senator Susan Collins to be the most prominent Republican.

Incidentally, House Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi is a member of the Friends and joined as co-sponsor of their 2006 March statement.

Crowley Backs Hoyer

CONGRESSMAN Crowley, meanwhile, will be watching the outcome of the race for House majority leader this week with keen interest.

Crowley is aligned with Steny Hoyer, the Maryland representative who is the current deputy to Pelosi. The incoming House speaker is backing John Murtha, the anti-war veteran who played a key part in building opposition to the Iraq war.

Last year Crowley ran for the number four position in the House leadership and seemed certain to win.

However, it seems Pelosi had not forgiven him for voting for Hoyer in their previous leadership battle. Pelosi pulled out all the stops to end Crowley’s hopes and succeeded by a narrow margin.

According to the New York Observer newspaper last week, it was one of the most stunning defeats every experienced by a Democrat in an internal fight as the entire caucus believed Crowley would win.

The lesson, of course, is not to cross Pelosi, who despite the carefully cultivated grandma image is as tough as nails. Just ask Joe Crowley.

Irish GOPers Survive

ON the Republican side it was good news for Congressman Jim Walsh of upstate New York, who prevailed to win his place back in Congress.

Walsh survived a close race and a recount to beat Dan Maffei, his Democratic opponent. It means he now will serve his ninth term in the House.

Just down the road, however, Congressman John Sweeney was losing his race in one of the dirtiest campaigns on record with lots of smears in both directions.

Sweeney was ahead until the last two weeks when a story broke about an alleged incident involving domestic trouble and his wife calling 911 for assistance. “Female caller stating her husband is knocking her around the house,’’ a dispatcher wrote in a message that was widely publicized.

That pretty much finished it for Sweeney, who lost to Kirsten Gillibrand, a 39-year-old attorney who was up to 20 points behind at one point.

On Long Island, of course, Congressman Pete King was re-elected, though by a far smaller margin than in previous races. King will no longer be the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, a job that will go to Congressman Bennie Thompson of Mississippi.

As for King, a Republican in a state becoming overwhelmingly Democratic, he sees opportunity in that very fact.

“There’s a role for me to play,” King told Newsday. “I can be a go between between Democrats and the White House.”

Which means that King probably intends to work closely with Senators Hillary Clinton and Chuck Schumer. There are interesting times ahead.

Other New Irish Faces

THERE will be many interesting new Irish faces in the Senate and House when Congress reconvenes in January, none more so than Jim Webb, the new senator from Virginia.

Webb is of proud Ulster Scots heritage and he has written extensively about it. His book Born Fighting: How the Scots Irish Changed America deals with his heritage and described how he feels that the Scots Irish of the south have become the key to every election and how they are misrepresented in popular media.

One reviewer of the book wrote, “In his well-researched and superbly written but oddly titled Born Fighting, James Webb tells us of the Scots’ journey from the Highlands to Appalachia with a pit stop in Ireland lasting a couple of centuries.

“A more serious clump of humanity would be hard to find, grimly determined in a constant search for sin and the uprooting of same. This saga of Webb and his people tries to make a case for ‘The Fighting Scots Irish,’ which appellation ‘The Fighting Irish’ have tried to flee for over a century, despite that dopey, drunken icon of the Notre Dame football team.”

At last a senator for the Unionist people in Northern Ireland to call their own? Perhaps.

Another interesting newcomer obviously is Bob Casey from Scranton, Pennsylvania, one of the most Irish spots in America where 38% of the population trace their ancestry to Ireland.