A look at the new leadership in Senate

[Ron Burgundy]

AP - A look at the new Democratic leaders and committee chairmen in the U.S. Senate when a new Congress convenes in January. Senate Democrats, including new members elected this week, will caucus next Tuesday to formally pick their leaders.

___

Majority Leader: Harry Reid, D-Nev. Reid's no-nonsense, plainspoken style reflects his origins, growing up in a cabin in the tiny community of Searchlight, Nev. Once an amateur boxer and an official fighting organized crime in his home state, he won a House seat in 1982 and four years later moved to the Senate. Reid, 66, served as former Democratic leader Tom Daschle's deputy for six years until Daschle lost his re-election bid in 2004. Since becoming Democratic leader in 2005, Reid has continued to fight for Democratic causes such as an increase in the minimum wage and opposition to President Bush's tax cuts. But, as a practicing Mormon, he has also at times sided with Republicans on legislation opposing abortion.

___

Assistant Majority Leader: Dick Durbin, D-Ill. Durbin, 62, joined the staff of former Illinois Democratic Sen. Paul Simon after graduating from law school, and in 1982 entered the House as a representative from the Springfield area. He served seven terms in the House before succeeding Simon, who retired from the Senate in 1996. A lawmaker with strong liberal credentials and a smooth speaking style, he frequently represents his party on TV talk shows. A skilled parliamentarian, he also was a natural successor to then-party whip Harry Reid when Reid became Democratic leader in 2005. Durbin has been an advocate of gun control and was an early critic of how the war in Iraq was being carried out.

___

Agriculture: Tom Harkin, D-Iowa. Harkin, 66, remains an idealistic but pragmatic liberal after more than two decades in the Senate. He was a principal author of the landmark Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. His previous brief chairmanship of the committee and championing of farm subsidies helped him four years ago overpower a conservative challenger in a swing state.

___

Appropriations: Robert Byrd, D-W.Va. Byrd, the longest-serving member of the U.S. Senate, has held more Senate party leadership positions -- including two terms as majority leader -- than anyone. Now 88, he has grown increasingly liberal since his first statewide race in 1946. Byrd joined the Appropriations committee in 1959 and chaired it from 1989 to 1994 and again in 2001. His control of the panel and its role in federal spending prompted critics to label him "the king of pork-barrel politics."

___

Armed Services: Carl Levin, D-Mich. Levin, 72, is the longest-serving U.S. senator from Michigan. A Harvard-trained lawyer with a strong work ethic, he has been a persistent critic of the Bush administration's handling of the war in Iraq, leading an unsuccessful June 2006 effort to pass a nonbinding proposal urging Bush to begin withdrawal of troops from Iraq by the end of the year. He has a liberal voting record on many social issues.

___

Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs: Christopher Dodd, D-Conn. Ranking Democrat Paul Sarbanes, 73, is retiring after his current term, leaving his chairmanship open if Democrats win the Senate. Dodd is next in line, and would most likely sacrifice the Rules and Administration chairmanship to take the gavel here. Dodd, 62, is a liberal pragmatist who has sought Democratic leadership posts in the past.

___

Budget: Kent Conrad, D-N.D. Known for his love of charts and a passion for the budget process, Conrad, 58, is a moderate Democrat who has been a vocal critic of many of the Bush administration's fiscal policies. He worked to reduce the federal budget deficit and is particularly critical of U.S. debt to other countries. He briefly became chairman of the Senate Budget Committee when Democrats gained control of the Senate in 2001, but resumed his role as vocal opposition leader when the Republicans regained their majority status in 2003.

___

Commerce, Science, and Transportation: Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii. Inouye, 82, the first Japanese-American to serve in Congress, broke racial barriers on Capitol Hill. Known as a private man, Inouye lost an arm in World War II and was awarded the Medal of Honor for bravery in 2000. He lost a bid to become Senate majority leader in 1989, but remained a Senate power broker -- he holds a seat on the Appropriations Committee and once chaired the Indian Affairs Committee.

___

Energy and Natural Resources: Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M. Bingaman, 63, has carved out a reputation on Capitol Hill as a no-frills legislator who eschews the limelight. Bingaman helped craft and supported the 2005 energy bill, although he had wanted more incentives, including tax breaks, for conservation and development of renewable energy sources. He complained bitterly in 2003 when Republicans shut Democrats out of energy negotiations and said that was one reason legislation failed to pass that year.

___

Environment and Public Works: Barbara Boxer, D-Calif. Republican-turned-independent James Jeffords is the ranking minority member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, but he's retiring this year. It's unclear who will take the gavel, but the 65-year-old Boxer -- one of the Senate's most liberal members -- could be next in line. Committee Democrats with seniority over Boxer would likely opt for chairmanships elsewhere, such as in the case of Max Baucus, who would wield the gavel for the Finance Committee.

___

Finance: Max Baucus, D-Mont. Baucus, 64, has played increasingly visible roles in Congress, sometimes willing to buck his Democratic Party on certain issues. He supported the president's $1.35 trillion tax cut in 2001, when he briefly held the Finance Committee chairmanship after Sen. Jim Jeffords' defection from the GOP gave Democrats control of the Senate. He works well with the current Republican chairman. But in early 2005, Baucus loudly criticized the Bush's plan to add private accounts to Social Security.

___

Foreign Relations: Joseph Biden, D-Del. Biden, 63, a six-term senator and consistent Democratic voice, has chaired the Foreign Relations Committee before and is one of the most influential foreign policy voices in Congress. An internationalist and strong supporter of the United Nations, Biden's views on the war in Iraq frequently place him at odds with the administration and in front of the cameras on Sunday morning talk shows. He has called for the firing of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and opposed Bush's selection of John Bolton as U.N. ambassador.

___

Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions: Edward Kennedy, D-Mass. Kennedy, 74, the "liberal lion" of the Senate, continues to march into contentious rhetorical battles with his ideological opposition. He is a leading critic of Bush and his decision to go to war in Iraq and has criticized Bush's health care proposals. He stood beside Bush when he signed the No Child Left Behind education reform legislation, but Kennedy has since disparaged the bill's implementation.

___

Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs: Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn. Lieberman, 64, lost the 2006 Democratic primary to millionaire businessman Ned Lamont, who criticized Lieberman's support for the war in Iraq and linked him to the unpopular Bush. But Lieberman won the election as an independent and has pledged to align himself with Democrats.

___

Indian Affairs: Byron Dorgan, D-N.D. As a member of his party's leadership, Dorgan, 64, often appears torn between national Democrats in Washington and more conservative voters in North Dakota. As chairman of the Democratic Policy Committee, Dorgan has led hearings on government accountability issues related to the Iraq war and hurricanes on the Gulf Coast. But he was in the minority of Democrats who voted in 2002 to authorize force in Iraq and was one of only eight Democrats who voted to approve John Ashcroft as attorney general. A persistent populist critic of the rich and powerful, Dorgan made headlines in 2005 when he called for a windfall profits tax on major oil companies.

___

Judiciary: Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. Leahy, 66, has emerged as one of the leading critics of Bush administration policies ranging from judicial appointments to combating terrorism. When he was chairman in 2001, Republicans accused him of holding up judicial nominations -- and then said Leahy worked to slow them after Republicans took over. Leahy helped draft the Patriot Act after Sept. 11, but has criticized the Bush administration's implementation of it.

___

Rules and Administration: Connecticut's Dodd is most senior, but he would most likely sacrifice this chairmanship to take the Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs gavel. California Sen. Dianne Feinstein (news, bio, voting record), 73, a tough-talking, consensus-forging moderate, could become chairwoman.

___

Special Committee on Aging: Herb Kohl, D-Wis. Kohl, 71, a soft-spoken multimillionaire, has refused to accept money from special-interest groups and instead used his own personal wealth to fund his campaigns. He voted against Bush's plan to overhaul Medicare and create a prescription drug benefit and opposed Bush's proposed changes to Social Security.

___

Select Committee on Ethics: Tim Johnson, D-S.D. Johnson, 59, was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2004, only a year after beginning his second Senate term. An unassuming and quiet lawmaker, he has amassed a generally liberal voting record on Capitol Hill. But he calls himself a middle-of-the-road Democrat and supports conservative positions on social issues such as abortion.

___

Select Committee on Intelligence: Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va. Rockefeller, 69, often attacks Republicans on domestic issues, accusing them of ignoring the plight of workers and poor people. He voted against the nomination of former Rep. Porter Goss (news, bio, voting record), R-Fla., as CIA director, saying Goss was too partisan. He and the Intelligence Committee's current chairman, Pat Roberts of Kansas, issued a report critical of the CIA's and other spy agencies' prewar intelligence on Iraq, but the two men have had deep differences over how the White House has characterized intelligence in public statements.

___

Small Business and Entrepreneurship: John Kerry, D-Mass. Kerry, 63, the Democratic presidential nominee in 2004, will be able to add Small Business Committee chairman to his resume -- again -- if he runs for president -- again -- in 2008. Criticized for his fuzzy stand on Iraq, Kerry in October 2005 made headlines with his call for a phased withdraw of U.S. forces from Iraq by the end of 2006. And he touted the health care proposals he formulated as a presidential candidate from his post in the Senate.

___

Veterans Affairs: Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii. Akaka, the first Native Hawaiian ever elected to Congress, has spent his low-key career protecting the interests of his state and Native Hawaiians. In 1995, Akaka, 82, sponsored legislation directing the Army and Navy to review service records of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders who received the Distinguished Service Cross to determine whether their awards should be upgraded. As a result of the review, in June 2000, 22 Asian-American veterans of World War II, most of them from Hawaii, were awarded the Medal of Honor -- 15 of them posthumously.