By Jonathan Allen, CQ Staff

Rep. Christopher H. Smith, R-N.J., became a victim of his own successful battles to increase spending for veterans — and a living warning to recalcitrant Republicans — when House GOP leaders voted Wednesday to dump him from the chairmanship of the Veterans’ Affairs Committee.

Smith frequently clashed with Republican leaders over funding levels for veterans’ programs, winning many friends in the veterans’ community but souring his relations with the leadership.

After the formality of a full Republican Conference vote, Rep. Steve Buyer, R-Ind., will become the panel’s chairman, marking the first time since they took power a decade ago that Republicans have deposed a sitting chairman.

Although many lawmakers were reluctant to say it, Buyer’s late-breaking campaign is tangible evidence of Republican leaders’ increasing boldness in punishing those, like Smith, who do not toe the line.

“You’ll have to read the tea leaves on that one,” said Rep. Harold Rogers, a Kentucky Republican who sits on the Steering Committee.

“Our Speaker’s very even-handed,” said Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-Calif., who won the chairmanship of the Appropriations Committee Wednesday. “I don’t think he sends those kinds of messages.”

But others saw the imprimatur of the leadership embedded in Buyer’s bid.

“I felt if Mr. Buyer threw his hat in the ring, he had leadership support and if he had leadership support it was going to happen,” said Joseph A. Violante, legislative director for Disabled American Veterans, one of several veterans’ advocacy groups that wrote to Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., in support of Smith earlier this week.

“The unnecessary loss of his leadership, knowledge, skill, honesty, passion and work ethic would be a deeply disturbing development not just to us, but to millions of veterans across the country whose lives he has touched,” veterans’ advocates wrote in a Jan. 3 letter. They noted that Smith had two years remaining before term limits would necessitate his departure.

In announcing the move, Hastert said Buyer, a Persian Gulf War veteran, has “real world” experience and “understands the issues confronting today’s veterans” battling terrorism.

Still, unlike Smith, Buyer, the current chairman of the panel’s Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, is viewed suspiciously by some in the veterans’ community.

“I don’t think we’re going to see a strong advocate in Mr. Buyer,” Violante said. “I think he’s going to follow the party leadership and what their agenda is, as opposed to what’s best for veterans.”

‘Different Vision’

But Buyer, who is a colonel in the Army Reserve, said Wednesday he plans to “ensure that we honor our veterans.”

Buyer said he has “a different vision” than Smith of how to integrate health care systems for active service members and veterans.

House Majority Whip Roy Blunt, R-Mo., cited that vision as a reason why the Steering Committee — the panel assigned to determining chairmanships — chose Buyer over Smith.

Where Smith gained a reputation for working well with Democrats to highlight veterans’ issues, Buyer’s often pugnacious partisanship has fueled speculation that the committee’s trenches will be dug deep.

“It’s safe to say the committee will likely be more partisan than it has been in the past,” said a Democratic aide.

After a dozen years in Washington, Buyer is known as a tough-talking conservative who enjoys sparring with liberals on abortion, gun control or whatever else is the most polarizing issue of the moment. He was picked in 1998 by Speaker Newt Gingrich to rally somewhat reluctant House Republicans for their impeachment crusade against President Clinton, and he remained defiant when the effort fell short the next year.

But despite his sometimes tense exchanges with Democrats, he has demonstrated an ability to work with his political adversaries.

In the 106th Congress, Buyer, then the chairman of the Armed Services Subcommittee on Military Personnel, played a pivotal role — with bipartisan support — in the enactment of pay raises, a more generous retirement system and an expanded health care system for military retirees.

A New Blueprint

Though Smith had frequently butted heads with the leadership, his ouster seemed unlikely until Buyer scheduled an interview with the Steering Committee this week. Even some of Buyer’s close friends in Congress said they had not heard of his aspirations as recently as Monday.

Blunt said Republican leaders have developed the interview process as a way of indicating that assignment to a chairmanship is a “only a two-year contract.”

Rep. Zach Wamp, R-Tenn., who sat in on the Steering Committee proceedings Wednesday in place of Rogers, said the process of selecting chairmen has improved since he served on that panel a decade ago.

“There’s more accountability built into the process,” he said. Chairmanships are determined “based on the job you’re doing, the work you’re doing, the positions you’re taking.”

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