WASHINGTON - House Speaker Nancy Pelosi averted a potentially divisive leadership fight between two of her top lieutenants as Democrats prepared for minority status next year.
Under an arrangement reached late Friday, Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the current majority leader, would get the No. 2 job of minority whip in January. Jim Clyburn, now majority whip, would hold the third-ranking position in the newly created post of assistant leader.
Pelosi, 70, who would be minority leader in the deal, announced the plan in a note emailed Saturday to fellow Democrats. Clyburn's "strategic leadership as whip was crucial to our passage of historic legislation on jobs, health care, veterans and Wall Street reform on behalf of the American people," she said.
Hoyer, 71, had announced Nov. 8 that he would seek to retain his No. 2 position in the leadership ranks and Clyburn, 70, the lone African-American among the Democratic hierarchy, had said he, too, would run for minority whip.
Clyburn said in a statement Saturday that the arrangement "honors the diversity and fosters the unity" of House Democrats by "adding another chair to the leadership table with a substantive, well-defined portfolio."
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