McKeon wins three-way race for Armed Services slot

Rep. Buck McKeon (Calif.) has won a three-way race to become the top Republican on the Armed Services Committee.

{mosads}McKeon, a close ally of Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), will replace Rep. John McHugh (R-N.Y.), who has been tapped by President Obama to become secretary of the Army. McKeon triumphed in the GOP Steering Committee vote over Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) and Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-Md.), who had the most seniority in the race.

Steering Committee member and Thornberry ally Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) said that McKeon won the ranking member position by an extremely narrow margin.

McKeon will need to give up his post as ranking member of the Education and Labor Committee. The most senior GOP members on that panel are Reps. Tom Petri (Wis.), Pete Hoekstra (Mich.) and Mike Castle (Del.). Hoekstra is ranking member on the Intelligence Committee, so he could not nab the spot unless he gave up that perch. Some conservatives are wary of giving the ranking-member slot to Petri or Castle, who are considered centrists.

This is not the first time McKeon has leapfrogged over another Republican with more seniority. In 2006, McKeon was named chairman of what was then called the Education and the Workforce Committee. In that race, Petri had more seniority but McKeon was tapped after Boehner vacated his Education panel chairmanship to become majority leader.

This article was updated at 3:32 p.m.