Dennis Kucinich (left) wants to take the top slot on the Oversight Committee from Ed Towns. | AP photos Kucinich battles for oversight slot

In what’s expected to turn into a messy brawl among Democrats, Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich this morning released the letter he has been circulating to his party to take his party's top spot on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

Kucinich is looking to pick off New York Democratic Rep. Ed Towns, who has been the top Democrat on the panel for the past two years. The news of his letter was first reported Tuesday night by POLITICO.


The race will likely touch off a battle between Democratic leadership and the Congressional Black Caucus, which is hardly going to be pleased if one of its members loses a chairmanship.

Kucinich calls the vote for the top Democrat on the committee “perhaps the most crucial vote you will cast” as in the organization of the new Congress. That’s because the panel's incoming chairman, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), is planning a slew of investigations, and Kucinich thinks that Issa has made “wild and unsubstantiated charges which threaten to turn the principal oversight committee of the House into a witch hunt.”

Kucinich is laying out the pillars for his approach to the committee: no tolerance for “smears and innuendo,” a “team approach,” weekly updates of oversight, cooperation with Issa when he “proceeds in an even-handed manner,

Kucinich is not coy about his thoughts on Issa and hints that Towns isn’t up to the challenge.

“We cannot simply stand by idly and hope that such a reckless approach to the use of the power of the chair will not happen, especially since it is not only being promised, but demonstrated by the person who will hold the gavel,” Kucinich wrote.