John McCain, second from top right, would likely be the Armed Services chair. | AP Photos Senate chairmen in a GOP majority

Appropriations: Thad Cochran

Fresh from his narrow win in Mississippi over tea party challenger Chris McDaniel, Cochran will be under pressure to load up the appropriations bills with as many challenges to the Obama administration as possible. But he’ll also have to make sure that none of them gets so overloaded with ideological battles that they can’t get 60 votes. For now, he’s sticking to generalities: The power to write the appropriations bills “gives us an opportunity to examine everything,” he told POLITICO.


Budget: Jeff Sessions

The Alabama senator would be in charge of one of the most powerful tools Senate Republicans would have: the writing of budget reconciliation legislation, which could allow them to pass sweeping changes to entitlements, the Tax Code and Obamacare with just 51 votes. Sessions and his aides aren’t talking about their plans, but he has been lukewarm about Paul Ryan’s House budgets in the past, so it’s not clear that he’d back entitlement reforms that track closely with Ryan’s ideas.

Finance: Orrin Hatch

Hatch is one of the only Republicans to propose a comprehensive alternative to Obamacare, which he would be sure to push as a replacement. But he might not be able to sell it to Senate Republicans, since some think any Obamacare replacement should be a series of smaller bills, rather than one big bill. While he’d be a thorn in President Barack Obama’s side on health care, he could be an ally on trade: He has introduced legislation to give the president trade promotion authority.

Health, Education, Labor and Pensions: Lamar Alexander

He’d go after the Obama administration over its frequent use of waivers from the No Child Left Behind law and what he considers a maze of federal rules that has effectively created a “national school board.” His agenda includes a rewrite of No Child Left Behind, private school vouchers and cutting back regulations in higher education. He might push a bill he’s introduced with Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet that would significantly shorten the application for federal financial aid.

Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs: Richard Shelby

The Alabama Republican is willing to roll back some rules under the DoddFrank law and says there’s “a lot of stuff we could do that the Democrats would probably support.” But he’s no friend of big banks: He voted against the Troubled Asset Relief Program and for a 2010 measure that would have broken up the country’s biggest banks.

Agriculture: Pat Roberts (likely)

The succession is less clear because Roberts is the third-ranking Republican, but he’s the most likely chairman because top Republican Thad Cochran would take Appropriations and the No. 2 Republican, Mitch McConnell, would be busy running the Senate. If Roberts gets the chairmanship — assuming he survives an increasingly tough reelection bid — he’d be likely to support food stamp cuts: He tried unsuccessfully to cut the program by 4 percent last year, arguing that “we can and should restore integrity to [the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program] for those who rely on it while being more responsible to the taxpayer.”

Armed Services: John McCain

Obama’s 2008 opponent has made no secret that he wants the chairmanship, telling POLITICO in May that “anyone who tries to challenge me should hire someone to start their car.” If he gets it, McCain would be able to hold hearings on the Obama administration’s Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant strategy and press his case for more aggressive military action. He’d also be a thorn in the administration’s side over weapons systems he considers ineffective.

Environment and Public Works: James Inhofe

The Oklahoma Republican would be sure to hold aggressive oversight hearings on the EPA’s greenhouse gas regulations, but that’s just for starters. He says he’d also file challenges against every final EPA rule under the Congressional Review Act, which allows Congress to block regulations unless Obama vetoes the measures. He thinks he’d be able to peel away Democrats who will want to distance themselves from Obama in 2016.

Commerce, Science and Transportation: John Thune

Thune would likely hold early hearings on a rewrite of the 1996 Telecommunications Act. It probably wouldn’t get done next year, but he could start the process by emphasizing deregulation and making it easier for House Republicans to do the same. And it probably would be the end of the road for Obama administration initiatives like an online “Privacy Bill of Rights.” Thune has said he wants to “preserve the light-touch regime, first implemented by the Clinton administration, that has been so successful in making us the digital envy of the world.”

Energy and Natural Resources: Lisa Murkowski

The Alaska Republican isn’t exactly the fiery, Obama-bashing type, but she’d be at the center of the push to approve the Keystone XL pipeline, as well as efforts to open up more offshore oil and gas exploration. She might also make a new push to advance the energy efficiency bill by Republican Sen. Rob Portman and Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen.

Foreign Relations: Bob Corker

Corker has criticized Obama for being an “unreliable ally” and is clearly annoyed at the president for withdrawing his request for congressional authorization to launch military strikes against Syria last year — after Corker took a political risk by supporting it. He also wants Obama to get tougher with Russia and says he should have given aid to the Syrian rebels sooner. Still, Corker is able to work with Democrats and has a good relationship with the current chairman, Robert Menendez, that could take some of the edge off of future foreign policy debates.

Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs: Ron Johnson (likely)

This is another committee for which the direct succession is unclear, but Johnson, currently the third-ranking Republican, believes he’ll get the chairmanship because Tom Coburn is retiring and McCain wants Armed Services. If Johnson heads the committee, he says he would push to modernize regulations and set “achievable goals” on issues like immigration reform. He also says he would avoid “show trial” hearings and try to set a bipartisan tone in the committee. One big question mark is who would head an important subcommittee, the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. McCain is the top Republican right now, but spokesman Brian Rogers says that while McCain “has found the work on PSI quite fulfilling, he hasn’t yet made any decisions on what to do on that, and likely won’t until after the midterms.”

Intelligence: Richard Burr (in line)

The North Carolina Republican would have to choose between two possible chairmanships: Intelligence, for which he’s next in line behind retiring Republican Saxby Chambliss, and Veterans’ Affairs, where he’s already at the top of the GOP ranks. Burr tells POLITICO he hasn’t made up his mind what he would do under a GOP majority: “I’ll wait and see if it happens.” As Intelligence chairman, Burr would be likely to take a close look at the ISIL threat, which he says he’s concerned with because intelligence agencies don’t know how

many of those terrorists might hold U.S. passports. If he doesn’t take the Intelligence chairmanship, James Risch of Idaho would be next in line.

Judiciary: Chuck Grassley

The Iowa Republican has been dedicated to aggressive oversight for many years, and he’d be sure to use the gavel to go after the Obama administration with multiple investigations — including, possibly, reviving the probes into the bungled Fast and Furious gunrunning operation. “Let’s get to the bottom of something that’s been out there a long time — Fast and Furious. Let’s get to the bottom of IRS,” he said. He also wants to strengthen protections for government whistleblowers.

Small Business: James Risch

Like other Republicans, Risch is a critic of the impact of regulations on small businesses, especially Obamacare rules. The Idaho Republican is a sponsor of a bill that would allow small businesses and others to keep providing health coverage through self-insurance plans, a mechanism he says would be undermined by Obamacare. For the most part, though, he sticks to ideological generalities, like promoting his record of voting against Obama’s agenda.

Veterans’ Affairs: Richard Burr (in line)

If Burr takes the Veterans’ Affairs chairmanship, he’d be a tough critic of the Veterans Administration and an advocate of changing the bureaucratic culture there, following up on the VA reform law he worked on with current Chairman Bernie Sanders. But he’d also have some fences to mend with veterans groups that he accused of not being tough enough on former VA Secretary Eric Shinseki as the agency’s scandal developed. If Burr were to choose the Intelligence chairmanship instead, Johnny Isakson of Georgia would be next in line.