Reyes to Head House Intelligence Panel
Incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi today chose Rep. Silvestre Reyes to head the House intelligence committee.

Reyes, D-Texas, a Vietnam veteran and former Border Patrol agent, is seen as a compromise choice after it became clear Pelosi would replace Rep. Jane Harman of California, the committee’s current ranking Democrat, who has clashed with her personally and politically.

Reyes is viewed by most as a moderate in his party. (this "moderate" earned a ZERO rating on U.S. Border Control's Congressional Scorecard)

Reyes has focused his committee work on border security. He talks about the need for diversity in the intelligence community and information sharing between the agencies. He also counts among his priorities the development of more intelligence gathering by human spies as well as the purchase of sophisticated spy technology.

Reyes pledged to work in a bipartisan fashion on the committee, which has frequently been torn by strife between Republicans and Democrats. The panel was structured around the notion that intelligence oversight should be free of politics.

Editor's note: Just when I was starting to believe that Nancy Pelosi would honor her pledge to clean up the Congress, she lets Reyes, the same Reyes whose daughter got a sweetheart no-bid contract for her company to build a $200 million dollar surveillance system for the Canadian-US border -- a system that never worked?