1.   Henry Hyde, R-Ill., who is platform committee chairman, is still hoping to defuse the explosive issue.

2.   House Republican Conference rules prohibit a censured lawmaker from being a committee chairman or holding a leadership post.

3.   In both houses, the reformers claimed, committee chairmen exercised disproportionate power.

4.   In the same period the power of standing committee chairmen was further eroded by the institutionalization and proliferation of sub-committees.

5.   Seniority provides committee chairmen with an independent power base and helps to insulate them from control by party leaders and presidents.

6.   There will be a new committee chairman next year.

7.   They had held a site meeting on Thursday and he had turned up instead of the committee chairman they were expecting.

8.   Urged to present their own reduction package, some Democrats, such as House budget committee chairman Leon Panetta, were prepared to do so.

9.   The Cabinet changes aroused concern in the US Congress, where they were described as a constitutional coup by the House of Representatives government operations committee chairman John Conyers.

10.   US Senate armed services committee chairman Sam Nunn asked the Defence Department to conduct a further investigation, citing the statement in the ABC broadcast by Adml.