"In an apparent effort to to ease the tension over Arlen Specter's bumpy transition into the Senate Democratic caucus, Sen. Dick Durbin is willing to voluntarily relinquish his chairmanship on a Judiciary subcommittee to Specter," sources tell NBC News.
Specter will become the Chairman of the Crime and Drug Subcommittee.
Roll Call: "The Subcommittee on Crime and Drugs is considered the most prestigious
of the subpanels on Judiciary, because it has jurisdiction over as much
as 70 percent of the Justice Department's budget and is responsible for
writing crime and drug sentencing laws."