At the behest of President Bush, members of the Republican National Committee Saturday unanimously elected political consultant Richard Bond chairman of the Republican National Committee, replacing Clayton Yeutter.
Yeutter, 62, will become counselor to the president and head of a newly created White House Domestic Policy Coordinating Group and will have Cabinet status.The president dropped by an RNC reception Friday evening at the Capitol Hilton Hotel to anoint Bond, 41, who has worked in Bush campaigns for the past 10 years, and to announce the Yeutter appointment. The 160 members of the committee elected Bond at the conclusion of its three-day annual winter meeting.
White House press secretary Marlin Fitzwater, who relayed the appointments to reporters Friday, said Bond will take a leave of absence from his consulting firm.
Under the new setup, the Domestic Policy Committee and the Cabinet Economic Policy subcommittee, headed by Treasury Secretary Nicholas Brady, are being consolidated into one Domestic Policy Coordinating Group.
Brady, who had resisted moves putting Yeutter in charge of economic policy at the White House and diminishing his own role, will remain as the president's "chief economic spokesman," Fitzwater said.
Fitzwater said the new policy coordinating group will be led by Bush and operated by Yeutter, who served for two years in the Bush Cabinet as agriculture secretary and was U.S. trade representative in the Reagan administration.