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The new Republican chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Lamar Smith of Texas, has passed over an outspoken immigration hard-liner and member of the Tea Party caucus for chairman of the immigration subcommittee.

In an announcement Friday, Mr. Smith unexpectedly gave the job of chairman of the subcommittee on Immigration Policy and Enforcement to Representative Elton Gallegly, a conservative Republican from California.

Representative Steve King of Iowa, who was the senior Republican on the subcommittee in the last Congress and was expected to take over as chairman, was named vice chairman instead. Mr. King is known for his high-profile support for measures to crack down on illegal immigration.

In an interview late Friday, Mr. King made no secret of his surprise and disappointment. “I don’t know I can explain it,” he said.

“But the speaker has clearly said that our legislative agenda is the Pledge to America,” Mr. King said, referring to the newly inaugurated Speaker of the House, John A. Boehner of Ohio, and a manifesto Republicans endorsed before the November elections, in which they won a strong majority in that chamber. Mr. King was critical of the pledge, saying, “There is no immigration agenda in it, period.”

He added, “If that is the speaker’s will — that there be no immigration agenda — then this decision would begin to be rational.”

An aide on the Judiciary Committee said Mr. Smith had followed protocol, since Mr. Gallegly was more senior than Mr. King on the full committee. The aide, who asked to speak anonymously following guidance from Mr. Smith, said Mr. Gallegly had requested the immigration subcommittee post.

In practice, Mr. Gallegly does not differ substantially with Mr. King on immigration. Mr. Gallegly, who represents a southern California district, supports tough border enforcement and opposes measures to give legal status to illegal immigrants. He has described himself as one of the “top 10 illegal immigration hawks in Congress.”

But Mr. King, as top Republican on the subcommittee, had made immigration a hallmark issue, appearing frequently in the media to denounce illegal immigrants and recount crime waves and job losses he said they had brought to the country.

Coming from Texas, Mr. Smith has been more sympathetic than Mr. King to Republican concerns that harsh rhetoric on immigration could alienate Latino voters. A chorus of Latinos said Thursday they were offended by Mr. King’s bill to deny birthright citizenship to children of illegal immigrants.

“We urge our conservative brothers and sisters to be careful regarding the message that they are sending to the fastest growing segment of our society,” said Juan Hernandez, a founder of Conservatives for Comprehensive Immigration Reform, a group that favors legalization for illegal immigrants.

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Happy New Year. You may have been a bit too bleary-eyed from New Year’s Eve reveling to catch the best political commentary of the weekend, but we at The Caucus weren’t. Here’s a quick roundup.

1. Representative Darrell Issa, Republican of California, has made it clear that he intends to be a pain in the rear to the Obama administration when he takes over as chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. But on Sunday, he walked back – just a bit – from his statement (on Rush Limbaugh’s radio show) that President Obama was “the most corrupt president in modern times.” What he meant, he told Ed Henry of CNN, was that the Obama administration is “one of the most corrupt administrations.”

2. Senator Lindsay Graham of South Carolina perfected the art of bad-mouthing Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, when Mr. Graham was stumping for Senator John McCain of Arizona during the 2008 campaign. But Mr. Graham now thinks the 2012 Republican nomination is Mr. Romney’s to lose. “Probably Romney.” Mr. Graham said after being asked on NBC’s “Meet the Press” who the leading Republican contender was. “Mitt Romney has got his problems as a candidate, but so does everyone else.”

3. Austan Goolsbee,chairman of the president’s council of economic advisers, had a “welcome to Washington” message for Tea Party lawmakers on Sunday: Don’t mess with the debt ceiling. Mr. Goolsbee chided the new lawmakers for suggesting that they might vote against raising the amount the country can borrow. “This is not — this is not a game. You know, the debt ceiling is not — is not something to toy with,” Mr. Goolsbee said on ABC’s “This Week” program. “If we hit the debt ceiling, that’s the — essentially defaulting on our obligations, which is totally unprecedented in American history. The impact on the economy would be catastrophic. I mean, that would be a worse financial economic crisis than anything we saw in 2008.”

4. Elections have consequences, and Representative Fred Upton of Michigan on Sunday promised that Republicans in the House would make good on their promise to vote to repeal Mr. Obama’s health care legislation before the president’s State of the Union speech this month. “Watch what happens,” Mr. Upton, who will be chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, predicted on the “Fox News Sunday” program. “There will be a significant number of Democrats, I think, that will join us.”

5. Back from his family trip to Disney World, Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey  defended his absence from the state during the recent snow storm. At a New Year’s Eve press conference, an indignant Mr. Christie said that he had “made a promise to my children that at the end of my first year of governor that I was going to take them to Disney World. My first and most important responsibility, in my view, is as a husband and a father.” He also took a shot at Newark’s Democratic mayor, Cory Booker, who traveled around his city trying to dig people out and sending Twitter messages about his efforts. “I have to tell you, I would have been doing the same thing here [in New Jersey] as I was there,” Mr. Christie said. “I would not have been out driving a plow, O.K.? I would have been in a room someplace on a telephone saying, ‘What’s going on? What do you need? Why is this happening or why isn’t this happening?’”

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Cliff Owen/Associated Press Michael Steele, Republican National Committee chairman, spoke during an election night gathering in Washington.

The men and women hoping to unseat Michael Steele as chairman of the Republican National Committee will gather in Washington on Monday for a face-to-face debate that could be a nasty airing of political laundry ahead of the committee’s vote later this month.

Mr. Steele, whose two-year tenure as party chairman has been marked by verbal gaffes and accusations of financial mismanagement, will appear alongside the four candidates who are challenging his leadership as the 2012 presidential campaign gets underway.

Until last weekend, there were five challengers. But late Sunday night, Gentry Collins, who had served as the committee’s political director under Mr. Steele, withdrew his bid for chairman, saying there were other credible candidates to replace his former boss.

Mr. Collins had failed to gain traction in his own bid, according to news media reports. But a memorandum announcing his resignation from the national committee last year, in which he denounced Mr. Steele’s leadership of the party, helped clear the way for the others. In a statement announcing his withdrawal from the race, Mr. Collins said as much.

“As it turns out,” he wrote, “I believe that the memo has been a game-changer for Chairman Steele’s re-election prospects.”

The remaining challengers are unlikely to hold back in their criticism of Mr. Steele, who has left the party with $19 million of debt since he took over at the beginning of President Obama’s term. Mr. Steele made unwanted news almost from the start; he criticized Rush Limbaugh, presided over a scandal involving payments to a bondage nightclub and angered party members by suggesting that he was opposed to the war in Afghanistan.

But candidates to replace Mr. Steele are also likely to take aim at one another as they seek the votes of the 168 members of the committee. The candidate with 85 or more votes from that group on Jan. 14 will become the official face of the Republican Party for the next two years.

Here is a quick rundown of the candidates who will appear alongside Mr. Steele at the event at the National Press Club on Monday. Come back to The Caucus later this afternoon for an update of who said what.

1. Maria Cino. A veteran of the Bush administration, she has the backing of former Vice President Dick Cheney, who recently held a fund-raiser on her behalf. A Republican Party insider for years, Ms. Cino was acting secretary of transportation for two years and presided over the 2008 Republican National Convention as chief executive.

After Mr. Steele announced that he would seek re-election as chairman, Ms. Cino said in a statement that the party was “now challenged by very serious issues: massive debt, outdated technology, diminished donor support, and a nonexistent voter registration program.”

In an open letter posted the day before Christmas, Ms. Cino defended herself against accusations that she was not sufficiently opposed to abortion. She accused her critics of planting “a false story,” and said, “I believe in upholding the culture of life, and therefore I strongly oppose legal abortion.”

2. Reince Priebus. The chairman of the Wisconsin Republican Party presided over huge Republican gains in his state on Election Day in November. The party ousted  Senator Russ Feingold, a Democrat, and seized control of both chambers of the statehouse and the governor’s mansion.

Mr. Priebus appears to have more public endorsements than any other candidate for chairman, and that has made him a target. In particular, some have questioned Mr. Priebus’s support for Mr. Steele throughout much of his tenure.

3. Ann Wagner. A longtime Missouri Republican official, Ms. Wagner was ambassador to Luxembourg under President Bush and was chairwoman of Roy Blunt’s Senate campaign.

In her announcement, Ms. Wagner said that “we must start immediately to erase past debt and to restore the confidence of our donor base.”

“We must have these resources in order to take back the White House and complete the job that was started this year,” she said.

4. Saul Anuzis. A longtime Republican Party official in Michigan and a former chairman of the state party, Mr. Anuzis lost a bid for national chairman to Mr. Steele two years ago. His Web site features a quotation  from former Speaker Newt Gingrich: “You have in Saul Anuzis one of the greatest state chairman in the Republican Party. His courage, hard work and determination is extraordinarily important.”

He also has the support of some Tea Party groups, including the Tea Party Nation.

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Gentry Collins, a former political director of the Republican National Committee who resigned in November after delivering a scathing condemnation of the party’s fund-raising practices, said Sunday that he was withdrawing his candidacy to succeed Michael Steele as chairman of the Republican Party.

Mr. Collins announced his decision on Sunday evening in an e-mail to members of the Republican National Committee. He did not offer an endorsement of any of the five remaining candidates, who are scheduled to appear at a debate on Monday afternoon in Washington.

“It is after much consideration and thought that I announce my withdrawal from the race for chairman of the R.N.C.,” Mr. Collins said in a statement. “I believe that there are several qualified candidates in the race for chairman, each of whom would do a fine job leading the committee through the 2012 election cycle.”

Mr. Collins, a respected Republican strategist who had worked alongside Mr. Steele for two years and often defended his stewardship of the committee, decided to run for the top Republican post himself after abruptly resigning in November. Mr. Collins positioned himself as an alternative to Mr. Steele, but several other candidates also emerged and drew more support from members of the Republican National Committee, who will elect a new leader at their winter meeting on Jan. 14.

The withdrawal of Mr. Collins, which was first reported Sunday evening by Politico, leaves five candidates in the race, including: Mr. Steele, who is seeking re-election; Reince Priebus, chairman of the Wisconsin Republican Party; Ann Wagner, a longtime Missouri Republican official; Maria Cino, a veteran Republican operative who worked in the administration of George W. Bush; and Saul Anuzis, a Michigan Republican official.

While Mr. Collins did not endorse another candidate, he said he believed that Mr. Steele should not win re-election to a second term. The other four remaining candidates, he said, “would move the committee in a positive direction.”

“We have a huge task in front of us. We must retain the majority in the House, we must gain a majority in the Senate and most importantly we must defeat Barack Obama, his policies and his ideology in 2012,” Mr. Collins said in his statement. “I am confident that the members of the Republican National Committee will make the right decision.

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Michael Steele’s rivals offered even tougher criticism of the Republican National Committee chairman after Monday’s five-way debate ended than they did during the 90-minute exchange.

Ann Wagner, a former Bush administration official expressed frustration at not being able to question Mr. Steele directly about his handling of the party’s finances.

“I just wish there had been more time for some honest discussion about the money that was given or not given to the states,” Ms. Wagner told The Caucus after the National Press Club debate.

“He purports raising 170-something million dollars,” she said of Mr. Steele. “But the fact of the matter is the cost of the fund-raising was astronomical. And only $13 million went out to the states in terms of their victory programs and that is a pittance.”

Ms. Wagner and three other challengers largely refrained from direct attacks on Mr. Steele during the debate. Saul Anuzis, the former chairman of the Michigan Republican party, said the reason was a “question and answer type of a format that really limits you.”

Mr. Anuzis said after the debate, “the record speaks for itself. We know what happened. We know what the successes and the failures were.”

Ms. Wagner was more blunt: “While we had historic victories last cycle, I would submit to you that the Republican National Committee had very little to do with it,” she said. “Everything lays at the feet of the chairman. The buck stops there, and it is his jobs to raise the money, to go out and raise the donor money and fully fund the R.N.C.”

In a scrum with reporters after the debate, Mr. Steele brushed aside the criticisms of his leadership, saying they were expected.

“We laid out a very good record and we have a very good record to run on,” he told reporters. “And 168 members of the committee will be the ultimate arbiters of whether that is enough.”

The debate, which was hosted by Americans for Tax Reform and The Daily Caller, a political news Web site, offered viewers a mostly friendly affair, as the five candidates on the stage broadly agreed on the need to adhere to conservative principles and do better at raising money.

The largest applause went to Maria Cino, a veteran of the Bush administration, when she declared that one of the biggest mistakes by Republicans was passage of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law.

There were some humorous moments, such as when Ms. Wagner thought the candidates were asked to name their favorite bar. She stumbled and eventually said, “my kitchen table, probably.” (The question was: “What is your favorite book.”)

Asked how many guns they own, Mr. Steele and Ms. Cino said “none.” Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Wisconsin Republican party, said proudly, “five.” And then Ms. Wagner announced that her family had just purchased a new gun safe for her 16 guns, including a pistol, a glock, shotguns, rifles and an assault rifle for her son at West Point.

“I feel very inadequate at four,” deadpanned Mr. Anuzis.

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Drew Angerer/The New York Times From left, Reince Priebus; Michael Steele, the current chairman; Maria Cino; Saul Anuzis; and Ann Wagner debate for the chance to head the Republican National Committee.

As he battles to retain his position as chairman of the Republican National Committee, Michael Steele on Monday defended his rocky two-year tenure while his rivals decried the party apparatus as broke and lacking credibility with its donors and its conservative base.

Speaking at a five-way debate in Washington, Mr. Steele expressed frustration with his challengers’ description of the Republican Party, which was unable to pay for voter turnout operations in 2010.

“You’re right — we did not have a lot of volunteers out of Washington,” he said, noting that money was funneled to state parties instead. “But we had 200,000 volunteers across the country.”

Of the party’s turnout efforts, he added: “The idea that we didn’t fully fund it is kind of a misnomer, because we really did.”

Mr. Steele, whose time as chairman has been marred by verbal gaffes and accusations of failed fund-raising, is trying to hold on to his job by casting himself as the person most able to broaden the party’s reach as Republicans prepare for the 2012 presidential campaign.

But his four rivals at the debate said the party was in need of new leadership, and they focused in particular on the party’s mounting debt, now at nearly $20 million.

“It’s time for tough love,” said Ann Wagner, a former Bush administration official. She said the Republican National Committee was “broken, and it needs to be fixed.”

Saul Anuzis, a former chairman of the Michigan Republican Party, said the R.N.C. was “at a moment of crisis,” adding that “we have to elect more Republicans and make sure that we can fund the job of what needs to get done.”

Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Wisconsin Republican Party, said flatly that the party “needs to restore the trust and the confide of our major donors, our grass-roots activist.”

Mr. Steele’s rivals took few direct shots at him during the first half of the debate, preferring to talk broadly about the challenges facing the party.

But there was little doubt in the ballroom at the National Press Club that the central question of the debate was whether Mr. Steele should be booted out against his will.

Mr. Steele stressed his belief that the party should reach out to Hispanics and African Americans to try to widen the party’s appeal.

“When we stop talking to our friends in the Latino and the African-American communities,” he said, “that’s when we really start to lose.”

But his rivals responded by catering to conservatives and Tea Party activists. Mr. Priebus promoted Republican successes in Wisconsin this year, explaining that “we can turn a state red by sticking to the principles of our party.”

“A lot of us in this room were tired of going to the polls and holding our noses,” Mr Priebus added.

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