By Catharine Richert, CQ Staff

With the election over, Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman ’s fate is in the hands of his former party colleagues.

Democratic leaders are mulling a plan to strip the Connecticut Independent of his Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee gavel, though there is a good chance he will retain a subcommittee chairmanship, Democratic aides say.

Majority Leader Harry Reid , D-Nev., hopes to meet with Lieberman this week, according to spokesman Jim Manley. Taking away Lieberman’s chairmanship would require a vote of the full party caucus, which won’t assemble until Nov. 17.

Lieberman, the 2000 Democratic vice presidential nominee, has caucused with Democrats and voted with them on most issues since he won re-election as an independent in 2006 after losing the Democratic primary to an Iraq War critic. But Lieberman, a hawk on the war, this year threw his support to GOP presidential nominee John McCain of Arizona.

That raised eyebrows, but when Lieberman started criticizing the Democratic nominee, Barack Obama of Illinois, and barnstorming the country at McCain’s side, Democrats grew increasingly angry.

Less than 24 hours after Obama’s election, Lieberman in a statement pledged to work with the new president.

“Now that the election is over, it is time to put partisan considerations aside and come together as a nation to solve the difficult challenges we face and make our blessed land stronger and safer,” he said.

Lieberman’s chairmanship allows him to examine operations of every arm of the executive branch. If he kept the job, he would have oversight of a Democratic administration that he campaigned against.

Senate Democrats are inching closer to a filibuster-proof majority of 60 votes, so it is unlikely that Lieberman will be asked to leave the caucus altogether.

“It will probably be left to Lieberman” to decide whether to continue caucusing with his old party, one Democratic aide said.

Lieberman this year has sided with Democrats about 80 percent of the time on issues dividing the two parties. Since Lieberman’s vote will continue to be valuable, it behooves Reid to keep him close, said Donald Green, a political science professor at Yale University.

“The question for Reid is, how much do you placate members who don’t like Lieberman?” he said. “You don’t want to do anything but butter him up.”

Lieberman has been generous to Democrats as well. In this election cycle, he raised almost $512,000 and contributed $200,000 of it to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.