News today in the Politico is that some Democrats are considering ousting Byrd as Appropriations Committee Chairman because he is too old for the job. His mobility and hearing problems make it very hard for him to conduct committee work, and this has caused significant problems this year.
Leaving aside this immediate news (Byrd has few fans here) the question for me is - why is he there? What is so sacred in seniority that it was automatically his turn?
Republicans in the Senate ditched this rule a decade ago, and in the House both parties use seniority as a factor only. If there is something that would prevent a senior member from assuming a chairmanship, he won’t (in theory) get it.
Byrd should leave the chair to a more able senator, and the rules for the Democrats should be changed to bring them into line with their colleagues in the House and on the other side of the aisle.
Are you suggesting seniority does not govern repug choices.
2005
Sen Intelligence- Pat Roberts
Commerce/science Ted Stevens
Health /welfare sen Enzi
finance/Grassley
wats and means…Bill Thomas
Env ub works…Inhofe
Banking…Sarbanes
Judicial …SPECTOR
Yep I see the difference.
It’s always good to see gonzo chiming in with his pointless links and his unique usage of the English language. For one, gonzo, there is no “Wats and Means” committee in the Senate. I think you mean the “Ways and Means” Committee, and that’s in the House. And Sarbanes at Banking is a Democrat. But don’t let facts stand in the way of your rant.
As far as seniority goes, yes, the GOP in general allows the highest ranking GOP member of a Committee to decide if he will take the chairmanship. But, as the Thurmond example shows, this is not always the case.
The seniority rule makes some sense. If you’ve been on the committee for decades, in theory you’ll have some expertise with the subjects under the committee’s baliwick. But with aged Senators like Byrd (who I believe is running for re-election next year, amazingly enough) and Thurmond, there is a question about how well these folks can truly do their job. Thurmond got by in his last years due mainly to staff support. If Byrd is re-elected, I’d venture that he will soon be mainly a mouthpiece for staff. A Senator can get by in this way, but not the chair of a committee. They should do away with the rule. Even if they do, they can still generally defer to senior members like the GOP does but can avoid sticky issues like those posed by Byrd.
gonzomax, aside from your oh-so-incredibly witty malapropism (I see what you did there – you called Republicans “repugs”!), are you seriously saying, “Because the Republicans do it” as the answer to why the DemonRats do what they do?
(I did it to! I’m ever-so-clever!)
It seems to me to be nothing more than a very powerful tradition that is on its way to being slowly chipped away at. Problem is, the people who are chipping away at it are the ones who will ultimately benefit from it, so they don’t seem to be in that much of a hurry.
We have a two party system. I let the Republicans make their own rules. I am not a republican so I could care less how they choose their leaders. In case you didn’t know…
I did not know you could care less how Republicans choose their leaders. How much do you care now?
The U.S. Senate includes members from both of those parties, doesn’t it? Both parties play a role in running the country, don’t they? Seems only reasonable that if you’re going to take an interest in how the country is run, you’re going to ask questions about a group that totals nearly half of the people who make it happen.
The problem also is that if they target Byrd, Byrd has the ability to screw them. As the chair of the Appropriations Committee he is largely responsible for how much pork is allotted to Democrats in the Senate. If you go after him (even indirectly) it is certainly conceivable that your requests will suddenly disappear from an appropriations bill.
Ok I couldn’t care less smart ass, feel better? But no, I am not a republican so it is not my business how they pick their leaders. If I cared I could join the republican party. Thats what two party system means.
My point is that because our system is set up such that both parties participate in government (and the way it is now, in many cases nearly 50-50), it’s doesn’t make much sense to ignore half of the people who make the laws, no matter which side you’re on.
“Hey man, half your apartment building is on fire!”
But it’s our country. The committee chairpersons in Congress are not just Democratic Party leaders, they’re national leaders in public-policy formation, exercising great power over what does or does not get reported out of committee for a vote by the full house. Everybody has to live with the results, therefore what system they use to choose chaircritters is everybody’s business no matter which party has a majority at the moment. (As opposed to, say, how they choose the leaders of the House or Senate Democratic Caucus.)
Does anyone know a lot about the history of the seniority system? Did they ever use a different system?
It’s not hard to envision a system where every committee chairthing is elected, by the committee members or by the whole house in a floor vote – but would that be too cumbersome?
The seniority system in the House, at least (I don’t know as much about the Senate), dates back to just after the turn of the century. Before 1910, the Speaker picked the committee chairs. In the “St. Patrick’s Day Revolt” of 1910, the Progressive wing of the Republican party joined with the Democrat minority to strip that power from the Speaker and set up a system based on seniority, as well as taking away the Speaker’s automatic position as chairman of the Rules Committee. (The Speaker of the House at the time, “Uncle Joe” Cannon, was unpopular with a lot of the congressmen because he used his powers as Speaker to block popular Progressive reforms.) It was in 1911, when the Democrats took control of the House, that the minority party got the power to appoint its own committee members. Before that, all committee members in both parties were appointed by the Speaker.
Here’s an interesting collection of notes about the changing nature of committees.