Steering Power
How leadership exercises power through committee appointments
This week is the last week Congress will be in session under divided political control. I’m assuming the parties/chambers will reach an agreement on a Continuing Resolution to keep the government open and Sen. Schumer desists from pushing for the confirmation of more judges or passage of important legislation.
I’ve got way too much material for this week’s newsletter — four pages of notes from this past week — so I’m going to keep it short and focus on the intersection of power, factional politics, and committee appointments.
Before I get there, however, let me say that there’s a lot of congress + technology news from last week’s Congressional Data Task Force meeting, several congressional operations bills on the House floor this week, news about the DOJ spying on members of Congress, a newly proposed rulemaking from the Office of Congressional Workplace Rights, and more.
For next week’s newsletter, let me know what you’d like to hear more about.
Major levers of congressional power
The major levels of power in Congress are (1) control of the floor agenda, (2) control over drafting legislation, (3) control over fundraising (i.e. elections), and (4) control over who gets to set the floor agenda, draft legislation, and raise and distribute funds.
The House Rules Committee, for example, largely controls the floor agenda for complex legislation and its members are appointed by the leader of each party. The floor agenda is whether legislation will be considered on the floor and what amendments may be considered and are likely to be adopted.
The substantive committees by and large write the legislation that is eligible for consideration on the House floor. The legislative text is subject to the whims of the Rules Committee—usually a stand-in for leadership—which in recent years has increasingly interfered with committee legislation. We also are seeing leadership writing more and more bills and cutting out the committees.
Control over raising and distributing campaign funds is a point of contention. Each party picks the person who will run their campaign committee. Major fundraising is done by the party leaders who then redistribute the funds to candidates to build patron-client relationships and elect like-minded members. Committee chairs also must raise donate significant funds to the party to be appointed to that role. As the fundraising model has expanded from corporate rent-seeking to include grassroots, this has created significant tensions within the parties because the interests of their donors are not always aligned.
Who chooses the members of the House Rules Committee or the substantive committees? At times, the chambers have used all sorts of mechanisms to sort this out. Sometimes these folks have been chosen by the entirety of the party membership, or through the seniority process, or by just a few people. In the modern era, that appointment power is divided between the party leader and the steering committee.
The Steering Committee
In the distant past, committee appointments were controlled by members of the Ways & Means Committee. In the modern era, appointments have become a party function, and the appointment power is dominated by the party leader and members of the Steering Committee. Appointments must be confirmed by the chamber, which rarely is contentious. (But sometimes it is: see the Speaker election).
The functions of the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee are to report its nominations for House committee chairs and members and to recommend removal of members from committees. (Democratic Caucus Rule X). However, the Speaker recommends nominees for membership on the Rules and Administration committees. (Rule XIX).
With respect to making decisions, the “Steering and Policy shall consider all relevant factors, including merit, length of service on the committee, degree of commitment to the Democratic agenda, and the diversity of the Caucus, including appropriate representation of the Caucus’ ideological and regional diversity, in making nominations for committee assignments.” The committee need not necessarily follow seniority in making assignments.
The function of the House Republican Steering Committee is to “recommend to the Republican Conference the Republican Members of the standing committees of the House of Representatives.” (Republican Conference Rule XII). However the Speaker nominates the Republican members of the Rules Committee and the Administration Committee.
When you dig into how these party rules function, it becomes clear that the party leaders have significant sway in the operations of the steering committees. They are able to appoint multiple people to the steering committee and can cast multiple votes. For both parties, the Speaker serves as chair of the steering committee. The ability to set the agenda, call meetings, control access to committee records, and so on gives the party leader significant power over its operations.
The operations of the steering committees happen largely in the shadows. We generally do not know what they do, or why. For example, while the House Democratic Caucus rules are publicly available, there are no publicly available rules for the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee. We have reason to think that it has rules, but I haven’t found anyone who has seen them.
Enter the 119th Congress
As we get ready for the 119th Congress, both parties are choosing their committee leaders and members. Hakeem Jeffries named the co-chairs for the Democrats: Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Robin Kelly, and Nanette Barragán. (The committee members presumably have been named, but I haven’t seen a public list — Leader Jeffries only has a press release for the co-chairs.) Republicans named the members of their steering committee in late November.
On the Republican side, news reports suggest that Speaker Johnson has not been putting his thumb on the scale for particular candidates, which is highly unusual. “Former speakers like John Boehner, Paul Ryan and Kevin McCarthy rarely let their preferences for committee chairs remain a secret.”
The recent practice is strong leadership direction, which we are seeing on the Democratic side from former Speaker Pelosi. For example, in the context of the House Oversight committee, “Pelosi has been approaching colleagues urging them to back Connolly over Ocasio-Cortez.” While in the same party, Pelosi has generally not viewed AOC as on the same team.
We see other major challenges to committee leaders as well. Jamie Raskin successfully pushed aside Jerry Nadler for Judiciary, Raúl Grijalva was persuaded to not run again to make way for Jared Huffman at Natural Resources, and several members are working to oust David Scott at Agriculture. As another news outlet points out, “These shots at the top of the committee structure only come after a tacit nod from the House Democratic leadership. Sources close to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, House Minority Whip Katherine Clark and House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar have said that the caucus is to ‘work its will’ in selecting ranking members.”
Working its will is not what the steering committee usually does and itself is a signal. Who might be providing that willpower?
Well, Nadler and Pelosi crossed swords over impeachment with resulting ill will. And we know California Democrat Jared Huffman is being boosted by Nancy Pelosi.
There could be a number of explanations for her shaping the committee leadership. There could be ideological perspectives, for example. It could be regional: endorsing Californians versus New Yorkers. It could be stylistic. Or it could be the patron-client relationships that are hard to show but are a major way the House operates. Party machines are a real thing.
It is not an issue of seniority, however. Look at length of service as committee chairs:
Nydia Velázquez (Small Business) — 26 years
Bennie Thompson (Homeland Security) — 19 years
Adam Smith (Armed Services) — 13 years
Maxine Waters (Financial Services) — 11 years
Frank Pallone (Energy and Commerce) — 9 years
Bobby Scott (Education) — 9 years
Nadler has served 7 years as chair/ranking member of Judiciary and Grijalva has served 10 years as chair/ranking of Natural Resources.
News reports give us some sense of what’s driving the churn, but digging too deeply runs the risk of burning bridges to sources. It will be interesting to see how the new tri-caucus leadership manages its significant political power, whether New Democrats are buttressing their endorsements for committee ranking members by requiring members vote with the caucus, and whether the problem solvers are able to use their leverage to make or break legislation.