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require floor action or unanimous consent to receive a waiver. Limit the number of assignments and the number of available slots.

The House should write the sizes of committees into the rules. It needs real numbers. Also, write in an overall number of slots on committees. Provide a little leeway, but establish a real cap.

Consolidate jurisdictions into a smaller number of committees with broader based memberships and jurisdictions. The sensible folding of committees will give clout to certain committees. Broader bases will make committees more vibrant. Committees without legislative jurisdictions should be done away with. Bring their issues substantively into committees that can both hold hearings and act on legislation.

Thomas Mann, The Brookings Institution, and Co-Director, The Renewing Congress Project

The key to committee reform is to avoid under- or over-reaching. Underreaching is failure, not doing enough. Over-reaching is doing so much that committees will become a Member's life.

Do not abolish the Appropriations Committees. They are the one aspect of Congress that works. They may need adjustment, but they do not need to be dismantled.

The democratic critique must be reconciled with the Republic's needs. People are mad and want change, but do not know what changes they want. Find ways to please them without sacrificing the institution.

Questions and Answers

Spratt: Would you comment on the different committee system proposals prepared by CRS?

Ornstein: You can have too many committees, but you can also have too few. You need to find a balance. You need a reason for each committee. Focus first on limiting schedules. You do not want too narrow a base and committees with narrow clienteles. You want broad bases to deal with the issues that come up. Also, I don't think that we need parallel committee systems; it is interesting to look at, but it can not and will not be done.

Spratt: In the House, too few committees would not work because there are too many Members. Issues would get put on the back burner because committees would each have too much jurisdiction. Also, there has to be the right number of committees for Members to be able to develop expertise, and to be able to participate meaningfully in the legislative process.

Mann: Consolidation can go too far. The 1946 Act went too far in consolidating committees, so that within a few years Members began to change the structure of the system. Since then we have come too far.

Holmes Norton: Reforms should seek to streamline workload. Committee staff should be in proportion to jurisdiction. Although the staff members of the Committee on the District of Columbia are great, the Committee should have fewer staff.

The Senate reform regarding the consolidation of the Committee on the District of Columbia with other committees has worked because the House Committee on the District of Columbia does all the work. We hold the hearings and the Senate sends their staff to attend. Putting committees together to draw a particular membership is harmful to certain committees; the Committee on the District of Columbia, is an example. Members might mix their political views with the business of the District. Reduce the size of the District Committee, and reduce its staff, but don't mix us with other Members. Let the District Committee wither away and die. We could streamline by taking away the time Congress spends reviewing every law passed by the D.C. Council and every line of our budget.

Dreier: Are there any past proposals from your reform effort that are relevant to the House, especially in the area of committee procedure?

Davidson: The proposal to ensure adequate minority staffing. This has worked well in the Senate, and the principle of 2/3, 1/3 staffing could be extended to the investigative staff in the House.

Ornstein: That worked in the Senate because it had bipartisan consensus. Through associate staff, the so-called S.Res. 60 staff, there was a tremendous expansion of staff. We went overboard.

Other relevant past proposals are to cut personal staff and eliminate proxy voting.

Davidson: Associate staff grew because younger Members could not get access to staffers. That is not the case anymore. Committee Members have access to committee staff.

Dreier: Would you care to comment on the proposals from CRS?

Sperry: They reflect a combination of the past and the present issues. Both need to be kept in mind. Future issues need to be kept in mind. Future issues such as information technology, communities, and human investment need to be accounted for in jurisdictional alignment. Look to the future in crafting jurisdictional language, and plan for emerging issues.

Davidson: Any plan needs to be worked out in some detail to see where committees can be consolidated. There is no formula for success that can be followed to the letter. Use the proposals as a reference to draw from. You might

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want to pay particular attention to plans D and H. The House and Senate do not have adequate organization over health care issues. You might want to create an ad hoc or new committee to deal with health issues.

Mann: Plan K is closest to what we have been suggesting. The House should consolidate some jurisdictions. In addition, we would do away with joint committees.

Dreier: Mr. Mann and Mr. Ornstein, last time we met you said you would research the discharge petition. Do you have any comments on it?

Mann: You will have to invite us back again to discuss that.

Ornstein: Getting back to the broader sense of deliberation, popular passions should not be used to decide issues. Mechanisms are needed to keep Congress from being pushed to a vote prematurely or pushed at all. You need enough checks and balances to provide for debate on issues.

HEARING SUMMARY, APRIL 22, 1993

Five Witnesses: Representative Dan Glickman, Representative Larry Combest, Representative Dan Rostenkowski, Representative Jan Meyers, Representative George Miller.

Vice Chairman Dreier commenced the hearing by stating that this is the first of six scheduled hearings on the committee system, at which committee chairs and ranking members will testify. He stated that all issues related to the system will be examined, not only partisan ones. However, House Republicans are interested in a 2/3, 1/3 division of committee staff between the majority and minority parties on each committee, as was achieved in the Senate through the reforms of the Stevenson Committee. In the House, minority party members receive an average of 24% of committee staff. On some committees the percentage is worse. He submitted a letter from Republicans into the record urging the Joint Committee to adopt a 2/3, 1/3 division of staff between the parties.

Representative Dunn remarked that she also supports the two to one ratio for committee staff.

Representative Dan Glickman

Stated that he came before the Joint Committee in two capacities: as Chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, and a nine term frustrated Member of Congress.

The House has a silly and unrealistic committee structure that desperately needs to be modernized. There are too many turf issues, with committees trying to determine which has jurisdiction over particular issues and trying to protect their jurisdictions. Unlike in the private sector, Congress has no system to assure accountability. Committees blame each other for holding up legislation.

Remarked that he perceived three main problems:

1) No one is in charge of major legislation referred to committees. There are too many multiple referrals, and bills get lost is a morass of committee jurisdictions. The lines of committee jurisdictions are drawn too loosely, resembling gerrymandered congressional districts.

2) Members serve on too many committees. Why? Because other than the Committees on Energy and Commerce, Ways and Means, and Appropriations, committees have diminished jurisdictions and clout. Thus, Members have to stretch themselves to find opportunities for influence wherever they can. Power is too focused in three or four committees; this is another reason why caucuses have proliferated.

3) Power is too diffused. The Speaker's control is weaker than it should be. It is like pulling teeth to get committees to act.

Recommended ending the practice of joint referrals, unless the Speaker personally intervenes. Sequential referrals could be allowed on a need basis.

Divided issues cause problems. For example, we don't have fish inspection in this country largely because of turf battles. Several House committees claim a piece of the issue, so nothing gets done. The issue of health care is not adequately fitted into the committee structure. The same is true for financial regulation: the Banking Committee handles savings and loans, the Energy and Commerce Committee handles securities, the Agriculture Committee handles the futures market, and the Ways and Means Committee handles the regulation of the Treasury Department. There is constant sparring among these committees. Also, the issue of product liability and tort reform is also split, so very little gets done. In the private sector, this would never be allowed. A responsibility would be given to one entity that could move on it.

Use common sense to realign committee jurisdictions. Realign jurisdictions based on functions, not the history of an issue. Jurisdictions must be clear and unequivocal. Some committees could be abolished and replaced with subcommittees that would be much more powerful and influential.

Specific recommendations included:

1) Combine all issues related to financial institutions and instruments in the House. The issue is also split in the Senate, although not to the same extent.

2) Combine all domestic social problems into one committee. Failure to adopt meaningful welfare reform is attributable to the current jurisdictional split.

3) Combine the Committees on Agriculture and Natural Resources. Consider also merging the Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries, to form a committee on domestic resources. This recommendation would affect a committee I serve on. 4) Create a separate committee on health care, or give the issue exclusively to Ways and Means or Energy and Commerce. Otherwise, the battle of the titans will continue.

5) Merge defense and foreign policies. They are now so related, so it only makes sense to combine them.

6) Consolidate trade issues into one committee, possibly Ways and Means. 7) Eliminate the Committee on the District of Columbia, and make it a subcommittee of the Committee on Government Operations.

8) Consider what to do about the Committees on Small Business; Science, Space, and Technology (which I serves on); and Veterans' Affairs. They are popular committees, but handle very little legislation. They scramble to find work sometimes.

Remarked that he would not address the Budget and Appropriations Committees, preferring to focus on the authorizing committees. Nevertheless,

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