Understanding the congressional committees is real inside baseball stuff. But it matters a lot who controls which committees. For example, the fact that Max Baucus is the chair of the Finance Committee is greatly complicating Obama’s efforts to pass a health care reform bill. Now that Teddy Kennedy has passed on, the Senate is about to embark on a game of musical committee chairs. How it plays out will have consequences, so I want to run through it for you.
You may have noticed that Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) ushered the health care bill through the Senate Health, Education, Labor, & Pensions (HELP) Committee. He did that both because he was Kennedy’s best friend and because he is the second highest ranking member of the committee. That means that Dodd has the first right of refusal on taking over the chair of HELP. That must be an attractive choice because Dodd’s reelection prospects are looking quite sketchy due to the fact that he was the chair of the Senate Banking Committee in 2007-8 and didn’t do anything to avert the financial meltdown. Taking over HELP will allow him to move on, and attract the support of teachers, nurses, and other members of labor movement. If health care reform passes, he’ll be able to take a lot of the credit.
So, what happens if he opts to drop his Banking chair for the chair of HELP? Next in line to take over Banking is Sen. Tim Johnson of South Dakota. Sen. Johnson suffered a stroke in 2006 and he spent a good deal of time convalescing. In his absence, Barbara Boxer took over his chair of the Ethics Committee, and Johnson let her keep it after he returned. Johnson’s speech is still impaired and I think he uses a wheelchair at least some of the time. It could be that Johnson is recovered enough to resume the duties of a chairman, even of a demanding committee like Banking. If he does take over the chair, we’ll have a senator from South Dakota in charge of the financial overhaul, and that is not a good thing. This is especially true when you consider the alternative. If Johnson doesn’t feel up to the challenge of chairing the Banking Committee then that duty will fall to Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island. Reed is one of the most progressive members of the Senate. We would much rather have him in charge of the financial overhaul than a guy whose state is predicated on low corporate regulation.
So, that’s one scenario. Another scenario occurs if Dodd decides to stay at Banking so that he can clean up the mess and complete the work he has already started. In that case, the next in line for the HELP chair is Tom Harkin of Iowa. Harkin would be a fantastic replacement for Kennedy there, but he already chairs the Agriculture Committee. (I told you this was a game of musical chairs, didn’t I?) So, what happens if Harkin decides to take the HELP chair and give up the Agriculture chair?
Here’s where it gets interesting because the next three Dems in line for the Agriculture chair already have chairs on more influential committees: (Leahy on Judiciary, Conrad on Budget, and Baucus on Finance). That means that Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas would probably inherit the chair of Agriculture and that would give her reelection prospects a big boost. What that would mean for agricultural policy is anybody’s guess.
On the other hand, perhaps Harkin likes being the chair of the Agriculture Committee. In that case, the job of chairing the HELP committee would fall to Barbara Mikulski of Maryland. Mikulski is a great friend of labor, so there wouldn’t be any problem with her taking over HELP, but she’d have to work on her ability to charm. Mikulski is actually the most senior member of the Democratic caucus not to have a chair of a full committee. This became a bone of contention when Harry Reid promised Arlen Specter that he could keep his seniority. It turned out that he couldn’t, in large part because Mikulski was not about to let Specter jump her in seniority on the Appropriations Committee.
However, if Specter wins the Democratic primary and then the general election, we will have won a new term as a voter-endorsed Democrat. He will have a legitimate claim to having his seniority restored. It will make it easier for Mikulski to swallow this if she has the chair of HELP in hand at the beginning of the next Congress.
To summarize, Dodd and Lincoln are two of the most vulnerable Senate Democrats who will be facing the voters in 2010. Dodd can help himself by moving from Banking to HELP. If he stays at Banking, he helps Lincoln by letting her get a hold of the chair of Agriculture. If Dodd leaves Banking, the duties there will fall to either Tim Johnson (bad) or Jack Reed (good). And Kennedy will be replaced by either Dodd, Harkin, or Mikulski (all of whom are satisfactory).
And, no, we can’t make any difference in how this shakes out. It’s all inside baseball.
