I am by no means an expert on the history of committee assignments in the House of Representatives, so my views here may be wrong in important respects. My impression, however, is that the Democratic Party has a solid history of using the seniority system to determine who will take over as either the chairman of a committee or the ranking member if they are in minority, as they are now. For most of the period between the passage of civil and voting rights in the 1960’s until the present, this system was a disadvantage for black lawmakers who were told that they would have to wait their turn to take power. However, over the last decade or so, more and more black (and Latino and Asian) lawmakers have become the most senior members of their committees and have been rewarded with gavels. You can think of John Conyers on the Judiciary Committee, Bennie Thompson on the Homeland Security Committee, Nydia Velazquez on the Small Business Committee, Charlie Rangel (for a time) on the Ways & Means Committee, and Maxine Waters on the Financial Services Committee.
Having been told to wait their turn under the old system, they are especially sensitive to any change in the rules now that could be used to deny one of their members a chair. For example, Rep. Corrine Brown has the seniority to become the Ranking Member of the Veteran’s Affairs Committee, but she is being challenged by that’s committee’s most junior member, Rep. Tim Walz of Minnesota.
This sensitivity explains why the Congressional Black Caucus met for three hours on Wednesday night to discuss the seniority system. The real fight is between Rep. Frank Pallone of New Jersey and Rep. Anna Eshoo of California, who both want the top position on the powerful Energy & Commerce Committee. Pallone has the seniority but Eshoo has the strong, vocal backing of fellow Californian, Minority Leader Pelosi.
Having the leadership advocate that an Asian woman jump over a white man with more seniority is a pretty clear reversal of policy, and is exactly the kind of thing black lawmakers were told could not be done for decades. If it can happen to Pallone then it can also happen to Corrine Brown, and that’s not just a precedent that the CBC doesn’t want to see, it strikes them as particularly unfair to change the rules at exactly the point when the rules finally begin to favor rather than disfavor them.
In the past, there have been a few instances where seniority was not respected, but that has always been in cases where there was some perception of incapacity, either because of age or because of ethical concerns.
On the merits, you can make an argument either way. The seniority system ensures that leaders have vast experience on their committees, but it is by no means the most rational conceivable way to make these decisions. It works better to have exceptions when a member is clearly too long in the tooth or has ethical problems that would embarrass the party or not recommend trust. The best argument in favor of it is that the alternatives are probably worse, as they inevitably revolve around the exchange of money. Who can raise it? Who will make donors happy? Who gave money to other members? You can avoid that by sticking to seniority.
In my opinion, Frank Pallone and Corrine Brown deserve to be the Ranking Members of their respective committees. Denying them what they’ve earned without obvious cause is a recipe for trouble.
