Suchergebnisse

While the standing committee structures of the House of Representatives & Senate have functioned well for their legislative systems, some endemic problems remain. Because individual legislators have diff backgrounds, interests & goals, & because committees have varying attractiveness for members, a natural selection process builds a distinct bias into committee assignments, overrepresenting those with special interests in the subject matter of the committee. Thus, Ru legislators dominate the Agri & Public Works Committees; port area congressmen, Merchant Marine & Fisheries. The problem is esp acute in the House, where congressmen have only 1 or 2 committee assignments, & reformers have recently strengthened the powers of committee caucuses & subcommittees. Several large scale reforms are suggested to make committees more representative of the larger legislative entity &, thus, to improve the formulation of nat'l public policy. For the House these reforms include: (1) consolidating standing committees to a total of 7 or 8; (2) limiting the tenure of committee chairmen to prevent long term accumulations of power by small numbers of legislators; (3) rotating committee assignments to further ensure a wider range of members on each committee & to give congressmen indepth experience in a larger number of issue areas. Formulas are suggested to limit the turnover on a given committee at any given time to protect expertise. For the Senate, a consolidation of both committees & subcommittees is suggested to give senators more flexibility to cope with a heavy & ever expanding workload. HA.