As frosh fill back benches, new leaders take over

[Geee]

Washington Examiner:

Just as fresh blood is reinvigorating the House GOP rank and file, there will be new energy in the leadership, too.

Even though Republicans were out of power for just four years, the old GOP committee chairmen haven't come back to reclaim their old spots; nearly all the lawmakers who are taking over committees have never held the chairman's gavel before.

It's a consequence of a decision Republicans made back in 1995, just after taking over the House for the first time in 40 years. For years prior to that, then-Rep. Newt Gingrich and his GOP colleagues watched as the oldest of Democratic old bulls turned House committees into personal fiefdoms. Lawmakers like Reps. Dan Rostenkowski, John Dingell, Jack Brooks and Jamie Whitten each led key committees for more than a decade.

The Republican answer, included in the Contract With America, was to support term limits for all members of Congress. But that would have required amending the Constitution, and they didn't have the support. Still, recalls former Rep. Vin Weber, who played a key role in planning the GOP's '94 victory, "The House Republicans wanted to do something to show good faith with the term-limits movement, which had given them a lot of support in the 1994 election."

Congress convenes Jan. 5, many familiar faces will be gone from the Capitol's hallways, replaced by newcomers sent by angry voters eager to shake up Washington, D.C. The incoming class of freshmen lawmakers is enormous by historical standards, and mostly Republican. Of the 435 House members, 96 were newly elected Nov. 2 and 87 of them are Republicans.

So House leaders did something that was within their authority: They put a six-year limit on the tenures of committee chairmen. They made the rule extra-stringent with a provision that applied the limit even to times in the future when Republicans would be in the minority and serve as ranking members of committees. The idea was to go after the structures of power that chairmen build around themselves.