Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Senate Ends Impasse on Committee Funding
Associated Press

Posted on 01/15/2003 6:26:41 PM PST by RCW2001

Associated Press Writer
Wednesday, January 15, 2003; 9:16 PM

WASHINGTON –– Senate leaders reached agreement Wednesday on how the two parties will divide up committee funding, ending an impasse that had deflected the Senate from its legislative business and clouded the debut of new Majority Leader Bill Frist.

With the deal on committee organization, coming eight days after the 108th Congress opened, committee chairmanships will finally be turned over to the new Republican majority and 11 Senate freshmen will get their promised seats on the 20 Senate committees.

Frist, R-Tenn., said the deal was fair to both sides, and, with it done, the Senate can begin to "accomplish what we are all about, which is to proceed with the nation's business."

The completion of that normally routine housekeeping chore removes a distraction that had postponed hearings still nominally under Democratic chairmen and delayed action on a $385 billion catchall spending bill for the fiscal year starting last Oct. 1. The last Congress failed to act on the legislation to fund non-defense federal agencies.

The dispute made for a contentious start to the new session and its new leader, Frist, with Democrats claiming they were being treated unfairly and Republicans accusing Democrats of ignoring the results of last November's election that put the GOP back in the majority.

There was never a problem with numbers: In the last Congress, Democrats held a one-seat advantage on committees and in this session, Republicans will gain a one-seat edge.

But Democrats said that traditional committee funding ratios, where the minority got as little as one-third of the money going to each committee, was no longer relevant in light of the last Congress when the funds were divided nearly equally.

The 107th Congress began in a 50-50 tie, and the parties agreed to a formula of near parity in seats, funds and space. There were only minor changes in the funding ratio when Sen. James Jeffords, I-Vt., left the Republicans and shifted power to the Democrats.

Under the agreement outlined in a joint leadership letter, committee budgets will reflect the current ratio of the Senate, where Republicans have 51 seats and the Democrats, with Jeffords, have 49. An additional 10 percent will be given to the Republican chairman of each committee for administrative expenses.

Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota said the agreement was "the mirror image of the resolution we passed in the 107th Congress," when Democrats were up by 51-49. "We are very pleased with the outcome of the negotiations." Daschle said he hoped the precedent of committee structures being proportionate to Senate seats would continue in the future.

As in the past, individual committees will still be able to make adjustments in the formula.

© 2003 The Associated Press


TOPICS: Breaking News; Government
KEYWORDS:
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-80 ... 201-206 next last
To: PhiKapMom
Details from Fox:

In the end, the sides compromised on the division of committee funds, office space and committee assignments.

The deal gives the GOP a one-seat majority on all committees except the Intelligence and Ethics committees, which traditionally have an even number of members from both parties.

It also gives the majority a roughly 60-40 advantage when it comes to staff, money and space, more than the two-thirds to one-third ratio that Republicans had wanted but less than the 51-49 percent split reflecting the majority-minority ratio. Democrats had threatened to filibuster anything less than that.

41 posted on 01/15/2003 7:03:07 PM PST by 11th_VA
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 37 | View Replies]

To: Fred Mertz
Here, have some of this.
42 posted on 01/15/2003 7:03:35 PM PST by hchutch ("Last suckers crossed, Syndicate shot'em up" - Ice-T, "I'm Your Pusher")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 27 | View Replies]

To: bigfootbob
YES
43 posted on 01/15/2003 7:03:36 PM PST by shootist
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: RCW2001
Man ewre we faked out again.

This is like any other "budget crisis" that Congress plays out in public. In the end, the taxpayers end up paying out more hard-earned dollars than before.

This farce was intended to mask a 10% spending increase. Same old, same old.

44 posted on 01/15/2003 7:04:33 PM PST by savedbygrace (Jesus is Lord)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: freedomcrusader


... ending an impasse that had deflected the Senate from its legislative business and clouded the debut of new Majority Leader Bill Frist.
45 posted on 01/15/2003 7:06:50 PM PST by gitmo ("The course of this conflict is not known, yet its outcome is certain." GWB)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: Robert_Paulson2
Would you please quit calling me a "pubbie"?? It sounds like a yuppie third grader.
46 posted on 01/15/2003 7:07:54 PM PST by pfflier
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 14 | View Replies]

To: savedbygrace
ewre = were
47 posted on 01/15/2003 7:10:06 PM PST by savedbygrace (Jesus is Lord)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 44 | View Replies]

To: deport
Looks like AP got it wrong again! Here is the story from Fox (someone might want to post it separately from the Fox site):

Senate Reaches Deal on Organization

Wednesday, January 15, 2003

WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats backed down from a standoff that had paralyzed the Senate Tuesday, agreeing to terms that will allow the Senate to operate with a new Republican majority.

In the end, the sides compromised on the division of committee funds, office space and committee assignments.

The deal gives the GOP a one-seat majority on all committees except the Intelligence and Ethics committees, which traditionally have an even number of members from both parties.

It also gives the majority a roughly 60-40 advantage when it comes to staff, money and space, more than the two-thirds to one-third ratio that Republicans had wanted but less than the 51-49 percent split reflecting the majority-minority ratio. Democrats had threatened to filibuster anything less than that.

For new Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., the deal amounts to a small victory since Democrats insisted that they had set a precedent in the last Congress when they permitted a 51-49 percent split following independent Vermont Sen. Jim Jeffords' defection from the GOP that gave the Democrats the majority.

It also allows the Senate to get down to the business of dealing with the president's agenda.

Both sides are preparing for battle over the president's $674 billion economic stimulus package and the 11 unfinished spending bills that should have been passed last year to fund the government this year.

Republicans want to wrap all 11 bills into one omnibus package worth $385 billion. But Democrats say that's not enough and have added calls for more spending to their attacks on the president's tax cuts.

"It's a tax cut of gargantuan proportion that has nothing to do with stimulus and everything to do with fiscal irresponsibility and recklessness," said Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., who a good part of the day criticizing the Bush administration on a host of issues.

Daschle said the GOP is slashing the nation's spending priorities to pay for the president's tax relief package.

"These are cuts made by a Republican Congress to accommodate a Republican administration, which at the same time is advocating a huge bailout that we would call the Leave No Millionaires Behind Act," he said, playing on the name of the president's education bill passed last year.

Democrats plan amendments that add up to about $20 billion more than what Republicans want to spend.

Among the extra cash, $5 billion would go to homeland security, $8 billion would pay for education and $6 billion would be given for disaster relief and agricultural aid.

The nation's passenger rail Amtrak would get another $438 million to keep running. Democrats also want an additional $300 million to pay for home heating for low-income Americans.

Daschle said if the GOP attempts to block consideration of the Democrats' spending increases they may shut the Senate down again.

"We would even consider, I think, not providing our Republican friends with the opportunity to move forward on anything else until we have had the chance to offer an alternative," he said.

White House aides chalked up the Democrats' demand for more spending and fewer tax cuts to the start of what may be lengthy negotiations.

"The president's going to fight for the bill that he proposed. He understands that Congress, of course, has a role to play and is just beginning the process of playing that role, but let the process begin, and the president will fight for the bill he sent to the Congress," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said.

Sen. Robert Bennett, R-Utah, said that if Democrats had their way, it would definitely create a more egalitarian system.

"They might end up with what they consider fairness — everybody poverty stricken — and by definition of that fairness, but nobody would be better off," he said.

Fox News' Carl Cameron contributed to this report.

48 posted on 01/15/2003 7:10:10 PM PST by PhiKapMom (Bush/Cheney 2004)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 38 | View Replies]

To: Fred Mertz
I'll try again:

Have some of this.

49 posted on 01/15/2003 7:11:14 PM PST by hchutch ("Last suckers crossed, Syndicate shot'em up" - Ice-T, "I'm Your Pusher")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 27 | View Replies]

To: MJY1288; mssmith; gov_bean_ counter; All
Looks like from the AP article that I just posted that the RATs didn't do so good after all and that AP took what daschle said for the truth.
50 posted on 01/15/2003 7:11:56 PM PST by PhiKapMom (Bush/Cheney 2004)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 48 | View Replies]

To: RCW2001
The good news is that now we have the chairmanships so work can begin.

What I want to know ..does Hilliary get to keep her nice office or will she get a small closet somewhere?
51 posted on 01/15/2003 7:12:13 PM PST by Irish Eyes
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: 11th_VA
Fox is spinning. Not a lot, but a little. Dems were entitled to only 33%, and they got half minus admin expenses (which is what they had when they were in control).

The "extra 10%" really isn't that much extra, since there really ARE administrative expenses associated with running the committee. Xeroxing all of the documents and distributing them to all committee members, etc. etc.

So we caved. They might not have gotten everything they wanted, but they sure as hell weren't entitled to more than 33%.

VR
52 posted on 01/15/2003 7:12:27 PM PST by VetsRule
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 41 | View Replies]

To: 11th_VA
Thanks! I picked up the whole article and posted it on here. Looks like AP blew it again!
53 posted on 01/15/2003 7:13:33 PM PST by PhiKapMom (Bush/Cheney 2004)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 41 | View Replies]

To: RCW2001

Daschle said he hoped the precedent of committee structures being proportionate to Senate seats would continue in the future

But of course, only if it benefits the demonrat.......

Get 10 more republicans in 2004

54 posted on 01/15/2003 7:13:55 PM PST by The Wizard (Demonrats are enemies of America)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: hchutch
The Dims lost the election and increased their position by 20%. That does not compute. Please explain it to me, dim one.
55 posted on 01/15/2003 7:13:59 PM PST by Fred Mertz
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 49 | View Replies]

To: PhiKapMom
It also gives the majority a roughly 60-40 advantage when it comes to staff, money and space, more than the two-thirds to one-third ratio that Republicans had wanted but less than the 51-49 percent split reflecting the majority-minority ratio.

It looks like Fox intended to swap "more than" and "less than" in this sentence. The way they wrote it makes no sense.

56 posted on 01/15/2003 7:14:01 PM PST by savedbygrace (Jesus is Lord)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 48 | View Replies]

To: wimpycat; gov_bean_ counter; PhiKapMom; MJY1288; Fred Mertz; bybybill; The Wizard; deport; ...
Look at it this way. Instead of giving Chuckie Schumer 7% more than you wanted to give him, he's getting 10% less than he wanted.

That was just his initial negotiating position.

When the Democrats use that kind of math to call a lower rate of government expansion a "budget cut," we call them spinning liars.

The Democrats were entitled to 33%. They asked for a 17% increase to 50%. The settled for a 7% increase to 40%.

They got more than they started with, we got less. They won, we lost.

If we had offered them 20% (instead of 33%), and they had settled for 25%, would we have lost?




57 posted on 01/15/2003 7:15:40 PM PST by Sabertooth
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 34 | View Replies]

To: Uncle Bill
The Pubbies win the elections by historic proportions, and the Dims increase their foothold by 20%.

I think I'm living in a parallel world or something.
58 posted on 01/15/2003 7:16:29 PM PST by Fred Mertz
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 40 | View Replies]

To: savedbygrace
My daughter is a first year journalism student and she writes better than these folks getting the big bucks. If she turned in an article like this, she would get her grade lowered.

The number of times I have tried to figure out what they were saying in articles is amazing!
59 posted on 01/15/2003 7:16:54 PM PST by PhiKapMom (Bush/Cheney 2004)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 56 | View Replies]

To: PhiKapMom
Fox is reporting it this way but both AP and Reuters are differently.... so the devil is in the details whatever they are. In either case the Democrats got something bigger than any minority has prior to the 107th. Apparently the committees retain the right to distribute some of the monies as they see fit, so I guess Judiciary will be 50/50 since Hatch has previously agreed to that arrangement or had acknowledged so.

The main thing is to get on to hearing and bring some of the nominees up for votes. They one member advantage will at least get them to the floor.....
60 posted on 01/15/2003 7:16:59 PM PST by deport (DONATE A DOLLAR OR TWO TO THE FUNDRAISER)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 48 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-80 ... 201-206 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson