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.
I'll grant you that point, but let's face it, this is also all about the Rats putting forward a coordinated attempt to roll a brand-new, inexperienced Senate Majority Leader. This all started on the session's opening day, with the Hillary/Daschle/Byrd move to renege on the deal struck to extend unemployment benefits. This kind of thing is going to be a constant fact of life for as long as the Rats feel they can get away with it, and we have to hope that Sen. Frist gets wise to the workings of the SML post very quickly.
It definitely sucks that we had to compromise, but one good thing is that the Rats will always overplay their hands with these petty partisan brinksmanship games. With some luck, this could help us to clean their clocks in '04, and then Mr. Frist can revisit this little deal from a position of much greater strength.
From the article...
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.Since the Democrats did, in fact, settle for less, they were obviously bluffing. We folded.
Say, on the bright side, Dem committee assignments should be out tomorrow too- can't wait to see if they treated Jeffords just like any other newbie Dem LOL!
Bush has been in office for two years now, PKM. You don't get it, do you?
A good compromise is when you meet in the middle. Dems went more than half way again. Forget about right, wrong and rules. These concepts mean nothing to the Dems. This was a battle and the Dems gave more ground than the Republicans. In my book that translates to another Republican "W".
Isn't that the truth?
Staff ratios? I didn't tune in today, but they obviously hooked you with a catch phrase. Dude, don't be such a sucker.
We only have a one-vote majority on the Judicial Committee.
And one of those votes is Arlen Specter.
Dan
Source?
Are you saying that the minority hasn't gotten 33% for a century?
Are you saying that when the GOP was in the minority, they could have played hardball and gotten 40%?
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