Unlikely Committee Scenarios
Sleepy Hollow Farm, Vermont (cc photo by snapstermax)
So far this year, Chris Dodd has been basically double-fisting as head of both HELP and Banking, but with Ted Kennedy now dead he needs to choose between them which sets off various musical chairs scenarios. My understanding is that he’ll almost certainly take the helm at HELP, since he wants to distance himself from some of his work on bank regulation and score a legacy-building win on health care. But if not:
If Dodd doesn’t leave Banking, then HELP would go to Iowa’s Tom Harkin, who would have to give up his post as Chairman of the Agriculture Committee to take it. The next most senior members of the Ag Committee are Leahy, Conrad and Baucus, all of whom chair more important committees. So Ag would probably go to Blanche Lincoln. If Harkin stays put — and he is an Iowan, so chairing Ag is worth something to him — then HELP would go to Maryland’s Barbara Mikulski.
Not only will Dodd probably leave Banking, if he did choose to stay Harkin would almost certainly not give up Agriculture. And even if Harkin did give up Agriculture, Leahy probably wouldn’t give up Judiciary. But in the unlikely event that all this did happen and Pat Leahy became chair of the Agriculture Committee, the results would be potentially hilarious. After all, we’re used to agriculture policy being completely dominated by the interests of the big midwestern corn producers. But what if we instead redirected all that money into massive subsidies for maple syrup and Ben & Jerry’s ice cream? The public health consequences could be dire. At the same time, I believe Vermont is a major center of artisanal cheese production and the results of more subsidies for that could be delicious.
Part of the larger moral of the story here is that one of the perverse aspects of the committee system is that it encourages progressive politicians to maximize their power on the issues where they take the least-progressive stands. I agree with Tom Harkin about almost everything except agricultural policy. And Chris Dodd has a much better record on all the issues that aren’t financial institution regulation than on the issue he has the most power over. If you just reassigned everyone at random, you’d probably improve outcomes.
24 Responses to “Unlikely Committee Scenarios”
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August 27th, 2009 at 3:59 pm
If you reassigned everyone at random, industries would just shift to bribing the new heads of the committees which are relevant to their business, no?
August 27th, 2009 at 4:05 pm
Re “industries would just shift to bribing the new heads of the committees”
———–
Premption ain’t just for warfighting: Look at the second name on the list:
http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/recips.php?cycle=2010&ind=H
Ta da: Blanche Lincoln
August 27th, 2009 at 4:15 pm
I’m sure that a big chair would improve Blanche “not as useless as Landrieu” Lincoln’s chances of re-election. Woo hoo.
it encourages progressive politicians to maximize their power on the issues where they take the least-progressive stands.
You’re missing the bigger point, Matt: Dodd and Harkin represent states with big corporatefinancial and ag interests, and that’s why they want those chairs. You might as well argue that when senators get elected by their states, they should be forced to pick another state at random from a hat and represent that one for six years. Even then, if Dodd got posted to Idaho, he’d be in hock to Big Spud.
The committee stuff is a symptom; the disease is the amount of corporate money in politics. It’s what makes the Delaware and South Dakota Dems useless on things like bankruptcy reform and credit card regulation, and the corn state Dems useless on ag subsidies, and so on.
August 27th, 2009 at 4:16 pm
What dbt said.
Matt is confusing the cart with the horse. Committee chairs get co-opted and/or only get to be committee chairs by being co-opted.
August 27th, 2009 at 4:35 pm
Dear god no, don’t let Blanche anywhere near the Ag-chair! The woman is already a jointly-owned subsidiary of Wal-Mart and Tyson Foods!
She does need help, though. A new poll just released had her in a statistical dead-heat with all three republican challengers, in spite of the fact that none of them tops 7% in name recognition statewide, and is actually trailing two of them. I think it’s high time we primaried the hell out of her, because R-lite is not going to be able to beat the full-flavor version this time, no matter how big her war-chest.
I’d love to see the internals on that poll. My hypothesis is that she’s managed to alienate the progressive pockets of the state (you know, where the majority of actual people live–no one in this poll got more than 42% so there’s a lot of “I don’t like either choice” out there) with her obstruction of progressive causes, but I don’t see her changing that unless shoved, hard, from the left.
August 27th, 2009 at 4:48 pm
Leahy already chaired Ag, from 1987 until the Republican takeover.
August 27th, 2009 at 4:51 pm
This is amusing. MYglesias doesn’t want to admit that the best solution would be to go back to Newt Gingrich’s committee chair term limit plan (part of the Contract with America) that the Dems threw out
August 27th, 2009 at 4:53 pm
I believe that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission falls within the purview of the Senate Ag Committee. For example, the Enron Loophole was closed via the 2008 Farm Bill.
August 27th, 2009 at 4:54 pm
At the same time, I believe Vermont is a major center of artisanal cheese production and the results of more subsidies for that could be delicious.
heh.
August 27th, 2009 at 4:56 pm
I think it’s high time we primaried the hell out of her, because R-lite is not going to be able to beat the full-flavor version this time, no matter how big her war-chest.
With who? Arkansas went for McCain by 20 points, and I think in the recent poll only 40 something percent think Obama was actually born in the US. It’s officially a deep red state – which means only people like Lincoln and Nelson are going to be able to compete at all.
August 27th, 2009 at 5:02 pm
Leahy chairing Ag means milk at $4/gallon.
Lincoln chairing Ag means you can only buy milk at WalMart.
How do we feel about Johnson or Reed at Banking? Credit Card companies seem to love South Dakota.
August 27th, 2009 at 5:06 pm
MYglesias doesn’t want to admit that the best solution would be to go back to Newt Gingrich’s committee chair term limit plan (part of the Contract with America) that the Dems threw out
No, no, I totally “admit” that. I wrote it two days ago.
August 27th, 2009 at 5:11 pm
Campesino, Matt may be wandering around thinking that’s the right solution, but it turns out to be a simpleminded solution that doesn’t work – like most Republican “ideas.”
It doesn’t work because it merely empowers unelected lobbyists who then have the relevant experience. Which was the point of Gingrich’s Contract on America – to devolve power from the government to the corporate.
August 27th, 2009 at 5:11 pm
“It’s officially a deep red state”
That has a Democrat serving in every state-wide office? I know that most are more conservative than the national party average, but we really do have areas of strong progressive sentiment, and, as I said, they are the more populous areas (the Little Rock/North Little Rock metroplex, Pine Bluff, Fayetteville, [sadly, not its neighbors Rogers and Springdale]).
It pains me to say it, since I think he’s a sniveling, power-hungry ass with a major Napoleon-complex, but our Lt. Governor, Bill Halter, has proven that he can win state-wide and has an unusually progressive track-record for an Arkansas pol. Plus, he’s also got a track record of bucking the State-party machine, as he stepped on a lot of toes in first running for governor, and when that looked hopeless, Lt. Governor against the party’s anointed “chosen-one” candidates, and is looking at a huge fight with popular Attorney General Dustin McDaniel once Mike Bebee’s time is up as Governor if he wants to stay in politics.
Like I said, I can’t stand the little weasel, but, on the heels of a popular legislative win in establishing a state lottery to fund education, I’d think he’d make a viable alternative to Blanche.
August 27th, 2009 at 5:14 pm
As to the prevalence of birtherism in my state, as well as McCain’s margin of victory, I chalk that up to two factors, racism and ignorance.
Not a whole lot that you can do about the ignoramuses, but as long as you don’t try to run a minority candidate state-wide, it’s usually not a major problem, electorally speaking.
August 27th, 2009 at 5:19 pm
Speaking of double fisting, Matt, it’s weird that nothing has been said about your double fisting as progressive blogger and top chef season 6 contestant: http://www.bravotv.com/top-chef/bio/eli-kirshtein
Matt, I hope you loose (although nice work on the tuna tartare last night)
August 27th, 2009 at 5:23 pm
I understand why in some red states, Democrats have to be culturally conservative to hold on to their seats, but Arkansas is barely part of the developed world. Shouldn’t economic liberalism have some reasonance? (Of course, the reality is given Arkansas’s poverty, large corporations like Wal-Mart exercise outsized influence.)
August 27th, 2009 at 5:39 pm
“but Arkansas is barely part of the developed world.”
Spoken like someone who has never been here. I’ll freely admit that we are not the economic engine of the country, nor are we its greatest cosmopolitan cultural capitol, but “barely part of the developed world” is going way too far.
For the record, Little Rock, where I live, is virtually indistinguishable from any other mid-sized American city, with the possible exception of the fact that, as the political and cultural heart of the state, it has a considerably better arts scene than many of its rivals in size.
Yes, there are areas of the state with horrendous poverty and abysmal infrastructure, but show me any State larger than Delaware of which the same cannot be said? On the flip side of that equation, while incomes here are, on average, fairly low, the cost of living is extremely low, creating a standard of living which, by some indexes, anyway, exceeds just about any major metropolitan area you want to name–it’s damn near heaven for seniors on fixed incomes, as long as you’re not way out in one of those blighted rural areas.
So, come on, lay off Arkansas, because, warts and all, it could be much worse. We could be Mississippi.
August 27th, 2009 at 5:52 pm
plus you have lots of chickens, free diamonds and Hot Springs
August 27th, 2009 at 5:54 pm
Arkansas went for McCain by 20 points, and I think in the recent poll only 40 something percent think Obama was actually born in the US. It’s officially a deep red state
But polling during the primary suggested that Hillary Clinton, who admittedly has the AR connection, might have been competitive against McCain there. Throw in that with the primary result (Clinton 70%, Obama 26%) and the birtherism, and draw your own conclusions.
August 27th, 2009 at 6:35 pm
hyperbole, dude. Also, for the record, anything South of Center City Philadelphia is no place I want to be.
August 27th, 2009 at 6:38 pm
The consequence of that plan was to consolidate a lot more power in the party leadership in each house – meaning, people like Tom Delay, Trent Lott, and Bill Frist – because they weren’t term-limited, instead of the committee chairmen.
Obviously, this raises its own problem – one single power center, without strong committee chairs to balance it out.
It’s not an awful idea on its face, but now that we’ve seen it work, the only reason anyone would be plumping for it is because it’s a Republican idea.
August 27th, 2009 at 7:14 pm
A big old Tweety “HA!”
“Speaking of double fisting, Matt, it’s weird that nothing has been said about your double fisting as progressive blogger and top chef season 6 contestant: http://www.bravotv.com/top-chef/bio/eli-kirshtein
Matt, I hope you loose (although nice work on the tuna tartare last night)”
August 27th, 2009 at 7:16 pm
@JoefromLowell
How about letting those with chairmanships keep their seniority and then go back in the pool to get another chairmanship? That would keep a group of chairmen/women but move people around with some regularity.
(An honest question.)