| From my admittedly limited understanding, Senate Committee assignments are a matter of negotiation between the Majority and the Minority as they work out the Organizing Resolution for the 111th Senate (link is to the OR for the 110th). Senate Rule XXV spells out the size of each committee (source for numbers in table).
Except for Ethics (which is evenly split), the Majority party has to have at least a 1 vote lead on the Minority in each committee, which will work out as a 2-vote lead for even-sized committees (or the leaders resize them for that particular Congress).
Now that the Democrats have a substantial numerical advantage, I believe what happens is the proportion of the entire senate held by the Majority begins to matter in the allocation of committee seats (in theory and in the House the Majority decides how many seats the Minority gets, but of course the Minority can and would filibuster an Organizing Resolution that had a disproportionate allocation of committee seats).
So I took each committee, and figured out how many Democratic seats would be awarded by multiplying the size of the committee by the ratio of overall Democrats to Republicans in the Senate.
So if Franken and Burris aren't seated, the ratio is 57/98 = 0.581. If Reid admits Burris but Franken stays in limbo, it becomes 58/99 = 0.586 and if both are admitted it becomes 59/100 = 0.59 (actually I used more digits in making the calculation).
Surprisingly, it turns out that there is a substantial difference in committee allocations between 57 and 58 Democratic senators in Senates of 98 and 99 members respectively. The reason being that many committees have 18 members and the math works out such that this is a tipping point.
So the absence of both Franken and Burris lets McConnell demand an extra 10 committee seats. Admit either one of them, and he only gets 1 extra seat (on the largest and probably most important committee, Appropriations so even then it does matter a lot).
Now I don't know exactly how these negotiations go and how crucial this sort of thing is, but it wouldn't surprise me if McConnell is using this as a bargaining point. I don't imagine that he is meekly accepting Franken's win as legit and if Reid himself has refused to admit Burris or Blagojevich's right to appoint someone, Reid can hardly count him as part of the Democratic caucus either.
Burris should be admitted for the simple reason that his appointment was legal and constitutional. Democrats cannot complain about Republicans destroying the Rule of Law while pulling politically convenient (if popular) stunts like this. If this petulant and illegal refusal to admit a duly appointed Senator gives the Republicans an extra raft of committee seats that only compounds the self-defeating absurdity of the move.
On the other side, it provides some additional motive for Coleman to fight as hard as he is, and why we shouldn't expect to hear any Republicans call for him to concede at least until after an organizing resolution is passed.
Committee allocations can matter a great deal, particularly with Democrats so apt to cross over to prove how bipartisan they are. It would suck to lose contentious votes on key issues in committees because Reid chose the Burris appointment to make his inglorious stand for principle. Fortunately Democrats should have at least a 2 vote lead in almost every committee in the worst case above. Still, I'm sure it won't be hard to find a committee that will have any two of the Nelsons, Landrieu, Pryor, Lieberman or the new guy from Colorado in the 111th.
Hopefully Reid does what he can to ensure the worst offenders aren't in a position to hand Republican key legislative victories too often. What's interesting is that Oversight will have a 2 vote lead for Democrats, but what that means is that if Lieberman votes with the Republicans, it will be an 8-8 tie and I don't know off hand what that means. It would be better if there were 10 Dems to 6 Republicans on Government Oversight but that would have required 60 Dems, unless Reid wins it in negotiation somehow (I doubt McConnell would agree, he will want the possibility of a Lieberman double-cross).
Anyway, I could be wrong about all this since there's some black magic that goes into the Committee allocations in terms of horse trading but it's worth considering. |
