GOP Leaders Weigh Plans to Cut House Committees

Republican leaders began considering a plan Wednesday that would cut the number of committees in the House by more than a quarter and place most social programs under the jurisdiction of one panel.

The leaders, who are debating this and at least three other plans, are expected to make decisions on the structure of the GOP-controlled House during the next two weeks. Each plan would reduce the number of committees and staff differently and sources said there likely would be “mixing and matching” before they were finished.

One plan circulating outside the Republican working group would cut the number of standing committees from 22 to 17. While the proposal is intended to streamline the committee system, it also clearly reflects a Republican agenda to reduce the scope of social programs.

Most of those programs would be lumped together into a new Empowerment Committee, which would entirely replace the Education and Labor Committee; take jurisdiction over welfare away from the Ways and Means panel, and take public housing away from the Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs Committee.

The names of many committees might be changed in ways that evoke Republican ideas. Ways and Means, for instance, might become the Revenues Committee. Banking could become Financial Services.

Republican lawmakers were quick to move reporters away from specifics. “Nothing has been decided,” said Rep. David Dreier (R-San Dimas), a principal architect of the structural changes. “I’m trying to find a middle ground, but it will be bold and it will be change.”

Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), who is expected to be the next Speaker, indicated that the three committees most likely to be eliminated are Merchant Marine and Fisheries, Post Office and Civil Service and District of Columbia.

Current proposals would not change the select committees, such as those on Intelligence, Aging and Hunger, which have an equal number of Republican and Democratic members. Their status will be addressed later, GOP aides said.

There is already strong opposition among Republicans to some of the suggested changes, such as drastically reducing the purview of the Energy and Commerce Committee. Under Democrat Rep. John D. Dingell of Michigan, Energy and Commerce has been one of the most powerful institutions in Congress. One widely circulated plan called for removing oversight of the environment, energy, securities and railroads from the panel.

But Rep. Thomas J. Bliley Jr. (R-Va.), who is expected to chair the committee in the new Congress, so fiercely opposed what an aide said was an “emasculated” version of the committee that Gingrich agreed to scale back the reductions.

Not all the proposed changes are strictly Republican ideas. Many Democrats also agree that the House committee structure has become a problem.