Talk:United States congressional committee

How are they selected?
Information on how committee members are selected would be good. Jack Waugh (talk) 16:33, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

Untitled
Someone do the whole magic and make a chart (I can't do it outside of FrontPage...) of the committees... frankly, they look somewhat ugly right now. ugen64 00:11, Feb 21, 2004 (UTC)
 * Just did that. How does it look? - sebmol 21:00, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Old committees
In the House Rules Manual it gives some of the history of committees that I was considering adding. Should articles be put up under the name of former committees since abolished or should this information go under the present committees and redirects placed under the former names? PedanticallySpeaking 18:39, May 26, 2005 (UTC)


 * Renamed committee names, I think, should be mentioned in articles using their current names with redirects placed under the former names. There is currently a category, Category:U.S. Congressional historic committees, for some more info.&mdash;Mark Adler (markles)  13:26, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Conference Committee
Should the Conference Committee be mentioned here? - TopAce 12:48, 9 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes! Tell us what you know.  If you can, put a link to it in Template:USCongressCommittees. (If you can't, put a note here and someone else will do it. &mdash;Mark Adler (markles)  13:26, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
 * I added the Conference Committee into this article. I must fix the link to its full article though. - TopAce 14:49, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Other?
What is this type of committee listed--"Other", next to Standing and Select? Can someone define this because I don't know what it means and am inclined to delete it. Unschool 22:27, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Qualification for membership
Are committee members all congressmen or can others join a committee as well? S Sepp 15:23, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
 * In the Senate, they are all senators. In the House, they are all members or non-voting delegates/resident commissioners.  Committees do, however, have paid staff who are not themselves congressmen. —Markles 16:42, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

My question: When a party has a majority of seats in either the House or the Senate, my understanding is they get to appoint all the committee chairs for that body. Do they also get a majority of members on each committee? In other words, when a party has a majority of members in the House or the Senate, does that mean they also control ALL the committees for that body, or just some? How does that work? The article didn't seem to address this. 69.230.76.135 (talk) 18:44, 4 October 2008 (UTC)
 * There is no hard and fast rule on make up of the individual committees, other than rules limiting size and who controls the chairman's gavel. The majority in the chamber controls who gets to chair every committee. Majority/minority ratios on the individual committees generally mirror the majority/minority ratio in the overall chamber. In the Senate, where the body is split 51-49, the Democrats chair the committees and have a one vote margin on most committees. Again there is no hard and fast rule on the split, so it would be hard to cover every possible organization in the article.DCmacnut &lt; &gt; 21:25, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Upgrade in progress Sep 19 2010
I'm working with other editors to upgrade the main article United States Congress and will be adding material from the United States Congress/sandbox which is a proposed revamp which is too large and has extra material. See discussion on Talk:United States Congress if interested.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 01:25, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Update: added about 3K of information from the sandbox. Only a mild copyedit in one or two places. Generally the lists here look in good shape. Originally it was in the article United States Congress which is undergoing a revamp. Please do not delete this added material without notifying us on the Talk:United States Congress page. It has been part of the main article for a while and may get deleted there, so any deletions here may possibly mean there are no more copies of it in either location.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 01:59, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Explanation of edits
Figured more space could help me explain my edits better. Hope it isnt a wiki faux pas.

Removed the 1761 date in the lede. From: Since 1761 the growing autonomy of committees has fragmented the power of each congressional chamber as a unit.

Congress did not exist then as far as I can tell. If there were committees under the Articles of Confederation then maybe It could be said but still likely a distinct government considering how different it was. Additionally later on the article says:The first House committee was appointed on April 2, 1789.

Removed the without doubt and changed it to possibly. From: This dispersion of power has,without doubt, weakened the Legislative Branch relative to the other branches of the federal government, i.e., the Executive Branch, the courts, and the bureaucracy

It was a statement of fact but was actually an opinion. I can certainly see a reasonable person believing that the specialization that committees offer allow Congress to function with additional strength rather than weaker. Further it was not cited(tempting to remove it completely but hell maybe this is a popular "well known" position on the subject. i don't know the subject that well.) but even if it was it should be attributed to one person rather than put out as a statement of fact and probably not in the lede.

Removed the bureaucracy From: This dispersion of power has possibly weakened the Legislative Branch relative to the other branches of the federal government, i.e., the Executive Branch, the courts, and the bureaucracy

Any bureaucracy is inherently part of one of the three branches power. They can also rescind such power at will. Example is say FDA. It is part of Executive and its power was delegated by Congress. Congress can also rescind it's powers. If I make other edits to the article I will use the short summery function unless it is too short.

Finally while I state things here sounding like I am absolutely correct I make plenty of mistakes and if you disagree I respect that. Please feel free to tell me why. Winfredtheforth (talk) 02:54, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

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