A committee chair serves as the leader of a committee, with
responsibility for setting the course and direction of the panel
for committee members and the House and for managing a large
professional and paraprofessional staff. The senior committee staff
should ensure the chair's goals are carried out effectively. Once a
committee chair is selected during the post-election transition
period, he or she, often in consultation with others, makes a
series of decisions and takes a series of actions. Some actions
complete a committee's duties in the Congress just ending, while
other actions are taken in anticipation of the new Congress and
then in the new Congress. Some decisions are related to the
committee's policy calendar; others to the committee's
administrative functions; others to the chair's responsibilities
during committee sessions; others to the role of committee members;
others to the relationship with the committee's ranking minority
member, other chairs, and party leaders; and still others related
to subcommittee leaders. Many decisions are made with a deadline
imposed by House rules. Specifically, a committee chair controls
the selection of committee staff, authorizes expenditures from the
committee budget, establishes operational and ethics policies,
determines committee travel allocations, decides the content of the
committee website, and is responsible for administration of the
committee's rooms, paperwork, and other operations. Most committees
entrust the drafting of the budget to the committee chair, although
a committee's minority party members seek to ensure that they
receive an appropriate allocation of resources. Before the chair
introduces a funding resolution, the committee approves the chair's
draft budget. The House requires its committees to adopt committee
rules in an open session and to publish those rules in the
Congressional Record and in electronic form not later than 30 days
after the committee chair is elected. A chair normally proposes
adopting, with amendments the chair offers, the rules under which
the committee operated in the previous Congress, and also proposes
the number of subcommittees for the committee. A committee chair
establishes the committee agenda, calls hearings, selects witnesses
and determines the order of their testimony, presides over hearings
and markups, chooses any markup vehicle and pursues an amendment
strategy, prepares the committee report accompanying legislation,
and discusses, or might negotiate, any of these matters with the
ranking minority member. The chair maintains order and decorum
during committee meetings, and takes various steps to protect the
committee's jurisdiction in the referral of legislation and other
matters. When a measure is reported by a committee, it is the
responsibility of the committee chair to consult the party
leadership to determine floor scheduling for the measure. This
report covers the period from the House's early organization
meetings through the spring district work period, which normally
occurs in March or April. The report will be updated after the
113th Congress convenes if House rules or practices affecting chair
decisions and actions discussed here change substantively.
General
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