House Committees: A Framework for Considering Jurisdictional Realignment

Summary

The House has chosen to handle committee jurisdiction in a number of ways. It has chosen to

concentrate jurisdiction over an issue in new, existing, and temporary committees. It has chosen to

keep jurisdiction over components of an issue distributed among several committees. And, it has

chosen to vest in one committee jurisdiction over a narrow subject matter that could just as readily

have been considered a component of subject matter within another committee's jurisdiction. Rules

relating to referral and the Speaker's referral authority have also been changed to deal with

jurisdictional issues. The House's most recent decision to create a standing Committee on

Homeland Security reflected the several values that can bear on jurisdictional alignment

( H.Res. 5 , 109th Congress, and an accompanying legislative history of House Rule X

changes contained in the resolution).

While the House and Senate consolidated and reduced the number of committees in the

Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946, and for the first time vested each committee with specific

jurisdiction, the House did not adopt wide-ranging committee reorganizations in 1974 or 1994.

Rather, the House on a number of occasions since 1946 has chosen incremental change in committee

jurisdictional realignment.

The House is expected to study its committee organization during the 109th Congress.

Related CRS reports are as follows: CRS Report RL32711(pdf) , Homeland Security:

Compendium

of Recommendations Relevant to House Committee Organization and Analysis of Considerations

for the House, by Michael L. Koempel; CRS Report RS21901(pdf) , House Select Committee

on

Homeland Security: Possible Questions Raised If the Panel Were to Be Reconstituted as a Standing

Committee, by Judy Schneider; CRS Report RL31835(pdf) , Reorganization of the House

of

Representatives: Modern Reform Efforts, by Judy Schneider, Christopher M. Davis, and

Betsy

Palmer; and CRS Report RL31572 , Appropriations Subcommittee Structure: History of

Changes,

1920-2005 , by James V. Saturno.

This report will not be updated.