After posting last week on the role of Democratic factions in the House's stimulus debate, I tried a small thought experiment: If we took media exposure as a measure of congressional influence, which Democratic group is the most powerful?
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's (D-NV) office released the final breakdown of ratios on committees last night, and what sounds like a dry piece of non-news is actually a serious win for Democrats.
After some questions about whether the undecided Minnesota race would leave committee organizing in limbo, Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) have settled on a three-vote advantage for Democrats on every Senate committee except Appropriations and Armed Services -- on those panels, Democrats will have four more members.
This means that every time an even mildly contentious bill comes up to a vote -- or a mildly contentious nominee, for that matter -- Democrats can afford to lose one centrist member to the Republicans and still get a win.
The tax-writing Finance Committee and the purse-controlling Appropriations panel are already filled to capacity with Democrats. The new appropriators are Sens. Jon Tester (D-MT) and Mark Pryor (D-AR), while Sens. Thomas Carper (D-DE), Robert Menendez (D-NJ), and Bill Nelson (D-FL) will get their crack at the tax code on Finance.
... though it's not the questionably valuable business tax benefits that are catching the most flak. Before Democrats ducked into a private briefing with Obama's White House economic adviser-in-waiting, Larry Summers, those on the Senate finance committee had a closed-door session to talk shop on the stimulus. They came out decidedly unimpressed by Obama's proposed payroll tax cuts -- which amount to $500 per person, distributed in small amounts over several paychecks.
The Democratic senators were equally doubtful about Obama's proffered $3,000 tax credit to business that hire new workers. As Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND), a bellwether centrist, told CNN:
I think it's unlikely to be effective. If you think about it, business people are not going to hire people to produce products that are not selling. Who is going to hire in the auto industry if you give them a $3,000 credit to make cars that people are not buying?
No one's saying this will bring down the bill. In fact, the House ways and means committee is already said to be scheduling drafting sessions. But stepping back to look at the timeframe, the stimulus will still need to be cleared by as many as three committees on each side of the Capitol by the end of Inauguration week, which leaves three more weeks for simultaneous debate in both houses of Congress as well as a conference committee to produce a unified final product.
The old question about deadline pressure still applies.
On the Rachel Maddow show last night, Senate intelligence committee member Evan Bayh (D-IN) professed no objections to the choice of Leon Panetta to head the Obama CIA.
"Leon Panetta is an outstanding public servant and I intend to support his nomination," Bayh said. So we have Dianne Feinstein, the panel's incoming chairman, expressing her discontent with the nomination, alongside outgoing chairman Jay Rockefeller.
But two other Senate intel committee members -- progressive Ron Wyden and the, uh, less progressive Bayh -- remain copacetic.
The plot is thickened by Feinstein's revealing that the Obama transition team did not consult her in advance on the Panetta nomination before letting it slip yesterday. Wyden, on the other hand, appears to have known in advance. Who on the panel was consulted and who was left in the dark? We haven't yet heard from Russ Feingold and Sheldon Whitehouse, senators who are both stalwart progressives on intelligence issues. But we'll update you as soon as more committee members tip their hand.
