http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/rahm-emanuel-leave-white-house/story?id=11740794 Don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way out. You've proven to be incompetent and made the president look bad during your time as chief of staff. Millions of people suffer for lack of a job because you chose to exploit a crisis to push unpopular and devastating legislation.
This doesn't change my view of chicago poltics as totally corrupt. jesus. its like musical fucking chairs there.
Blago's available, right? Lots of White House-appointed positions opening up. On a serious note, can anyone help me understand congressional committee leadership? I mean, it seems that this year there are going to be a lot of new congressmen/women, for whatever reason, and maybe a small chance of the leadership changing parties. Doesn't that switch all the heads of the committees? And do you then have a bunch of people on committees who've never been on committees before trying to make/push through/vote on policy? Or am I Chicken Little-ing right now?
The party in power has the ability to elect its leadership, though in theory a bunch of republicans could jump ship and elect Nancy as speaker again (assuming the republicans take over the house). The leadership appoints or assigns its members to the various committees and the leaders of those committees. Typically, the leaders of the committees are assigned based upon years of service or tenure, and areas of interest or expertise of the members. When the house changes party control, the ranking member of the committee usually becomes the leader of the committee. The party in control gets to place a majority of members on each committee from its party. New members are assigned to at least one major committee these days. The clown known as Al Franken was assigned to the judiciary committee.
So for instance, on the Armed Services Committee, if the D's maintain control of the Senate (even at 51-49) they get to vote for the head of the ASC and populate it with a majority of members?
Yep. That's why it is important when a guy leaves the party to become and independent, but caucuses with the party anyhow. Like Lieberman. To caucus with the party means they're voting for the leadership, and in turn, they're generally given choice committee chairmanships.
