A List of Grievances Against the Committee System in Congress

Okay, let's do away with all the Congressional committees and subcommittees and caucuses. I will confess I'm not privy to how they operate and how they are influenced. But, I wonder deeply if they are but a rich vein for lobbyists. If you want to peddle influence, you don't need to be slowed by having to approach each Congress member individually. You can persuade them as a group if you can just get them together in a meeting. 

Yes, what are we doing -- accommodating the lobbyists?

I don't like the rich and privileged having access to our Congress members more than the common people do. I don't. Never have. If you are going to cater and listen to the rich, slice some time out of your meeting to hear from and listen to the general public, as well.

Committee meetings also foster pack mentality, if I can call it that. Everybody hears the same message, the same presentation, so they are inclined to reach the same conclusion. Peer pressure also becomes greater. You tend to go along with the other members of your party. If you want independent thinking, let much of the decision process come as the Congress person sits in his office, doing his own homework, studying the issues and coming up with his or her own decisions.

Committees also lend themselves to favoritism, as the speaker of the House, or whoever, decides who gets the assignments. It gives one person a wedge of power that I do not like.

And, committees exclude Congress members from participating in all the issues. If you are not on the committee, you have no participation until it comes before the whole camera. 

You think I'm done railing on committees? I'm not. I've got one more complaint, and it might just be my biggest one. Committees tie up the process. Why do we have so much of a logjam on Capitol Hill? In part, because everything has to wind its way through committees before it can ever reach the floor. Circuitous, I think they call it. Dragging things out. Things get lost in the process when the process is too long. They don't even reach the floor. In a way, it's a form of bureaucracy, adding hoops to jump through and ladders to climb that don't need to be there. For the Congress members, its just more meetings to go to. Don't they ever suffer meeting fatigue?

So, let's kiss the committee system goodbye.

Okay, I'm through. All I'll say, is we shouldn't keep committees unless we find a way to overcome so many of the negatives.