Term Limits for Committee Chairs?

by Karl Kurtz

Earlier this week I testified before the Pennsylvania House Speaker's Commission on Legislative Reform on the subject of term limits.  The commission, which is made up of 12 members from each party, was established by Rep. Dennis O'Brien, the Republican who was elected speaker after House Democrats, who hold a 101-100 margin over the Republicans, were unable to elect their own speaker.  The commission recommended approximately 32 changes in House rules at the beginning of the session and saw 31 of them enacted by the body.  Now it is taking a more in-depth look at four issues: open records, the size of the legislature, campaign finance and term limits.

Term limits are on the agenda in part because Gov. Ed Rendell has mentioned that he thinks that they would be a good idea for the legislature, although he has not pushed a specific proposal.  After hearing testimony and holding a committee discussion (but no votes), the co-chairs of the commission, Rep. David Steil and Rep. Joshua Shapiro, said that their sense of the committee was that there is not strong support for term limits for legislators (which would require a constitutional amendment approved in two separate sessions of the legislature and a vote of the people).

However, it was apparent in the commission meeting that there is considerable interest in the possibility of term limits for committee chairs.  One of the reasons for this is that  the Pennsylvania House has one of the stronger seniority systems in the country because the rules require that the chairs of 23 of the 24 standing committees must come from among the most senior members of the majority party, excluding the seven top leaders.  The only exception to this rule is the appropriations committee.  Seniority does not govern which committee the veteran members get to chair, as the speaker and majority leader can make those decisions.  As one member of the commission put it, "Seniority guarantees you a committee chairmanship but not necessarily a good one."  The practical result of this system, combined with historically low rates of turnover in the Pennsylvania legislature, is that members typically serve more than a dozen years before they become a committee chair.

Knowing in advance that I would be asked about practices in other legislatures regarding committee chairmanships, I boned up on the subject by talking with Tom Mann of the Brookings Institution, Alan Rosenthal of Rutgers University and our own NCSL resident rules and procedure expert, Brenda Erickson.  Here is a summary of what I learned.

Although about two-thirds of the legislative chambers responding to a 1996 NCSL survey said that seniority was a factor in the selection of committee chairs, it was a predominant factor in the late 20th Century only in Arkansas, South Carolina and Wyoming.  Just as Congress, which probably had the most absolute seniority rule among the 101 chambers in the United States, has reduced the role of seniority in the selection of committee chairs in recent years, so too have these three states.  As a result, Pennsylvania's rules today almost certainly rank as one of the strongest seniority systems in the country.

Although we have not done a survey on the subject, we at NCSL are not aware of any state legislature that has imposed term limits on committee chairs.  The reason for this is that in the absence of absolute seniority rules, politics, leadership change and changes in party control cause a normal rotation of committee chairs that avoids the problem, which term limits are designed to address, of long-time committee chairs who are too cosy with the agencies and interests that they regulate.  We would welcome any correction to our perception that term limits for committee chairs don't exist in state legislatures.

The only U.S. legislature that we know of that has adopted term limits for committee chairs is Congress, which introduced six-year limits for committee chairs and eight-year limits for leadership positions when Republicans took over after the 1994 elections.  These congressional rules stayed in place in both chambers through the Republican regime and forced a number of changes in chairmanships, although "special" rules were adopted in some years to allow certain chairs (and Speaker Hastert) to remain in place beyond their limits.  When the Democrats took over in 2007, they left term limits for committee chairs and leaders in place, not necessarily because they agreed with them but because the issue would not have an effect on a new majority for at least six years and therefore was not ripe for internal debate.

Term limits for committee chairs have a certain appeal and appear to be relatively harmless to the institution, especially if those experienced and valuable chairs who are term-limited are eligible to chair a different committee.  When I put this to Alan Rosenthal, though, he said, "Why would you want to place any limits on the discretion of the leaders and members to have good committee chairs?  If you have a terrific chair of, say, the appropriations committee, you ought to be able to keep that chair."

Which leads me to a question that it didn't occur to me to ask in Harrisburg: Has the reform commission considered eliminating the seniority rule instead of imposing term limits?

[Photo of Pennsylvania Capitol dome by Eric Oxendorf]

Comments

[Lurker]

There are alot of "Has the [Committee] considered..." things, like, say, the methods of drawing district lines?

In any case, I was informed of this testimony when I actually read a newspaper (In New York, I think). It didn't express its opinion, but did note the lack of supportive testimony.

[Karl Kurtz]

Bill Marx of the Minnesota House staff sent me the following excerpts from House and Senate rules correcting my assertion that no state has term limits for committee chairs.

From House Rule 6.02: "A member must not serve as the chair of the same standing committee or division, or a standing committee or division with substantially the same jurisdiction, during more than the three immediately prior consecutive regular biennial sessions. This Rule does not apply to service as chair of the Committee on Rules and Legislative Administration."

Minnesota Senate Rules 10.5: "A member may not serve as the chair of the same standing committee or the same division of a standing committee, or a committee or division with substantially the same jurisdiction, for more than three consecutive Senate terms. This limit does not apply to the Committee on Rules and Administration. This limit applies to time served as a chair in the seventy-eighth legislature and thereafter."

Thanks for this information. It would be interesting to hear from a Minnesotan how this limit has worked.