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The Human Needs Report is the Coalition on Human Needs' newsletter
on national policy issues affecting low-income and vulnerable populations.
It is published every other week while Congress is in session.
Article from the January 19 , 2007 edition
of the CHN Human Needs
Report:
Members of Congress returned to Capitol Hill on January 4 for the official start of the 110th Congress. Since assembling, one of the first orders of business for the new Congress has been restructuring the committees and assigning new leadership posts. With the Democrats winning control of both the House and Senate, the committees have been reorganized to reflect the shift in leadership.
Thus far, almost all committee assignments have been made. In the Senate where the majority is slim (51-49), Democrats have a one-seat margin on all of the committees. The two exceptions are the Ethics Panel, where each party has three seats, and the Joint Economic Committee, where the Democrats hold two more seats than Republicans. In the House the seat ratio between Democrats and Republicans is greater, given the larger margin of victory favoring Democrats, 233-202.
Also of note, the House and Senate Appropriations committees, which are responsible for assigning funding to government programs, have been reconfigured so that the number of subcommittees (12) and their jurisdictions are identical in both chambers. The new Committee Chairs, Rep. David R. Obey (WI) and Sen. Robert C Byrd (WV), hope the realignment will enable them to finish the fiscal 2008 spending bills by the start of the new fiscal year, which begins on October 1. To see the list of House and Senate Appropriations Subcommittee Chairmen go to: http://www.chn.org/pdf/2007/appropschairmen.pdf.
For a full list of Senate Committee assignments visit: http://www.chn.org/pdf/2007/Senomlist.pdf.
You can see what committees your Representative has been assigned to by clicking on ‘Committee Membership’ at http://www.house.gov/daily/hpg.htm.
A comprehensive list of committee assignments will be posted on the CHN website once it becomes available.
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