Is this a Permanent Select Committee, like Intelligence?

I remember when Pelosi was elected Minority Leader, I was talking to a conservative friend of mine. He said something like, "Wow, you Democrats really blundered making a San Francisco liberal your leader."

I just smiled and said, "Hmmm, I don't think so. You'll see."

I've been even more impressed with Pelosi than I expected. She's been a really, really adept at creating a powerful momentum among her caucus, and, mostly, she's been on the right side to things. This beginning to her Congress has been pretty amazing. It's early, but she's fractured the GOP pretty completely in the early going.

Good stuff.  It would be great to see us start to do more official PR around this issue.  It crosses over partisan lines and is a big winner with the emergence of the religious right's support.

   Dingell would be an utter disaster for any global warming or environmental committee. His district includes Ford world headquarters. A lot of his constituents are auto workers who think that any government regulation would cost them their job. I support the union, but their short-sighted and selfish policies are dooming their futures (and ours).  

Dingell is a nightmare for America. He keeps blocking US energy efficiency claiming it will cost UAW jobs yet his policies (Republican policies) have  been the ones that have lead to the bankrupting of US car industry and the loss of hundreds of thousands of union jobs.

Pelosi's move is great way around Dingell and gives US a shot at solving the real Iraqi (and Saudi, Iranian, Kuwaiti) threat to US...US oil dependence.

That Dingell is complaining is a good sign.

and respect for process collide.

On one hand, fuck John Dingell.  On the other, this is bad precedent.  On the other other, end-running around committee chairs is only bad if done by the wrong person for the wrong reason.  On the other other other, that's the whole point of precedent and restricted powers generally: just cause a given power is useful, at the moment, in the hands of someone decent, absolutely does not mean that that power won't get to the wrong person, with the earlier restrictions already usefully broken.  Power always gets into the wrong hands eventually; that's the entire reason that we restrict it so carefully.  That's Founding Fathers stuff.

Oh well.  I support Pelosi's doing this.  If someone as cautious as her is prepared to do it, it is probably the right call.  

This also shows that the institutional structure of Congress is flawed.  We need either termlimited committeechairs, or weakened committeechairs, or both.   It's stupid that the Energy and Commerce Committee has been rendered non-functional by one guy from Detroit.  That's not acceptable, and if the institution has created that situation with its own rules, the institution is flawed.

Is there any information on who will chair this new committee, or a list of members?

Namely, how little she shook things up.  This is the opposite of Newt Gingrich.  Not much sound and fury. Just enough of a shift to send a message and get things moving.

In this week of NYT gender absurdity, dare I say it... a woman's touch?  Oh, just call it what it is.  A light touch by a seasoned pro, whose goals are bigger than her ego.

But oh, there's so much more in this mix! For example: Dingell's chief of staff was a lobbyist and strategist at DaimlerChrysler as late as November. Dingell's wife is the executive director of government relations at GM. Dingell favored Hoyer over Pelosi in the Whip's race in 2001. Pelosi backed Dingell's primary challenger Lynne Rivers in 2002.

For what it's worth, John Dingell is still a good person and a good representative. He's been representing Detroit or its suburbs since 1955, and when your district (and, for that matter, your state) is so tied to the auto industry, it's hard to do anything that could jeopradize them. My father, in a rural area far away from Detroit, had neighbors complain when he bought a his Honda Civic, a "foreign car"-- it's a big deal to a lot of folks.

As for Lynn Rivers, it wasn't so much a primary challenge as bad Republican redistricting. Dingell's and Rivers' districts were merged, forcing two popular Democratic incumbents to face one another. It wasn't cool.

But Dingell is still great on a lot of issues-- labor, welfare, healthcare, etc. Remember, his father (who held the district before him) helped create Social Security, and Dingell himself helped create Medicare. And he still introduces his father's Universal Health Care bill every session of Congress.

For a home town paper perspective, read this article from the Detroit Free Press.

"John Dingell is still a good person and a good representative. He's been representing Detroit or its suburbs since 1955, and when your district (and, for that matter, your state) is so tied to the auto industry, it's hard to do anything that could jeopradize them"

Everything Dingell did jeopardized US auto workers and US auto industry.  US car industry is dead, GM and Ford laying off thousands, shutting factories, losing market share, losing billion$ and going bankrupt.

It is fair to call Dingell's policies anti-American...they killed off US car industry, they increased US oil imports.  An enemy could not hope for more damage than Dingells shortsighted policies have done to the US.

The US auto industry is already dead, it's just going on its remaining momentum.  It's time for the rest of the country to start looking to its economic survival: universal healthcare, balanced tax system, higher savings rate, energy efficiency, etc.

I like Pelosi's style, better than I expected.  It might have been politically smarter to draw out the passage of popular policies (100 days rather than 100 hours) but I applaud that she's short-circuiting the ossified committee structure.  Clearly on global warming we cannot wait for the slow wheels of government reform to turn around.  Read the Stern Report out of the UK.

I also applaud that she tried to keep the AIPAC stooge Hoyer out of the #2 slot.  He will cause trouble for her in the future, but at least she tried.

What Pelosi is doing is not entirely unprecedented. Speakers used to do this kind of thing all the time before 1910.

What's interesting is that Pelosi's usurpation of committee prerogatives is part of a long trend of the weakening of committee chairs - which started in 1974 and has continued ever since. The Speaker's increasing power is more apparent than real, though. It's not that position that has gained influence, but the party caucus. Pelosi could never have done this if she didn't have the support of a large majority of House Democrats.

the policies that the big three have been pushing including the unions,is why toyota is going to be number 1 in the very near future.I,ve owned chevys and pontiacs for 20 years but if chevy doesnt wise up that well soon change.

My own effort on the subject was evidently too cryptically headed! ;)

When Nancy says

it's hard not to see this as an end run by Pelosi around the House's committee system and its chairmen.

Ever since Rules was enlarged in 1961 to dilute the power of chairman Howard Smith of VA, through the reforms of the 70s (mostly driven by liberals under the banner of the Democratic Study Group and like groupings) and the Gingrich reforms of the 90s, the momentum has been towards stacking the game in favor of the leadership against the chairmen.

Perhaps the 110th is when the empire strikes back.

Put it this way, if Pelosi were, on the strength of her coup to emulate her remote cousin Mussolini with his arms-akimbo, eyes closed, chin stuck out, nodding display of hubris - il duce ha sempre ragione-style  - she'd be very unwise, I'd say.

She's not exactly been deft with her handling of committee chairs to date - there was Harman/Hastings, for one - and, if I were her, I'd not be poking any other chairman in the eye for the while.

(As well as Waxman, Rangel has said he's not a sure vote for EIGW.)

Outstanding.  The republicans have no chance in 08!

"Energy and Commerce when, say, Waxman pries the gavel out of Dingell's hands"

Waxman will fight any attempt to take the legislative jurisdiction out of Energy and Commerce because he is going to be chair soon.  

FWIW - Waxman has always been good on these issues and had the skill to pass the 1990 Clean Air Bill despite opposition from Dingell and Bush I's.