Congressman Nick Lampson didn’t win a seat on the House Appropriations Committee, as he may have desired, but has won a consolation prize by being named to the House Science and Technology Committee. Subcommittee assignments have not been announced (nor the full list of members of the whole committee, for that matter) but most likely he will be on the space and aeronautics subcommittee. “I am most proud to represent NASA’s flagship, the Johnson Space Center, and am committed to continuing to provide valuable support and resources for our nation’s space program,” Lampson said in a statement. One wonders what people who work at—or represent in Congress—other NASA field centers think about having JSC called “NASA’s flagship”.
Lampson’s press release is spin. As they say politics is local.
When you actually rank the list of committees to get a “hardest to get on committees list”, the Science committee is near the bottom in difficulty. Getting on the science committee is not really an accomplishment.
– Al
Lampson’s press release is spin. As they say politics is local.
When you actually rank the list of committees to get a “hardest to get on committees list”, the Science committee is near the bottom in difficulty. Getting on the science committee is not really an accomplishment.
– Al
It might be harder to land on appropriations or ways & means, but being on the Science committee is pretty darn important if Johnson Space Center is in your congressional district.
You’re right, Al–all politics is local. So props to Mr. Lampson for paying attention to his district.
Al,
That ranking statement is just not true. One 2006 study, titled “The Value of Committee Assignments in Congress since 1994″ put out by MIT’s Keith Edwards and Charles Stewart III produces a ranking based on widely accepted Grosewart method ranks the Science usually in the middle of the list.
While the Republicans were in charge from 1994-2004 (2006 data is not available in this report), Science ranked #14 in importance out of 21 committees. Under democrats (96-103rd congress), Science was much higher ranking 9th out of 22.
When you split the rankings by party as they did in their paper, Democrats in the House in recent Congresses actually ranked science as 11th and republicans as 14th most important committee assignment. Surprisingly, This ranking is one higher than the education committee.
The top five are (in order) Ways and Means, appropiations, commerce and energy, judiciary, and rules.
The bottom five (worst first) are Ethics, Small Business, Agriculture, House Administration, and Budget.