Dems Gain Edge in Committees

The news of a deal is out: Dems to gain a 3-seat majority on most Senate committees.

However, and here’s the fine print, if you look at the aggregate number of committee seats available to each side, minus the Ethics Committee (always set at equally split, to avoid partisanship determining outcomes) and the Intelligence committee (seat by law as having a 1-seat edge for the majority). By my math, the Dems will likely end up with 215 seats outside of those 2 committees, and the GOP will have 159.

In other words, a 59% Senate is likely to end up with a 57.5%/42.5% ratio on committees as a whole. It will be harder to get bills out of committee than they will the Senate, albeit just slightly.

And I suspect the funding and staffing ratios will be even more equal then that, because the Dem leadership seems to always cave (even if it takes suffering an embarassment or two before they do).