Youth movement among House Democrats is overrated

The youth movement among House Democrats? Don't believe the hype.

Even as a few Democratic committee heads are being pushed aside for younger replacements, the party is elevating some of its most senior members to lead virtually every major committee in the next Congress.

On Wednesday, the Democratic Steering and Policy Committee confirmed the ranking member positions for the senior lawmakers of four top committees — Ways and Means, Energy and Commerce, Financial Services, and Appropriations.

That puts Reps. Richard Neal (D-Mass.), 75; Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), 73; Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), 86; and Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), 81, in some of the most prominent seats to confront the incoming Trump administration next year. 

None of them faced competition from younger members.

And the trend will continue on Monday, when the Steering and Policy panel is scheduled to fill out its committee roster, which will keep a number of veteran lawmakers in the ranking member spots they currently hold.

That list includes Reps. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), 76, at the top of the Homeland Security Committee; Nydia Velázquez (D-N.Y.), 71, as ranking member of the Small Business Committee; Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), 76, on the Science, Space and Technology Committee; and Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.), 71, on the Foreign Affairs Committee.  

All of this runs counter to the narrative — popular among Washington's chattering class — that a young and restive crop of Democrats is clamoring to scrap the seniority system that’s guided the party’s committee-selection process for years.

To be sure, younger lawmakers have launched high-profile challenges to more senior members for the top spot on four committees. But many Democrats are quick to note that two of those senior committee members — Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.) at the top of Natural Resources and Rep. David Scott (D-Ga.) on the Agriculture panel — have health problems that likely spurred those challenges. 

“I don’t think that this is a wave,” Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.) said.

Rep. Ami Bera (D-Calif.) agreed there's no massive push to scrap seniority on committees — for a simple reason. Many veteran committee heads are still considered to be the best fit for the job, he said, and Democrats want them to remain in place to confront Trump's second term.

"You don’t want to toss out experience and knowledge," Bera said. "Put your best player out on the field, and if your best player is the ranking member," then keep them there.

It’s not that generational change is not happening within the Democratic Caucus. Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), in stepping out of leadership at the start of last year, paved the way for that power shift to begin in earnest after years when younger members griped that she and her top deputies — Reps. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) and James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.) — had blocked opportunities for newer lawmakers to rise in the ranks.

That transition empowered the ascension of Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) and his leadership team — Reps. Katherine Clark (D-Mass.) and Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.) — all of whom are a generation younger. And this year, a handful of junior members are challenging more veteran lawmakers for ranking member spots. 

That list includes Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), who knocked Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) out of the top Democratic seat on the Judiciary Committee; Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), who is facing off against the more senior Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) to replace Raskin as ranking member of the Oversight and Accountability Committee; Reps. Jim Costa (D-Calif.) and Angie Craig (D-Minn.), who are vying to replace Scott as the leading Democrat on the Agriculture Committee; and Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.), who nudged Grijalva out of the top seat on the Natural Resources panel. (Huffman, in turn, is now in the midst of a contest against the more junior Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-N.M.), who has been endorsed by Grijalva).

Those challenges — some already successful, others to be determined Monday — have fueled suggestions there's a broader shift afoot aimed at upending a seniority system that's generally guided the Democrats' panel picks in recent decades.

"Three ranking member battles when the incumbents want to stay — that is a little unusual," said Rep. Dan Kildee (D-Mich.)

Yet evidence that the primacy of seniority is facing extinction is tougher to find.

Leaders of the Congressional Black Caucus — a powerful bloc that's long supported seniority as a way to empower lawmakers who were disenfranchised for most of the nation's history — said this week that the veteran status of lawmakers should remain a primary factor in deciding committee posts. 

“We will make sure that we will give deference to seniority,” said Rep. Troy Carter (D-La.), “but we want the very best person to serve."

Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), the leading Democratic on the powerful Rules Committee who will keep that seat next year, suggested the guiding principle in deciding committee posts boils down to competence. But experience, he added, is a large part of that equation, which explains why so many ranking members are keeping their seats — particularly in a Congress when Democrats are warning of the threats posed by Trump’s return to power.  

"The stakes are high, and we need to bring our 'A' game forward,” McGovern said. “In many ways, this conversation’s not as much about age as it is about: How can we be most effective in the new Congress?”

Jeffries, for his part, is walking a delicate line between promoting the importance of experience on Capitol Hill, as fostered by the seniority system, and encouraging a generational shift in order to elevate younger talent and advance fresh ideas — a shift he, himself, represents.  

“House Democrats have clearly been in the midst of a generational transition,” Jeffries told reporters in the Capitol this week, referring to the changes in the party’s top brass. But he quickly emphasized that Democrats “continue to value the experience that many long serving members of the caucus bring to the table,” pointing specifically to the confirmations of Neal, Pallone, Waters and DeLauro just hours earlier. 

“So I wouldn't read too much into the fact that committee challenges have emerged in certain quarters,” he said, “because the caucus tends to evaluate committee leadership on a case by case basis.”