House Democrats Reject Proposal for Committee Leadership Term Limits

House Democrats rejected a plan proposed by Rep. Bill Foster (D-IL) to have a three-term limit on how many times a caucus member could sit atop a committee.

The House Democrats voted down the change to their party’s rules on Tuesday that would have ultimately limited the amount of time a House Democrat could lead a committee to three terms (six years), Business Insider‘s Bryan Metzger reported.

The proposal would have been similar to the rule the House Republicans have in place to limit members to a six-year term limit on committees. Rules like this ultimately allow more members and younger members to lead a committee.

Metzger wrote:

House Democrats on Tuesday voted to reject a change to their party’s rules that would have limited the amount of time that their members can lead committees, a Democratic aide confirmed.

The amendment, proposed by Democratic Rep. Bill Foster of Illinois, would have required committee chairs to receive a majority vote from the entire Democratic caucus in order to chair a committee — a position that affords lawmakers greater influence over legislation and the power to steer policy — for more than a total of six years.

…

Currently, Democrats have no limit for committee chairmanships, and members can serve atop committees until they resign, retire, or are successfully challenged. Republicans, by contrast, have implemented six-year term limits — a measure that proponents argue allows for greater turnover and opportunities for more junior lawmakers to move up the ranks.

Politico reported that Foster ultimately created his proposal to delineate a middle ground between strict term limits like the House GOP has and the current system the Democrats have with no term limits.

He told Politico in an interview that strict limits were not a “good policy for the caucus” because “there are a number of sitting committee chairs or ranking members that deserve to serve longer than six years.”

Republicans recently had problems with their caucus’s own rule as the Republican leadership granted Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) a waiver so she could continue to lead the House Education and Labor Committee. This move also prompted the GOP conference to rethink the rule.

Jacob Bliss is a reporter for Breitbart News. Write to him at jbliss@breitbart.com or follow him on Twitter @JacobMBliss.