Republican leaders, led by Ohio Rep. John A. Boehner, are protesting a move by Democrats to end the six-year term limits on committee chairmen and roll back other protections for the minority party.
Democrats are expected to include these changes – which would rewrite reforms first established by the GOP in 1995 — in a biennial rules package that will be among the first measures the House takes up later this week.
Why is this a big deal in Minnesota?
Jim Oberstar is Chair of the House Transportation Committee. He’s also 74. If term limits remained in effect, Oberstar would have been forced from his chairmanship after the 2012 elections. That would have been a strong incentive for him to retire at that time. But now he won’t have to give up his committee, and he can stick around as long as he wants to. Same goes for Colin Peterson, who also would have had to give up his gavel of the Ag Committee in 2013. Thus the odds of an open congressional seat in the 7th or 8th congressional district in the next few cycles has just decreased significantly. Tony Sertich will just have to wait.
There are also redistricting consequences. Minnesota will probably lose a seat in the 2010 redistricting process. If Oberstar or Peterson had announced their retirement before the new maps were drawn, it might have been tempting to collapse their districts, because that would allow the other House members to keep their seats. But with these two senior members sticking around for at least a few more years, it seems unlikely that there will be any open seats in 2010 or 2012 (with the usual caveats about making predictions four years out).
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