There has been some confusion and uncertainty as to whether Joe Lieberman has the power to flip control of the Senate to the Republicans. I come bearing good news!! As of this past Friday (January 12), it appears that Lieberman is powerless to effect party control of the 110th Congress.
This is due to the fact that the Senate passed a resolution on January 12 (S.Res. 27) that designates various Democrats by name as committee chairs and specifies the Democratic members of each committee. The Senate also passed a similar resolution (S. Res. 28) the same day that names various Republicans as the ranking minority members of each committee and specifies the Republican members of each committee. Based on these two resolutions, the membership of each standing committee in the Senate appears to be fixed for the duration of this Congress. Further, it includes one more Democratic member than it does Republican members in each case, thereby providing Democrats with control of the committee system and the flow of legislation in the Senate.
What is sigificant about these resolutions is that neither contains any provisions for implementation of a change in the party affiliation of committee chairs or the party make up of each committee even if there is a change in the identity of the party with the numerical majority in the Senate. Taken together, these resolutions appear to lock in Democratic control of the Senate for the entire 110th Congress (2007 and 2008). The reason that they lock in control is that they cannot be changed without further action by the Senate, which would require a filibuster-proof majority of 60 senators who were willing to support a change in party control of the Senate. It is possible that such a filibuster-proof majority could emerge in the event of a shift of a seat from Democratic to Republican hands and a 50-50 deadlock in the Senate (with Cheney the tie-breaker) but it is not likely that the 10 Democratic senators required to produce that 60-vote majority would agree to vote with the Republicans on organizational matters.
A review of history shows that in 1953 (the 83rd Congress) the Republicans controlled the Senate at the beginning of the session by 48-47 (with one independent) and never lost control of the Senate during that Congress despite repeated switches back and forth between a Republican majority and a Democratic majority. Nine senators died during the 83rd Congress, causing the balance of power to shift back and forth on several occasions between the Democrats and Republicans as new senators were named or elected. However, control of the Senate remained in Republican hands throughout the 83rd Congress regardless of which party actually held the majority of the seats. This was due in part to the fact that the organizing resolutions for that Congress designated Republicans to chair and control the committees and in part to the fact that LBJ (then the minority leader) preferred to leave control in Republican hands so that they would have to take responsibility for dealing with the McCarthy problem.
The Congressional Record for January 12 2007, contains a discussion of an agreement between Majority Leader Harry Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on committee budgets for the committees during the 110th Congress (10% in aditional funds is to be allocated to the chair of each committee for administrative expenses). Following the insertion of this item into the record, the Senate immediately approved two resolutions on January 12, 2007.
The first one (S.Res 27) designates various Democrats by name to chair each of the Senate's standing committees. It also lists by name the Democratic members of each standing committee. If you total up the number of Democrats on each committee and then do the same for the Republican members, it turns out that the Democrats have been granted numerical control of each standing committee by this resolution.
The second one (S.Res. 28) designates various Republicans by name to serve as the ranking minority member for each of the standing committees. It also lists by name the Republican members of each standing committee, basically fixing the status of the Republican Party as the minority party by giving them one less member than the Democrats on each committee.
Contrast these recent actions by the Senate with the actions taken in 2001 pertaining to governance of the Senate for the 107th Congress (2001-2002). These 2001 Senate resolutions established the ground rules for a future change in control of the Senate from Republican to Democratic (or vice versa). As we all know, Republican James Jeffords of Vermont tired of the antics of the Republican Party and announced on May 24, 2001, that he intended to caucus with the Democrats effective as of June 6, 2001. Under the Senate rules that were in place in 2001 for the 107th Congress, Jeffords' decision automatically triggered a change in committee chairs and the make up of each committee, thereby handing control of the Senate to the Democrats.
The only affirmative action that the Senate took in 2001 in response to Jeffords' action was to enact resolutions replacing Strom Thurmond with Robert Byrd as President Pro Tem of the Senate and designating a Democratic apppointee as Secretary of the Majority and a Republican appointee as Secretary of the Minority. This took place on June 6 but the elevation of Tom Daschle to majority leader happened automatically as did the replacement of all the Republican committee chairs with new Democratic chairs.
Check out the Senate rules that were in place in 2001 so you can see just how different they are from the rules that were adopted for the Senate on January 12 of this year.
The first 2001 resolution (S.Res. 7) named various Democrats to serve as committee chairs from January 3 until January 20, 2001, and various Republicans to serve as committee chairs starting on January 20. The interim chair appointments were in effect only for the 17 days remaining in Al Gore's term as Vice President and were replaced by Republican designees on January 20, 2001 (the date Dick Cheney was sworn in as Vice President and gained the power to break the 50-50 deadlock between the two parties).
The second resolution (S.Res. 8) (enacted on January 3, 2001, immediately following S.Res. 7) set additional rules for the 2001 and 2002 sessions of the Senate. It authorized the leader of each party to name the members of each committee on a 50-50 basis (section 1) (this is unusual as committee members are usually designated by Senate resolution). Further, it provided for an automatic change in the chair of each committee and the party breakdown of each committee if there was a change in party control of the Senate (section 2).
With this framework in place in 2001 (agreed to by the Republicans under duress because of the 50-50 party breakdown in the Senate), the Republicans were entitled to name committee chairs without further action by the Senate. At the same time, the Democrats were entitled to automatically assume control of the Senate (through the committees) when and if a Republican senator was replaced by a Democratic senator or decided to switched party affiliations. A few months later, Jeffords defected from the Republican Party and started caucusing with the Democrats on June 6, 2001, resulting in the automatic replacement of all Republican committee chairs with Democrats.
Unless there is an unpublicized gentlemen's agreement between Reid and McConnell about which we do not know, the January 12 resolutions should ensure Democratic control of the Senate for the entire 110th Congress. The mystery is why the Republicans did not insist on a reopener clause comparable to that included in the Senate's 2001 resolution. Despite the media frenzy over Tim Johnson's brush with death in mid-December and the wild speculation at that time with regard to possible Republican control of the Senate, there has been virtually no discussion in the media of the passive stance of the Republicans and their failure to insist on preserving the opportunity to regain control of the Senate that would be assoociated with the replacement of Johnson by a Republican or the defection of Lieberman to the Republicans. I saw only a brief passing reference in an article in the Washington Post to the Republicans' decision not to seek a reopener clause.
Anyway, I'll keep on scanning the Congressional Record to see if something new pops up in the record indicating a deal for reopening the question of committee control down the road. I do not think that it will as any such deal would be inconsistent with the existing resolutons designating various Democrats as committee chairs and establishing Democratic control of each of the committees without qualification. For now, I am reasonably certain that Liebernman is powerless to effect a change in control of the Senate. Hence we see him rewarding his Republican patrons by refusing to investigate the mishandling of Hurricane Katrina and by supporting Bush's latest Iraq pronouncements. Lieberman will be annoying but I don't see him as having much of a power base or having any ability to broker a deal on Iraq as he has no leverage with the Democrats and is way out of the main stream on the Iraq issue.