Committee assignments for various US House of Representatives are being publicized. As expected there are a lot of spins and headlines and bylines, not to mention a handful of DailyKos diaries on that topic.
Rep Katie Porter (CA-45) used to be on Oversight Committee as well as Financial Services Committee in the last congress. In this congress Porter decided to priorotise Oversight and Natural Resources as her preferred top two choices.
The change in priority by Porter from Financial Services towards Natural Resources reflects a shift direction and attention. Given her stellar performance and dedicated followers it is safe to assume that the same kind of base energising, informative, attention grabbing performance within Natural Resources committe. This will bring a further attention to an area much need of some devotion from a messiah figure within a voluble flank the Democratic Party
for details for the area that is covered under Natrural Resources committee jurisdiction see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_Committee_on_Natural_Resources4
On top of the usual bulk of mining and forestry related jurisdictions, the committee has a few interesting elements that fall under the committee remit. Notable areas of interest that might go towards rejuvenating Porter fans and devottee and followers interest in Natural Resources committe are its jurisdiction over these (italics are mine for added commentary)
- Native Americans, including the care and allotment of Native American lands and general and special measures relating to claims that are paid out of Native American funds. (some sort of halt or lessening of abuse of native lands hopefully is in the cards).
- Relations of the United States with Native Americans and Native American tribes. (where do I even begin to express the joy this is bound to bring to the Porterillas)
- Military parks and battlefields, national cemeteries administered by the Secretary of the Interior, parks within the District of Columbia, and the erection of monuments to the memory of individuals. (Watch out all those Confederate memorials and namings and dedications)
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Preservation of prehistoric ruins and objects of interest on the public domain.
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Public lands generally, including entry, easements, and grazing thereon. (There are some farmers who have been refusing to pony up grazing fees)
of course there are many other areas which i have not listed above.
Communications team for Porter is trying to do the intricate balance of justifying the switch from Financial Services to Natural Resources to her fanbase without facing a blowback for dropping Financial Services from her prefered assignment in favour of Naturalo resources.
Luckily for Porter, some short sighted Republican associated outlets have been framing the shift has Porter being kicked out from Financial Services committee and this being a win for Bankers and such. The crowing of such articles are amplified within Dailykos, the well known liberal forum, All this is giving Porter the time to sort out any public reltions excercises and seamlessly go into the committee she preferred without having to explain in detail at this time to her fanbase why she changed her priorities. There are far too many other things going on than for her to get into a long pointless debate within Democratic circles. By the time things have settled Porter will have had exactly what she wanted.
The committee assignments are a fundamental attention shift by Porter. I am concluding thaty this means that Porter does not see much benefiot from being in Finanacial servcies committee which is going to be populated by plenty other people. Coupled with the fact that the Biden/Harris administration is likely to paying attention to financial services sector without needing Porter to prod them.
I am looking forwared to the performance from Porter and quest for justice in use and abuse of natural resources as well as other areas under the committee purview.
Other dailykos diaries with different ciew on the Porter committee assignments can be found here from two diarists i follow dedicatedly.
by Annielli: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/1/15/2009502/-Banksters-win-Katie-Porter-excluded-from-the-Financial-Services-Committee
by magnifico (which seems like a duplicate of source and material of previous one): https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/01/17/2009954/-House-Democrats-Boot-Rep-Katie-Porter-from-%E2%80%9CExclusive%E2%80%9D-House-Financial-Services-Committee