Rep. John Kline: A Committee Chair in Shadow of House Leadership

When Rep. John Kline was named chair of the House Education and Workforce Committee in 2011, he became only the fifth Minnesotan to earn a chairmanship in the last half century.

But, as the Star Tribune pointed out earlier this week, despite overseeing a $6 million annual budget and holding a position of prestige and putative influence, the fact is that committee chairs don't have as much power as they used to.

A combination of political maneuvers that have centralized power in the hands of party leadership and rule changes—such as a three-term limit for committee chairs—have served to rob committee chairs of much of the legislative control committee chairs wielded in earlier eras.

Political experts say that committee chairs have had a diminished role in the lawmaking process in recent years.

“They just don’t have much power these days,” Todd Eberly, a political scientist at St. Mary’s College of Maryland, told the Star Tribune.