United States congressional subcommittee

A Congressional subcommittee in the United States Congress is a subdivision of a standing committee that considers specified matters and reports back to the full committee.

Subcommittees are formed by most committees to share specific tasks within the jurisdiction of the full committee. Subcommittees are responsible to, and work within the guidelines established by, their parent committees. In particular, standing committees usually create subcommittees with legislative jurisdiction to consider and report bills. They may assign their subcommittees such specific tasks as the initial consideration of measures and oversight of laws and programs in the subcommittees’ areas.

Service on subcommittees enables members to develop expertise in specialized fields. Subcommittees diffuse the legislative process. For the most part, they are independent, autonomous units with written jurisdictions, and, pursuant to longstanding practice, most bills are referred by a full committee to them.

General requirements for establishing subcommittees are established in House or Seante rules, but specifics with respect to subcommittee assignemnts and their jurisdication are left up to the parent committees. Committees have wide latitude to increase or decrease the number of subcommittees from one congress to the next, including renaming or reassigning jurisdication among previous subcommittees. Some committees, like the House and Senate Appropriations Committeess, often retain a predictible subcommittee structure from year to year, due to the set duties of each subcommitttee in drafting annual spending bills. However, even these committees are not immune to organizational changes. New subcommittees on Homeland Security were created in 2003 to handle funding for the Department of Homeland Security, and underwent a joint reorganization during the 110th Congress to better coordinate annual appropriations between the House and Senate.

The respective party conferences in both the House and Senate also provide their own rules, traditions, and precedents with repsect to the subcommittee assignments, chairmanship of subcommittees, and even the number of subcommittees on which members can serve.

House Subcommittees

House Rule XI states: the "Rules of the House are the rules of its committees and subcommittees so far as applicable...." According to clause 1(a)(2) of the same rule, "each subcommittee of a committee is a part of that committee, and is subject to the authority and direction of that committee and to its rules, so far as applicable."

House Rule X, which provides for the creation of standing committees, limits committees to five subcommittees each, though committees that also have an oversight subcommittee are permitted six subcommittees. Several committees are allowed to exceed this limit, due the detailed nature of their jurisdiction. The Armed Services and Foreign Affairs and Oversight and Government Reform committees each have seven subcommittees, the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee is allowed six subcommittees, without also requiring an oversight subcommittee, and the Appropriations Committee has twelve subcommittees plus a select oversight panel on intelligence. House rules also prohibit any full committee from establishing subunits that last long than six-months. If they do, then the new subunit counts against the subcommittee limit.

Subcommittee Jurisdiction

Subcommittee jurisdictions are not enumerated in the House rules, and are determined by each committee. Several committees establish specific subcommittee jurisdictions in committee rules. Pursuant to jurisdiction the jurisdiction of the full committee, most legislation is referred by The committee to a subcommittee prior to consideration by the full committee. However, some committees retain specific legislation at the full-committee level. For example, the Ways and Means Committee keeps legislation amending the income tax sections of the Internal Revenue Code at full committee, and the Natural Resources Committee retains matters relating to Native Americans for the full committee.

House Rules further require that every full committee with more than 20 members must establish a subcommittee on oversight, though this requirement does not limit the ability of the full committee or its other subcommittees to exercise oversight over programs and agencies under their jurisdiction.

Service on Subcommittees

House rules are silent on how members are assigned to subcommittees, as this practices is traditionally governed by party rules and practices.

House Rule X generally restricts members of Congress to service on no more than two standing committees and no more than four subcommittees within each of those committees, with some exceptions. For example, the chairman and ranking member of the full committee are allowed to serve as ex-officios on their subcommittees without that service being subject to the limitation. Also, service on any temporary investigative subcommittees established by the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct does not count. Finally, representatives can request waivers from their respective party caucus or conference to serve on additional committees or subcommittees

See also

• List of United States House committees, for a complete list of current House committees and subcommittees
• List of United States Senate committees, for a complete list of current Senate committees and subcommittees
• United States Congressional committee#Defunct_Committees, for an incomplete list of defunct committees and subcommittees