No Surprise Here

Speaker-designate Eileen Filler-Corn, Fairfax. Photo credit: CNN

by Dick Hall-Sizemore

Both the RTD and Washington Post today reported on the new Speaker-to-be’s first committee chair appointments. (This is one of the real powers of the Speaker of the House of Delegates.  He/she gets to make all committee appointments, including the chair of each committee.)  The Post was a little more muted, but from the RTD’s headline, “3 members of  Va. black caucus to lead House panels”, one would have thought the appointments were a surprise and part of a Democratic plan to give special perks to the black caucus. The chairman of the black caucus even weighed in by praising the “historic appointments.”

What would have been surprising would have been not appointing those members to the chairmanships.  Each one is the Democratic delegate with the most seniority currently on the committee.  So far, the new Speaker-to-be (herself certainly far from what a traditional Speaker has been) is going with tradition.