House of Delegates. Source: Virginia Public Access Project
Who’s got the power? We got the power!
Breaking through the wall, gonna do it all
We don’t quit!
Who’s got the power? We got the power!
— Powerpuff Girls
The Virginia Public Access Project compared the committee assignments of 113 legislators returning to the General Assembly this year and graphed the change between 2018 and 2020 in the number of committees served and the number of bills considered. Unsurprisingly, given the shift in majority power from Republicans to Democrats, Republicans generally lost power and Democrats gained it. The graph above, which depicts changes in the House of Delegates, clearly shows that, overall, Republicans (red dots) serve on fewer committees dealing with fewer bills while Democrats (blue dots) serve on more committees considering more bills.
Here is the comparable graph for the state Senate:
State Senate.
(Visit the VPAP to see an interactive version of these graphs, which display the names of the legislators when you mouse over the dots.)
A couple of anomalies. In the House graph, House Speaker Eileen Filler-Corn, D-Fairfax Station, is the blue dot in the far lower, left-hand corner. She may serve on fewer committees that consider fewer bills, but she’s the speaker. She wields more power than anyone else in the House.
In the second graph, there’s one red dot in the upper right-hand quadrant where legislators have more committees and bills. That’s Sen. Tommy Norment, R-Williamsburg. He may have lost his position as Senate Majority Leader, but it appears to have survived the re-shuffle of committee assignments just fine, actually gaining a committee assignment in the process.
Biggest winners (by these metrics) in the Senate: Creigh Deeds, D-Bath, and Lynwood Lewis, D-Accomac.
Biggest winners in the House: Chris Hurst, D-Blacksburg, and Kathy Tran, D-Springfield.
Perhaps our General Assembly correspondent Mr. Haner can inform us how meaningful these metrics are as indicators of real power. Should certain committee assignments be weighted more heavily than others?
— JAB
