Bloomberg Law: Powerful Tax-Writing Panels to Lose Experience After Midterms
High-profile retirements and competitive elections among senior tax writers will likely give the House Ways and Means Committee a new look next Congress.
The Senate Finance Committee, the chamber’s counterpart to Ways and Means, only has three members who have announced their plans to retire. But several panel members…are seeking governorships or face tough re-election battles.
Reps. Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.), Danny Davis (D-Ill.), Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas), and David Schweikert (R-Ariz.)—all longtime members of the powerful [Ways and Means] panel that drives major legislation on taxes, trade, and health care—will be departing, meaning the loss of decades of experience.
If Democrats retake the House in November’s elections, as they hope, they could add about 10 new members, since the current makeup of 19 Democrats and 26 Republicans would flip.
Though some subcommittee leaders are departing Ways and Means, the current Chair Jason Smith (R-Mo.) and ranking member Richard Neal (D-Mass.) are expected to return.
But if Democrats win the House, as they are hoping to, Smith and Neal would swap titles.
New Democrats on the committee could bring fresh ideas to the panel about how to address constituents’ concerns about affordability, said Evan Giesemann, a senior manager at EY’s Washington Council practice and former congressional Democratic aide. And they could begin laying down legislative markers for what Democrats could include in a party-line package using the expedited reconciliation process if they regain full control of Washington after the 2028 elections, he said.
If lawmakers want to move major tax legislation, they will have to lean on a shrinking pool of legislators with long institutional memories. Just three GOP members on the panel when the 2017 Republican tax overhaul passed Congress are expected to remain in 2027. And though many members worked on last year’s tax-and-spending law, a large portion of that legislation was crafted by extending portions of the legislation from Trump’s first term.
