Obey-Petri Series: advocate for empowering committee chairs

Source: WisPolitics.com
Having spent their careers on opposite sides of the aisle, former Congressmen Dave Obey and Tom Petri have found common ground in arguing the power shift toward party leadership is unhealthy.
The two say the leaders of committees, both at the federal and state levels, used to hold more power and influenced legislation to the point that some people even turned down leadership roles. But in the past two decades, decision making — and fundraising — has moved away from committees and into leadership offices, Obey and Petri told a WisPolitics.com luncheon at the Madison Club last week.