GOP Assembles All White Male Roster of House Committee Chairmen for Upcoming Congress
It was somewhat disappointing, though not particularly surprising, when House Speaker John Boehner announced yesterday that the GOP's 19 House committee chairs will be occupied exclusively by white men starting next year.
For one thing, the current Congress has only a single minority chairperson — Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), a Hispanic woman.
For another thing, the GOP itself is composed almost entirely of white men: Of the 234 (or 235) Republicans that make up the 113th Congress, only 20 are women, seven are Hispanic, and one is African-American.
Compare that with the Democrats, who, for the first time, will count white male lawmakers in the minority.
The news isn't all bad for female Republican representatives. Four of them were selected for Boehner's leadership team:
Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., will be the Republican Conference Chairman, the fourth top Republican in the House, Rep. Lynn Jenkins, R-Kan., will be the conference's vice-chair, and Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., will act as conference secretary.
Still, the fact remains that Republicans aren't showing any willingness to learn from their mistakes — namely, the disregard for minorities that just cost them a presidential election.
As Rachel Maddow said of the image at the top of the post: "This is what you can clip and save for the next time someone in the beltway tells you how seriously the Republican party is taking its diversity problem this year."
