Congressional Committee System: To Reform or Not To Reform?

I found this article regarding the congressional committee system to be very interesting. The article emphasizes of the importance of reforming the current committee system to make it less dispersed, and more "sreamlined". The author believes that in order to make the system more efficient, it needs to be centralized so that certain issues are covered not by many committees, but instead by only one. This, he says, will allow for a quicker, easier way to produce legislation and accomplish goals. The article mentions the issue of homeland security in specific, noting that there are at present 14 full committees as well as 25 sub-committees that deal with the issue. It calls for a new committee of homeland security to cover the issue on its own so that the current "mix of dispersed jurisdiction and authority [which] creates wasteful inefficiencies" will be taken care of. From our discussion in class about the committee system, I am not sure that this new "streamlined" committee structure is appropriate. Isn't the current system streamlined enough? Right now, our system allows for any given committee to have almost monopoly power and influence to alter the status quo on the issues that fall under its title. We are giving only these few members the right to decide how, in fact, the status quo can and will be altered. These few members in return, have to give up their power on all other issues and bills, in order to have power over a couple of issues dearest to them. It seems as though this structure is costly because if you are not on a certain committee that will end up effecting your district, you do not get the opportunity to implement the best policy for your constituents. Moreover, for national, more far reaching committees that are important to all districts in all states, such as national security, there are only a small portion of legislators that have the opportunity to influence that topic. If the new homeland security committee is created, we would only be lowering the number of representatives, and thus the public voice, that would be allowed to make policy changes . Instead of narrowing an already narrow system, leaving some issues to multiple committees will allow more members of congress the opportunity to effect the issue. "Dispersed" and "wasteful," as it may seem, the greater the number of committees and therefore representatives that can touch a topic, the more in check it will be, and in turn, the better it will be able to serve a greater number of citizens.