In particular, standing committees usually create subcommittees with legislative jurisdiction to consider and report bills.
For the most part, they are independent, autonomous units with written jurisdictions, and, pursuant to longstanding practice, most bills are referred by a full committee to them.
Some committees, like the House and Senate Appropriations Committees, often retain a predictable subcommittee structure from year to year, due to the set duties of each subcommittee in drafting annual spending bills.
[6] House rules also prohibit any full committee from establishing subunits that last longer than six months.
House Rules further require that every full committee with more than 20 members must establish a subcommittee on oversight, though this requirement does not limit the ability of the full committee or its other subcommittees to exercise oversight over programs and agencies under their jurisdiction.
For example, the chairman and ranking member of the full committee are allowed to serve ex officio on their subcommittees without that service being subject to the limitation.
Also, service on any temporary investigative subcommittees established by the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct does not count.
It further states that the resident commissioner and delegates should not be counted in determining subcommittee (or committee) size.
House Democrats allow each committee member to bid, in order of seniority, for available subcommittee leadership slots.
Caucus rules generally limit Members to chair only one full committee or one subcommittee with legislative jurisdiction.
Finally, Republican Conference rules prohibit a full-committee chair from leading a subcommittee of the committee they head.
Republicans generally leave assignment decisions to the committee leader to determine, although most employ a bidding approach that allows members to select subcommittee slots.
[7][8] Given the smaller size of the senate, there are fewer members competing for committee and subcommittee assignments.
Party rules further restrict assignments to no more than one among the so-called Super A Committees of Appropriations, Armed Services, Finance, and Foreign Relations.