Behind closed doors

Nevada Sen. Dean Heller and others had called on the congressional “supercommittee,” charged with crafting a plan to reduce federal deficits by at least $1.2 trillion over the next 10 years, to conduct its business in the open. But on Thursday the group instead adopted rules that will allow “some” of its business to be conducted in secret.

The panel formally known as the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction met for the first time Thursday, and members adopted rules for how they will operate over the next three months.

Prior to that meeting, Sen. Heller led a news conference with a handful of other Republican lawmakers, urging transparency. “We are opposed to inside baseball, and that is what we are seeing with this supercommittee,” Sen. Heller said. “Private meetings have already been held, and I want that to stop. We want the public to have access to meetings … all meetings, especially during the decision-making process.”

Committee co-leaders Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, and Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., said during the organizing meeting that standard House and Senate rules would apply.

“As we proceed, like any other committee in Congress, there will be public hearings. There will be ample opportunities for the public to have their opinions heard. And like any other committee of Congress, there will also be some discussions among members that will not be public,” Rep. Hensarling said.

But the question here is not whether some hand-picked members of the public will be allowed to make suggestions. The question is what kind of deal-cutting is likely to occur as this group of 12 lawmakers works to produce a bill that would, supposedly, reduce the growth in federal budget deficits over the next decade by at least $1.2 trillion.

If the groups’ proposals are not approved by the House and Senate without amendment, automatic, across-the-board cuts are supposed to kick in.

This provides the supercommittee with extraordinary powers. To say they’ll operate in public, except when they choose otherwise, is to say very little, indeed.

The members have missed an opportunity to add considerable credence to their undertaking. Whatever legislative sausage they produce will now require added scrutiny, not only for what it contains, but for whose costly and counterproductive sacred cows are spared.