House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is backpedaling from her initial plans for Democrats to hold the majority of seats on the 9/11-style panel to investigate the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. She is now offering up a proposal that would give Democrats and Republicans an equal number of seats on the commission.
According to reports, Pelosi told her staffers about the plan as she looked to salvage the commission, which has been stalled in large part to GOP resistance to the idea of having Democrats have majority control.
There has been bipartisan calls for a commission to offer a full accounting of the circumstances that led to the deadly siege. But Pelosi’s original plan, unveiled in February, called for seven Democrats and four Republicans. For comparison, the 9/11 commission had an even split — five Democrats, five Republicans.
There remains another hurdle to clear before the commission becomes a reality. Pelosi wants the panel to focus on the Jan. 6 riot, but Republicans are pushing to cover other violent protests, such as those that happened last summer during demonstrations over police brutality.
Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy, the top-ranking Republicans in Congress, both say they haven’t seen Pelosi’s proposal or talked to the speaker about it. Both have said in the past that the scope for the commission’s work must be expanded for the GOP to get on board.