PLAYING TO THE CROWD?When choosing which committees to sit on, legislators tend to focus on winning potential votes rather than building expertise, academics said

Taipei Times
Date:  Aug 17, 2015
By: Tseng Wei-chen and Chen Wei-han  /  Staff reporter, with staff writer

The lack of a seniority system in the Legislative Yuan, that would recognize lawmakers’ competence based on the length of their service on a particular committee, and the high frequency at which legislators switch between committees, contributes to an unsatisfactory legislative performance, lawmakers and academics said.

Seats on the Economics Committee and the Transportation and Communications Committee are the most sought-after in the legislature, and even directly-elected district legislators have to vie for committee assignment via a name-draw, whereas the Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee and the Judiciary and Organic Laws and Statutes Committee are common destinations for junior caucus members or legislators-at-large, Soochow University politics professor Hawang Shiow-duan (黃秀端) said.     [FULL  STORY]