LOTTERY SEATS:The New Power Party asked that smaller parties be given a choice of picking committees that better fit their areas of expertise

Taipei Times
Date: Feb 23, 2016
By: Abraham Gerber / Staff reporter

Committee membership for legislators of smaller parties should not be determined by drawing lots, New Power Party (NPP) Legislator Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) said yesterday, after many of the party’s lawmakers did not make it onto their preferred committees.

Of the party’s five legislators, only Hsu Yung-ming (徐永明) and Hung Tzu-yung (洪慈庸) got their top choices, becoming members of the Economics Committee and the Social Welfare and Environmental Hygiene Committee respectively.

However, Freddy Lim (林昶佐) was allotted a seat on the Foreign and National Defense Committee instead of the Education and Culture Committee, which went to Amis Legislator Kawlo Iyun Pacidal, who was hoping for a place on the Internal Administration Committee governing Aboriginal affairs.

“If the larger parties have the generosity to let smaller parties pick from their areas of expertise, that would be a better way to handle it,” Huang, who doubles as the NPP’s executive chairman, said as he echoed comments by People First Party Legislator Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞).

Huang, who rose to prominence during the 2012 movement against monopolization of the media, was placed on the Finance Committee instead of the Transportation Committee, which has jurisdiction over the National Communications Commission, which regulates the media.     [FULL  STORY]