Legislative committee title

A Chairman is the presiding officer of a meeting, organization, committee, or other deliberative body. The use of the gender-neutral term Chairperson, or simply Chair, to avoid potential sexist assumptions with use of the term Chairman has been championed by social change since the late 1970s (See Sapir–Whorf hypothesis). The non gender neutral title of Chairwoman is sometimes used if the incumbent is female. The use of chair (according to the Oxford English Dictionary) as a verb (e.g.,...

In United States politics, the ranking member or ranking minority member is a member of a congressional committee from the minority party, frequently the member with the highest seniority. For example, if the Democrats are in control of a house of Congress at a given time, the senior Republican member of the committee is often the ranking minority member. The most senior member from the majority party frequently serves as the chairman of the committee. In many committees, the ranking member,...