Clockwise, from top left: Kyl, Portman, Toomey, Upton, Hensarling and Camp were selected by Republican leaders. | AP Photos The GOP's super committee picks

Top Republican congressional leaders have appointed six conservatives to the “super committee” that is charged with reducing the deficit by $1.5 trillion over the next decade.

Speaker John Boehner has appointed Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.), Energy and Commerce Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and Republican Conference Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) as the House GOP members of the panel.


Hensarling will be co-chairman of the committee. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell also announced Wednesday the Senate Republican members: Jon Kyl of Arizona, Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania and Rob Portman of Ohio.

As it stands, every Republican member of the deficit reduction committee has signed tax activist Grover Norquist’s pledge not to raise taxes, making it increasingly unlikely that any real tax revenues will be on the table as the committee tries to meet a Thanksgiving deadline.

On Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced the Senate Democratic members of the committee: Patty Murray of Washington, John Kerry of Massachusetts and Max Baucus of Montana.

Murray, who heads the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and is a senior appropriator and next in line to be Budget chairwoman, will serve as the other co-chair. Republicans have criticized the Murray appointment as purely political, since her job is to protect Democratic Senate seats in next year’s election.

House GOP leadership aides said the decision to select Camp and Upton was meant to demonstrate a seriousness about core policy issues—like entitlement reform and the tax code—while reassuring their rank-and-file that their representatives on the panel would hold the line against efforts to raise taxes.

Upton, a Boehner ally and former Office of Management and Budget staffer under President Ronald Reagan, said in a statement that as chairman of energy and commerce, “I know that exploding cost of health care is at the root of our long-term fiscal challenges,” and that “much more needs to be done to bring down health care costs, promote economic growth and begin to tame runaway government.”

Hensarling, a former chair of the powerful Republican Study Committee, is a stalwart conservative, and his appointment should reassure freshmen and RSC members worried that the panel will use its newfound authority to push tax hikes.

Hensarling is also a member of the House Budget Committee and works closely with Paul Ryan, making him an obvious choice after Ryan asked not to be included on the committee. He isn’t a freshman—but he shares their values, and circumvents possible complaints from more senior members that a freshman wouldn’t have the policy experience to be ready for the committee.

Ryan said in a statement that he asked Boehner not to consider him for the committee, so he could focus on long term policies aimed at reducing the debt. “If we are truly going to put the country’s fiscal house in order, it will not be enough to temporarily reduce what Washington spends. We must permanently reform the process by which working Americans’ hard-earned tax dollars are spent,” Ryan said.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has yet to name the House Democratic members of the committee, but her announcement is expected soon.

The committee was created by the agreement to raise the national debt ceiling, which President Barack Obama signed into law last week. Unable to reach an accord on overhauling the big-ticket items that drive up the federal deficit, Congress created this so-called super committee to overhaul the tax code, entitlements and discretionary spending by some $1.5 trillion over the next decade.

If the committee deadlocks, an across-the-board cut will be triggered to meet the deficit reduction goals, including to national security programs that Pentagon officials have vowed to protect.

Heading into the talks, both parties have already begun to dig in. McConnell and Boehner have both signaled that they will not accept higher tax revenues as part of an agreement to slash the debt, while Democrats have said that a “balanced approach” that includes more revenue must be considered if cuts to entitlements will be on the table.

It’s the same dynamic that dominated this summer’s partisan battle to raise the national debt ceiling, but the negotiators must find a new way forward if they want to reach a deal before their Thanksgiving deadline.

“Everyone can agree that we must stop spending money we don’t have, and the time to act is now,” Hensarling said in a statement.

Freshmen also pushed to have one of their 87 members appointed to the commission. Last week, Rep. Tom Marino (R-Pa.) drafted a letter to Boehner arguing that freshmen were essential in passing the GOP’s agenda, and deserved representation on the committee. Boehner’s picks are likely to disappoint those who wanted House freshmen represented on the panel.

McConnell passed up the three members of the so-called Gang of Six — Sens. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, Mike Crapo of Idaho and Saxby Chambliss of Georgia — a bipartisan group that spent months negotiating a bipartisan compromise to slash $4 trillion from budget deficits over the next decade. Those three senators proposed adding about $1 trillion in more revenue as part of a sweeping package, a proposal that McConnell has kept his distance from.

Reid also bypassed the three Democratic members of the Gang of Six, including his top deputy, Majority Whip Dick Durbin who had expressed interest in the spot.

“My main criteria for selecting members was to identify serious, constructive senators who are interested in achieving a result that helps to get our nation’s fiscal house in order,” McConnell said. “That means reforming entitlement programs that are the biggest drivers of our debt, and reforming the tax code in a way that makes us more competitive and leads to more American jobs. The goal is to achieve a result that convinces Americans and the world that we’re committed as a nation to prosperity for all our citizens.”

Kyl, who is retiring at the end of next year, will likely be a conduit to McConnell to keep him apprised of the ongoing negotiations – as he did when he served as the lead Senate GOP negotiator during the unsuccessful budget talks led by Biden this summer.

Portman, a former White House budget director under George W. Bush and a freshmen GOP senator, has been given increased responsibilities from the leadership, including earlier this year when he helped draft a GOP jobs initiative. Portman has signaled he’d be willing to eliminate tax breaks to reduce the deficit, but that more revenues should be used to lower overall rates.

The selection of Toomey is seen as a bit of a surprise, but McConnell will likely ingratiate himself to the right wing of the party by selecting a former head of the conservative Club for Growth and tea party favorite. Toomey serves on the Budget and Joint Economic committees. Toomey’s appointment caught some off guard because the Budget Committee’s ranking member, Jeff Sessions of Alabama, was thought to be in line for the spot – not a freshman member of his panel.

Toomey himself was kept in the dark about the selection, and he didn’t learn about it until McConnell called him Tuesday morning, moments before the GOP leader made his public announcement. Toomey was the lone senator of the six selected not to support last week’s debt-limit agreement, saying it didn’t do enough to cut spending.

Speaking to reporters Tuesday afternoon, Toomey said that there should be cuts to discretionary spending and entitlements, and he said he would be willing to eliminate tax preferences and subsidies, like for blending ethanol-based fuels, and lower overall income rates. But he said that he would oppose any sort of “big tax increase.”