Congress has 226 committee panels, down from 314 in 1979–80

Source. Brookings, Vital Statistics on Congress, Table 4-1

Method and data

Method. Panels are standing, select, special and joint committees and their subcommittees. The total counts joint panels once, so House plus Senate exceeds it. The 119th Congress is in progress. The 96th count includes ten House task forces (nine budget task forces and the Welfare and Pension Plans Task Force; Table 4-2 note a) and five joint-committee subcommittees that Brookings lists through the 102nd Congress and not after. Without the task forces the 96th has 304 panels and the change to the 119th is −25.7%; without both, 299 and −24.4%. For the 100th–102nd Congresses Brookings counts House panels and task forces only when a committee has no subcommittees (note b). Before the 96th Brookings lists only the 84th, 90th, 92nd and 94th Congresses (242, 315, 333 and 385 panels); they are in the CSV and left off the chart because the intervals between them are unequal.

Congress	Years	House panels	Senate panels	Total panels
84	1955-1956	130	133	242
90	1967-1968	185	155	315
92	1971-1972	175	181	333
94	1975-1976	204	205	385
96	1979-1980	193	130	314
97	1981-1982	174	136	300
98	1983-1984	172	137	299
99	1985-1986	191	120	301
100	1987-1988	192	118	298
101	1989-1990	189	118	295
102	1991-1992	185	119	284
103	1993-1994	146	111	252
104	1995-1996	110	92	198
105	1997-1998	112	92	200
106	1999-2000	111	94	201
107	2001-2002	116	91	203
108	2003-2004	122	92	210
109	2005-2006	120	92	212
110	2007-2008	126	96	218
111	2009-2010	128	98	222
112	2011-2012	130	98	223
113	2013-2014	122	92	210
114	2015-2016	126	91	213
115	2017-2018	122	92	214
116	2019-2020	130	92	218
117	2021-2022	132	95	223
118	2023-2024	135	95	226
119	2025-2026	136	94	226

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