In the United States House of Representatives, the two major political parties maintain policy and steering committees. Its primary purpose is to assign fellow party members to other House committees, and it also advises party leaders on policy.
The House Democratic Caucus has a combined single Steering and Policy Committee, while the House Republican Conference divides the duties between two groups: a Policy Committee and a Steering Committee.
The House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee is chaired by the party leader in the House, which has been Nancy Pelosi since 2003, in her capacities as Minority Leader (2003-2007, 2011–present) and Speaker of the House (2007-2011), when the Democrats had the minority and majority of seats in the House, respectively. The party leader also appoints two co-chairs to assist her on the committee. Rosa DeLauro has been co-chair for Steering since 2003 and Eric Swalwell has been co-chair for Policy since 2017.
The statutory members include the full caucus leadership and deputy whip team and the committee chairs or ranking members (depending on a majority or minority) of Appropriations, Budget, Energy, Financial Services, Rules, and Ways and Means, and the elected representatives of the freshman class. Additional members are either directly appointed or elected as regional representatives.
Democratic Representatives are currently grouped into the following 12 regions:
The members of the committee for the 114th Congress are as follows:
Luke Messer currently chairs the Policy Committee. In the Republican House leadership hierarchy, the chair of the House Republican Policy Committee ranks fifth, below the Speaker of the House, Majority Leader, Majority Whip, and the Republican Conference Chairman.
Statutory members include the full conference leadership, the committee chairs or ranking members (depending on a majority or minority) of Appropriations, Budget, Energy, Rules, and Ways and Means, and the elected leaders of the sophomore and freshman classes. Appointed members include 14 regional representatives, at-large members, members from the 20 standing committees, and designated appointees by the sophomore (2) and freshman (1) class leaders.