There are 20 standing committees in the House of Representatives. Here are the photos of the chairs of all of them. Which one is not like all the others?
If you guessed the one on the left of the bottom row, congratulations, you nailed it. Nineteen of the 20 committees are run by a white, Christian man. One of them is run by a white, Christian woman. No minorities and only one woman. The collection looks just like America, right? Probably Speaker Mike Johnson had qualms about Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC), but she has been in Congress so long (20 years), that he made a special exception for her, so she gets to be the one female committee chair. Here is a list of the committees, in the same order as the photos of their chairs (e.g., Glenn Thompson is top left).
The Rules Committee is a relatively powerful one in that it can set the rules for bills that are coming to the floor (or not), like whether amendments are allowed. Still, Rules doesn't do much in the way of policy, so it doesn't have the clout of say, Ways and Means (which writes the tax laws) or Appropriations (which determines how the government will spend $6 trillion), but it does have some power.
Even some Republicans noticed it when the first 17 members (sans Foxx) were named in December. Former Virginia Rep. Barbara Comstock (R) then said: "Very fitting in the MAGA Era—No Women Need Apply." Johnson apparently noticed this and as an afterthought, threw in one woman to lead a committee with a modest amount of power. (V)