system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
CMV: A congressman shouldn't be able to head a committee unless he has the appropriate degree or experience in that field.
gpt
There are three problems with this view:

1) This standard would mean that unless you had the proper experts in the respective houses, you could never staff the committees.

If it just so happens that you don't have enough degrees in climate science in the senate, maybe you don't have discussions in the Senate about climate change.  Not enough veterans?  No Armed Services Committee.

2) It invites ideological polarization.

How many defense projects will be cut by an Appropriations Committee composed entirely of former generals?  How many financially unfeasible measures to combat global warming will be approved by a committee of climate scientists with no financial management experience?  Depending on how you define proper expertise, you're really inviting a one-dimensional view of any given field.

3) It introduces a political gatekeeper.

Whenever we have some sort of standard that defines who can participate and in what capacity, that standard becomes a point of fierce contention that undermines the democratic process.  An example would be gerrymandering: some of the hardest fights in government are over how we determine districts.  Those district boundaries are often more important than actual decisions or political platforms, so political parties will fight to establish advantageous borders.  A very similar fight would probably spring up around the continually evolving standard of what constitutes experience or expertise in a given field.  Parties will fight to establish standards that allow more of their own to occupy seats on committees, and in the end those standards may not really have anything to do with actual knowledge of the field.

It makes more sense to allow representatives to be advised by experts who know more than they do.