Immediately after the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee announced its subcommittee chairmen and ranking minority members last week, Highways and Transit Subcommittee chairman Rick Crawford (R-AR) was abruptly and surprisingly named chairman of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

Rule 15 of the Rules of the House Republican Conference says that “No individual shall serve as chair of more than one standing Committee or Subcommittee…” However, this does not apply to Intelligence, because as the name says, it isn’t a standing committee, it is a select committee (all members named by leadership, and not steering committees, and with jurisdiction not defined in House rule X and procedures exempt from rule XI). Intelligence chairman Porter Goss (R-FL) chaired a subcommittee on the House Rules Committee at the same time.

But apparently, either House leadership felt that the wealth needed to be shared more widely, or else Crawford himself wanted to devote his energies to Intel full-time, because Crawford is no longer a subcommittee chairman on T&I. Pete Rouzer (R-NC) takes the Highways and Transit gavel from Crawford, then Daniel Webster (R-FL) takes the Railroads gavel from Rouzer, and then Mike Ezell (R-MS) takes Webster’s gavel on Coast Guard.