Sen. Nelson: I wouldn’t serve on ‘supercommittee’

Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), one of the senators who opposed the debt-limit deal signed into law on Tuesday, said Wednesday that he would not serve on the so-called “supercommittee” even if he were asked.

“They’re not going to [ask], and if I voted for it and they asked me to, I still wouldn’t serve on it. As a matter of principle, I don’t believe in that,” Nelson said on "Jack & John in the Morning," a local radio program on Nebraska's KLIN AM radio.

The debt-limit deal establishes a bicameral committee of 12 legislators charged with putting together an additional $1.5 trillion deficit-reduction package.

Nelson predicted the committee would wind up like a hung jury, split between the Republican and Democratic members. “By later this year, we’re going to be right where we were this last week,” he said. The commission is required to make recommendations by Thanksgiving that Congress must act on before Christmas. Nelson thinks the process will probably run the clock out until the very last minute.

Nelson said the idea behind the supercommittee was to take politics out of difficult decisions. “I don’t think we can take politics out of every difficult decision,” Nelson said. “I don’t like to cede away or give away my responsibility, and certainly I don’t like to authorize a group of my colleagues to do what I was sent to Washington to do.”

Nelson noted that he also voted against the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) Commission, another panel that makes independent recommendations that are presented to Congress for a disapproval vote.

Many of those who voted against the debt-limit bill voted no because they don’t like the supercommittee approach, Nelson said.

--This post was updated at 10:31 a.m.