(a) Personnel and administration committee

The Commission shall have a personnel and administration committee composed of the Chairman, the Cochairman, the senior member of the Commission from the minority party of the House of Representatives, and the senior member of the Commission from the minority party of the Senate.

(b) Committee functions

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All decisions pertaining to the hiring, firing, and fixing of pay of personnel of the Commission shall be by a majority vote of the personnel and administration committee, except that—

(1) the Chairman shall be entitled to appoint and fix the pay of the staff director, and the Cochairman shall be entitled to appoint and fix the pay of the Cochairman’s senior staff member; and

(2) the Chairman and Cochairman shall each have the authority to appoint, with the approval of the personnel and administration committee, at least four professional staff members who shall be responsible to the Chairman or the Cochairman (as the case may be) who appointed them.

Subject to subsection (d), the personnel and administration committee may appoint and fix the pay of such other personnel as it considers desirable.

(c) Staff appointments

All staff appointments shall be made without regard to the provisions of title 5 governing appointments in the competitive service, and without regard to the provisions of chapter 51 and subchapter III of chapter 53 of such title relating to classification and general schedule pay rates.

(d) Qualifications of professional staff

The personnel and administration committee shall ensure that the professional staff of the Commission consists of persons with expertise in areas including human rights, internationally recognized worker rights, international economics, law (including international law), rule of law and other foreign assistance programming, Chinese politics, economy and culture, and the Chinese language.

(e) Commission employees as congressional employees

(1) In general

For purposes of pay and other employment benefits, rights, and privileges, and for all other purposes, any employee of the Commission shall be considered to be a congressional employee as defined in section 2107 of title 5.

(2) Competitive status

For purposes of section 3304(c)(1) ¹ of title 5, employees of the Commission shall be considered as if they are in positions in which they are paid by the Secretary of the Senate or the Clerk of the House of Representatives.