Does government by committee make the role of individual members of Congress less important?

The best
answer to this is it depends.  Some individuals are clearly made less important by the
committee system.  However, others are made more important than they otherwise would have
been.

In our current system, the members of Congress who are not on a given
committee have relatively little power over the laws that deal with that committees area of
law.  This is particularly true in the House of Representatives.  The committees do the real
work of marking up and amending the law and the rest of the members of the House are more or
less expected to vote based on what their party leaders say or what the members of their party
on the relevant committee say.  This takes some power away from those members.

However, the system makes each legislator more important in the areas of the committees
that they are on.  If the whole House had to consider each law, it is likely that only a few
party leaders would have much input on any given law.  With the committees, however, each member
(particularly in the majority party) will have more input on the bills that come before their
committees.

Thus, the committee system actually increases the role of the
individual members of Congress in some areas while decreasing it in
others.