Ah, now I get it! I was thinking of the committee as the entity, not the people on it. Then the question is "why did the committee make a bad call?" where "the

Ah, now I get it! I was thinking of the committee as the entity, not the people on it. Then the question is "why did the committee make a bad call?" where "the topic in question coincidentally misaligned with the views of the members" is the specific cause and "committees always make bad calls" is the general cause. But looking at it from the perspective of the people makes it clear what you were going for