Part I: The Committee System

“Congress in Committee is Congress at work”

- Woodrow Wilson (1888)

The emergence of the committee system

• Congressional committees aren’t mentioned in the constitution … or any early Federal laws

• By 1820’s, federal government was beginning to look the way it looks today– Mass parties were coalescing, presidential

elections became national, vote extended to all white males (and some free blacks)

– In both houses a system of standing committees was established

• This system has dominated the business of both chambers ever since

History of Standing Committees

• 1571, House of Commons establishes a single committee, “charged not with a single bill, … but with a general subject.”

• By 1600’s, 5 standing committees in House of Commons: privileges and elections, religion, grievances, courts of justice, trade

• American standing committees developed in colonial assemblies

• By 1700’s, colonial committees appointed for whole sessions, had fixed memberships and well-defined jurisdictions

Committee history in Congress

• Originally, neither chamber had any standing committees

• Only after deliberation by whole was a committee established to work on the bill– Committee had no veto power, modest proposal

power, was dismissed after work on bill completed

• Why no standing committees?– Not a radical concept (were used in many

colonies)– Early forms didn’t entail tremendous amounts

of agenda or decision-making power

Why no standing committees?

• A deliberate choice– Jeffersonian Republicans disliked idea of a small

group being disproportionately influential at prelegislative stage

– Felt principles of bill should emerge from deliberation

– Federalists had no problem with standing committees, but felt they were redundant

• Agenda-setting power of executive branch good enough

• In reality, bills started being referred to legislators that had established expertise on the matter

Change in Congressional organization

The creation of standing committees in the House: 1811-1825

• In elections of 1810, new legislators from South and West came to Congress in pursuit of a declaration of war– Had suffered at hands of British– Brits had cut off European markets for

agricultural crops that were mainstay of frontier economy

– Believed that Brits had provided arms to Native Americans for purpose of attacking settlers

– One of these new legislators was Henry Clay

The War of 1812

• Clay was elected Speaker in 1811, and began pushing President Madison for a war declaration

• Stood as head of homogenous group of Southern and Western Republicans, and passed war declaration in 1812 against British

• During war, 3 new standing committees established: Judiciary, Revolutionary War Claims, Public Expenditures

Post-war Congress

• After treaty of Ghent signed, signs of Republican coalition split– Disagreements over taxes, Western v Northern

• Clay forced to search for new methods to gain control of House, since war no longer an issue

• Expanded standing committee system solidified Clay’s support– “Bolstered flagging troops by giving them a

permanent stake in the business of the House.”

Development of standing committees in the Senate: 1811-

1825• In 1816, Virginia Senator submitted a

resolution to amend Senate rules by creating 11 standing committees

• It passed and two weeks later a new Committee on the District of Columbia also added

• Thus in 2 weeks, a standing committee system was born

Why so quickly?

• In first 30 years, Senate a reactive chamber– Responded to House and Executive initiatives– Surrendered much of its control over its agenda

to external agents

• By 1816, Congress had become estranged from Madison, and turned to standing committees to fill vacuum– Senate borrowed from House notion of standing

committees, then extended this system to totally exclude earlier forms of organization

External Events and Internal Structure

• Timing suggests War of 1812 a catalyst; creation of committees usually linked to an important historical occurance– Louisiana Purchase (1803), Committee on Public

Lands (1805)– Civil War, World Wars I and II, Vietnam

• Reconstruction-era reorganization of committees • Budget Act of 1921,• Legislative Reorganization Acts of 1946 and 1970

• Pressures simultaneously disorganize and create a need for more coherent organization of congressional decision making

Committees as workshops

• When a bill is introduced in the House or Senate, it is usually referred to the committee with jurisdiction over its particular policy area

• Committees allow for a division of legislative labor, enabling the 100 Senators and 435 House members to consider approximately 5,000 bills and 50,000 nominations a year

• Means by which Congress “sifts through an otherwise impossible jumble of bills, proposals and issues.”

2 Theories of committee purpose

• Distributional: Committees give lawmakers influence over policies critical to their reelection– Those attracted to a particular committee are

those whose constituents benefit from such policies

– Filled with preference outliers, legislators whose preferences at odds w. membership of the whole

Informational: Committees provide lawmakers with specialized expertise – Formulate policies that resolve national

problems

Types of Committees(Standing, select, joint, conference)

• Standing: Permanent committees (last from year to year); agriculture, appropriations, armed services, budget– Process bulk of legislation

• Select (or Special): – Temporary, usually lasting only 2 years– Usually don’t have legislative authority, but study

bills and make recommendations– Coordinate legislation that overlaps jurisdiction of

several standing committees (Select committee on homeland security)

• Joint: Include members of both chambers (House and Senate)– Economic, Library, Printing, Taxation

• Conference: Reconcile differences between similar measures passed by both chambers (legislation must be identical before signed by president)– Composed of members of both houses

4 types of conference bargaining:• Traditional: participants meet, haggle• Offer-counteroffer: sides suggest

compromises, recess to discuss• Subconference: groups address special topics• Pro forma: informal preconference

negotiations

How assignments are made

Formal Criteria• In Senate, “Johnson rule” is followed:

– All party members assigned to one major committee before someone gets a second major assignment

– These are: Appropriations, Armed Services, Commerce, Finance, Foreign Relations

• In House, committees are ranked exclusive, nonexclusive, exempt– Exclusive can’t serve on any other standing

committee– Can serve on two nonexclusive

Informal assignment criteria

• Seniority: Only Senate Republicans apply seniority rigidly when two members compete for a vacancy or chairmanship (most senior longest continuing committee service)

• Fundraising ability: • Demographics: Ex: Mary Bono put on

judiciary committee with Clinton impeachment near

• Other biases: Advocates overrepresented, etc.

Committee Leadership

• Leaders are chairmen and ranking minority party members– Chairmen have similar role over committee as

Speaker has over House (a mini-legislature)– Can set agendas, allocate funds, arrange

hearings– Can kill a bill by refusing to schedule it for a

hearing or convening meetings when opponents are absent

What happens in committees

• 3 standard steps: public hearings, markups, reports

1. Hearings: committee listens to a wide variety of witnesses• Explore need for legislation• Provide a forum for citizen grievances• Raise visibility of issue• Educate lawmakers and public

2. Markups: members decide on bill’s actual language, conceptualize the bill– Outside pressures often intense during markup– Government in the Sunshine Act (1977) rules

all markup sessions conducted in public (except Nat’l Security, some commerce, a few others)

– After markup, if in a subcommittee, recommendations sent to full committee, which votes to ratify, conduct its own markup, return to subcommittee, or do nothing

3. Reports: If committee votes to send bill to floor, the staff prepares a full report summarizing results of committee research

Part II:Decision making and Policymaking in

Congress

Entrepreneurs

• Coordinate the actions and resources of others so that they can realize gains that would not be possible without coordination– Economic entrepreneurs coordinate actions of

buyers and sellers• Legislative entrepreneurs bear the greatest

burden of producing legislation• Understanding why they undertake the task of

legislating is central to understanding how the House functions and performs its role in government (Wawro 1999)

Policy Entrepreneurs

• Legislators that stimulate policy change by specializing in certain policy areas; they specifically– Acquire information– Draft bills– Build coalitions– Push legislation

• Why do they do this?– Constituency concerns– Committee assignments that spark interest– Personal interests/Past experiences– Career advancement/leadership positions (violations

of seniority)

Position-taking

• 3 types of decision-makers: early deciders, active players, and late deciders

• Late deciders give up influence in policy making to sometimes gain specific concessions, display their “independence”

• In the Senate, bills are more likely to be introduced by senior members, chairs, and those representing large and diverse states– Do you think the same is true in the House?

Other reasons to introduce legislation

• To stake out jurisdiction for a particular committee

• Under pressure by a bureaucratic agency or interest group

• To pave way for hearings to air a public problem

Reasons to introduce Amendments • To test for strength of support or opposition• To derail legislation• To force position-taking

Participation

• Levels of participation among committee members varies greatly (within committees)– On subcommittees, only 1/2 members actually

help draft legislation “on a good day”

• Constituency interests are the biggest reason members participate in committee business

• Constituency-driven activity most pronounced on Agriculture committee– Also most biased, in that active members were

quite unrepresentative of full committee

Voting

• The average member participates in 95% of roll call votes

• If members can’t vote in person, they can record their views by giving a statement, putting out a press release, or by pairing with someone on opposite side of the issue

• Proxy voting (entrusting vote to someone else) has never been allowed on the floor– In 1995, banned in House committees by

Republican majority

What do votes mean?• Floor votes are imperfect measures of members’

preferences:– Members may favor a measure, but be constrained

against voting for the version on the floor– Members may go along but dislike specific parts– They might support a bad measure, expecting the

other chamber (or a majority of members in their own chamber) to kill it

– They may accede to party wishes if their constituents don’t care about the issue

– Negative votes may actually be favorable (vote against amendments that would kill the legislation)

• Votes are often treated like unambiguous indicators of legislators’ views (think about current pres campaign)

Determinants of voting

• #1: Party Affiliation– Strongest single correlate of members’ voting

decisions– Why? – Partisan realignment, more suspension of rules

More determinants of voting• Constituent Demands/Interests

– Lawmakers may have same interests as constituents

– Are also afraid of electoral punishment– Attentive versus inattentive publics

• Single-interest groups

• Member ideology– Delegates v. Trustees

• Presidential leadership– Presidential support votes: Issues on which the

president has taken an unambiguous stance• Under unified control, Clinton had 86% success,

under divided control he had 36% success

Legislative bargaining

• Implicit bargaining: legislators take actions designed to elicit a response from others– Informal logrolling with voting cues– Seeking out expertise of others, expecting to be

consulted on own areas of specialization– Unanimous consent agreements/suspension of

the rules– Taking cues from others when uncertain

• (Bandwagon effects, Condorcet jury theorem)

Explicit Bargaining• Explicit bargains are formal compromises

– Sunset provisions, pilot projectsLogrolling: trading off support so that everyone can attain

his or her goal• Possible because of “disparate goals and scattered

influence”• Usually embodied in Pork Barrel legislation (something

for everyone)• Food Stamp program example: farm lobbies,

environmentalists and urban welfare interests banded together

• Negative logrolls: everyone shares cutbacks

Strategy, Bargains, and Policymaking

• William Riker’s Size Principle– Sponsors will only yield as much as they absolutely

have to (will only buy off a bare minimum of supporters-218 in House)

– Empirical problem – minimal majorities aren’t the norm.

– But, why don’t 26 states tax the other 24?• Why would supermajorities arise?

– They’re necessary (filibusters, vetoes, bicameralism)– Uncertainty about who you’ve bought off– To keep someone else from buying off a single

“pivotal” voter– Repeated game (role of careerism)