Legislative Leviathan: Party Government in the HouseThis book provides an incisive new look at the inner workings of the House of Representatives in the post-World War II era. Reevaluating the role of parties and committees, Gary Cox and Mathew McCubbins view parties in the House—especially majority parties—as a species of "legislative cartel." These cartels usurp the power, theoretically resident in the House, to make rules governing the structure and process of legislation. Possession of this rule-making power leads to two main consequences. First, the legislative process in general, and the committee system in particular, is stacked in favor of majority party interests. Second, because the majority party has all the structural advantages, the key players in most legislative deals are members of that party and the majority party's central agreements are facilitated by cartel rules and policed by the cartel's leadership. Debunking prevailing arguments about the weakening of congressional parties, Cox and McCubbins powerfully illuminate the ways in which parties exercise considerable discretion in organizing the House to carry out its work. This work will have an important impact on the study of American politics, and will greatly interest students of Congress, the presidency, and the political party system. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
THE AUTONOMY AND DISTINCTIVENESS OF COMMITTEES | 17 |
SelfSelection and the Subgovernment Thesis | 19 |
1 SelfSelection | 21 |
2 Constituency Interests and Assignment Requests | 24 |
3 Accommodation of Assignment Requests | 27 |
4 Accommodation of Transfer Requests | 33 |
5 The Routinization of the Assignment Process | 40 |
Trends in the 1980s | 140 |
Trends from 1910 to the 1970s | 141 |
3 Party Agendas and Part Leadership Votes | 145 |
4 Conclusion | 154 |
PARTIES AS PROCEDURAL COALITIONS COMMITTEE APPOINTMENTS | 159 |
Party Loyalty and Committee Assignments | 163 |
1 Assignments to Control Committees | 164 |
2 Party Loyalty and Transfers to House Committees | 166 |
6 Norms in the Assignment Process | 42 |
7 Conclusion | 43 |
The Seniority System in Congress | 45 |
2 Reconsidering the Standard View | 47 |
3 The Empirical Evidence | 49 |
4 Interpreting the Evidence | 55 |
5 Conclusion | 58 |
Subgovernments and the Representativeness of committees | 60 |
1 The Previous Literature | 61 |
2 Data and Methodology | 69 |
3 Results | 73 |
4 Conclusion | 79 |
A THEORY OF PARTY ORGANIZATION | 83 |
Institutions as Solutions to Collective Dilemmas | 85 |
1 Collective Dilemmas | 86 |
The Basics | 90 |
3 Why Central Authority Is Sometimes Necessary | 94 |
4 Multiperiod Considerations | 99 |
5 Problems with Central Authority | 103 |
6 Conclusion | 106 |
A Theory of Legislative Parties | 107 |
1 The Reelection Goal | 109 |
2 Reelection Maximizers and Electoral Inefficiencies | 122 |
3 Party Leadership | 125 |
4 Conclusion | 134 |
PARTIES AS FLOOR VOTING COALITIONS | 137 |
On the Decline of Party Voting in Congress | 139 |
3 Assignment Success of Freshman | 183 |
4 Conclusion | 186 |
Contingents and Parties | 188 |
1 A Model of Partisan Selection | 189 |
2 Which Committees Contingents Will Be Representative? | 191 |
3 Results | 202 |
4 Conclusion | 228 |
PARTIES AS PROCEDURAL COALITIONS THE SCHEDULING POWER | 231 |
The Majority Party and the Legislative Agenda | 233 |
1 The Speakers Collective Scheduling Problem | 234 |
2 Limits on the Scheduling Power | 237 |
3 Committee Agendas and the Speaker | 241 |
4 Intercommittee Logrolls | 248 |
5 Conclusion | 251 |
Controlling the Legislative Agenda | 253 |
1 The Majority Part and the Committee System | 254 |
The Legislative Agenda | 259 |
Public Party | 269 |
4 Comments on the Postwar | 275 |
Uncompensated Seniority Violations Eightieth Through Hundredth Congresses | 279 |
A Model of the Speakers Scheduling Preferences | 283 |
Unchallengeable and Challengeable Vetoes | 287 |
The Scheduling Power | 290 |
| 295 | |
| 313 | |
| 316 | |
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Legislative Leviathan: Party Government in the House Gary W. Cox,Mathew D. McCubbins Limited preview - 1993 |
Common terms and phrases
ADA scores Agriculture appointments Armed Services assignment process autonomy average bill coalitions coefficient cohesion collective dilemmas committee assignment committee chairs committee contingent committee's congressional Congressional Quarterly conservative coalition constituency control committees coordination games decisions decline Democratic freshmen dependent variable discharge petitions districts Education and Labor EIGHTIETH TO HUNDREDTH Eighty-eighth Eighty-sixth election electoral evidence example floor HUAAC Hundredth Congresses important incumbents Judiciary jurisdiction Leadership Support Scores literature logrolls majority party Means median Merchant Marine mittee Nash equilibrium Ninetieth Ninety-second Ninety-seventh Congresses Ninety-sixth NOMINATE scores noncommittee null hypothesis outcome Pareto efficient partisan party agenda party leaders party loyalty party votes party's payoff percent percentage political position postwar preferences probit reelection representative Republicans Rohde roll call votes roll calls Rules Committee scheduling power self-selection semiexclusive seniority violations Shepsle significant significantly southern Speaker statistical subgovernment swing tegic tion unrepresentative variable veto