Setting the Agenda : Responsible Party Government in the U.S. House of Representatives

Scholars of the U.S. House disagree over the importance of political parties in organizing the legislative process. On the one hand, non-partisan theories stress how congressional organization serves members' non-partisan goals. On the other hand, partisan theories argue that the House is organized to serve the collective interests of the majority party. This book advances our partisan theory and presents a series of empirical tests of that theory's predictions (pitted against others). It considers why procedural cartels form, arguing that agenda power is naturally subject to cartelization in busy legislatures. It argues that the majority party has cartelized agenda power in the U.S. House since the adoption of Reed's rules in 1890. The evidence demonstrates that the majority party seizes agenda control at nearly every stage of the legislative process in order to prevent bills that the party dislikes from reaching the floor. Cover......Page 1 Half-title......Page 3 Title......Page 5 Copyright......Page 6 Dedication......Page 7 Contents......Page 9 Figures and Tables......Page 10 Acknowledgments......Page 13 1.1. Introduction......Page 17 1.2. A precis of procedural cartel theory......Page 21 1.3. The procedural cartel thesis......Page 25 1.4. Outline......Page 27 PART I WHY PARTY GOVERNMENT?......Page 31 2.1.1.1. Parties are Created to Solve Internal Collective Action Problems......Page 33 2.1.2.2. Parties as Partnerships......Page 34 2.1.4. How do Majority Parties Control the Agenda?......Page 35 2.2. Procedural cartel theory......Page 36 2.3.1. The Structure of Agenda-Setting Offices......Page 41 2.3.2. Who Gets the Agenda-Setting Offices?......Page 42 2.3.3. Fiduciary Behavior of Officeholders......Page 43 2.3.4. Loyalty from the Rank and File......Page 45 2.3.5. What About Quitting the Party?......Page 47 2.4. conclusion......Page 48 PART II NEGATIVE AGENDA POWER......Page 51 3.1. Introduction......Page 53 3.2.1. Background Assumptions......Page 54 3.2.3. The Cartel Agenda Model......Page 57 3.3. Proposal rights and regimes of exception......Page 60 3.4. Choosing between agenda structures......Page 61 Appendix 3.a......Page 65 4.1. Introduction......Page 66 4.2.1. Defining the Universe of Rule and Organizational Changes......Page 67 4.2.3. The Establishment and Jurisdiction of Committees......Page 69 4.2.5. The Partisan Nature of Rule Changes......Page 70 4.2.6.1. Reed’s Revolution: Moving from a Dual Veto System to a Procedural Cartel......Page 71 4.2.6.2. The Permanence of Reed’s System of Agenda Control: Dilatory Motions......Page 75 4.2.6.3. The Permanence of Reed’s System of Agenda Control: The Rules Committee......Page 76 4.3. Testing the primacy of reed’s rules......Page 81 4.3.1. Reed’s Rules and Policy Moves “Toward the Majority”......Page 84 4.3.2. Other Rule Changes and Policy Moves “Toward the Majority”......Page 89 4.4. Conclusion......Page 91 Appendix 4.a.1. procedures used in compiling the dataset......Page 93 Appendix 4.a.2. list of organizational and rule changes......Page 94 Appendix 4.a.3. a note on our coding of the holman rule......Page 97 Appendix 4.a.4. seven rule changes that we include but that previous scholars do not......Page 98 Appendix 4.b. the discharge procedure......Page 99 5.1. Introduction......Page 103 5.2. Comparing the floor agenda and cartel agenda models: predicted rolls......Page 105 5.3. A digression on the u.s. senate......Page 110 5.5. Comparing the floor agenda and cartel agenda models: comparative statics......Page 112 5.6. Preference shifts......Page 115 5.7. Conditional versus unconditional party government......Page 117 Appendix 5.a......Page 118 Appendix 5.b......Page 119 6.1. Moving beyond the idealized model......Page 122 6.2. The costs and benefits of blocking......Page 123 6.3.1. An Inconsequential Roll: Campaign Finance Reform Under Gingrich......Page 125 6.3.2. The Number of Inconsequential and Consequential Rolls......Page 126 6.3.3. Consequential Rolls on Important Enactments......Page 127 6.3.4. Party Rolls and Reed’s Rules......Page 128 6.4. The cost of blocking, public salience, and divided government......Page 129 6.4.2. Do Opposition Presidents Produce Majority-Party Rolls?......Page 130 6.4.4. A Roll That Stemmed from Public Pressure Orchestrated by the President: Gramm–Latta......Page 133 6.4.5. A Roll That Stemmed from Bargaining with the President: Foreign Aid for El Salvador......Page 134 6.4.7. Routs and Deals: Summary......Page 135 6.5. Rolls that occur under unified government......Page 136 6.6. Conclusion......Page 138 7.1. Introduction......Page 140 7.2. How should rules’ outputs change when its membership changes?......Page 143 7.3. The conventional wisdom on rules from 1937 to 1960: the textbook congress......Page 145 7.3.2. 1937–1960......Page 146 7.4. Data......Page 148 7.4.1. Party Roll Rates on Rule Adoption Votes and the Revolt Against Cannon......Page 149 7.4.2. Party Roll Rates on Rule-Adoption Votes: 1937, 1961, and the 1970s......Page 150 7.4.3. Party Rolls and the Location of Rules’ Median......Page 153 7.4.4. Rules Committee Investigations......Page 159 7.5. Pathways around the majority party?......Page 160 7.6. Conclusion......Page 162 Appendix 7.a. majority and minority rolls on rule adoption votes, by order of rules committee, majority party, and floor median ideal points, congresses 62–100a......Page 163 8.1. Introduction......Page 165 8.2. Bill sponsorship and reports......Page 168 8.3. Two models of how the floor agenda is set......Page 169 8.3.1. A Model of Committee Decision Making......Page 170 8.3.2. Summary......Page 172 8.4.2. Voting in Committee......Page 173 8.4.3. Predictions: The Majoritarian Model......Page 174 8.4.4. Predictions: The Partisan Model......Page 175 8.5. Results: filing dissents with committee reports......Page 176 8.5.1. Results: Linear Specification......Page 177 8.5.2. Results: Quadratic Specification......Page 179 8.6. Results: voting in committee to report bills......Page 180 8.7. Results: the 104th and 105th congresses......Page 181 8.8. Conclusion......Page 182 Appendix 8.a......Page 183 9.1. Introduction......Page 187 9.2. Policy moves......Page 188 9.3. Leftward moves......Page 189 9.3.1. Modeling Elements......Page 190 9.3.2. Some General Results......Page 191 9.3.3. Classifying Models of the Legislative Process......Page 192 9.4. Leftward ho: empirical results......Page 194 9.4.1. Status Quo Policies are Mapped to the Floor Median......Page 195 9.4.2. Status Quo Policies Are Mapped per Krehbiel’s Pivot Model......Page 197 9.4.3. Status Quo Policies are Mapped to a “Constitutional Weighted Average”......Page 198 9.6. Discussion: how big are the policy movements?......Page 200 Appendix 9.a. a stochastic spatial model......Page 205 9.A.2. Sequence of Events......Page 206 9.A.3. The Majority Party’s Roll Rate under the Cartel Agenda Model......Page 207 9.B.1. The Floor Model......Page 208 9.B.2. The Pivot Model......Page 209 9.B.3. The Cartel Agenda Model......Page 212 PART III THE CONSEQUENCES OF POSITIVE AGENDA POWER AND CONDITIONAL PARTY GOVERNMENT......Page 215 10 Positive Agenda Power......Page 217 10.1.1. The Mix of Positive and Negative Agenda Powers......Page 219 10.1.2. The Size of the Majority Party’s Agenda......Page 222 10.1.3. The Minority Party’s Roll Rate......Page 223 10.2.1. The Rules “Base”......Page 224 10.2.2. The Minimal Fiduciary Standard......Page 225 10.3. How does procedural cartel theory differ from conditional party government?......Page 226 10.4. Floor voting discipline......Page 230 10.4.1. How Much do Parties Influence Their Members’ Votes?......Page 231 10.4.2. Buying Just Enough Votes to Win......Page 234 10.5. conclusion......Page 235 11.1. Responsible party government......Page 236 11.3. The two types of agenda power......Page 238 11.4. Agenda power and party government......Page 239 11.5.1. Background......Page 240 11.5.2. Evidence......Page 241 11.7. The final word......Page 244 A.1.1. Face Validity......Page 247 A.1.2. Convergent and Divergent Validity......Page 248 A.2.1. Sample Bias......Page 250 A.2.2. Misspecification......Page 251 A.2.2.1. Theoretical Responses......Page 252 A.2.2.2. Theoretical and Empirical Responses......Page 254 A.2.2.3. Empirical Responses......Page 255 A.2.4. Direction of Policy Movement......Page 257 A.2.5. Objections to Our Measure of Policy Movements......Page 258 A.3. response to krehbiel......Page 259 A.3.1. Krehbiel’s Critique......Page 260 A.3.1.1. The Microfoundations of Krehbiel’s Model......Page 261 A.3.1.2. Roll Rates as a Measure of Party Agenda Power......Page 263 A.3.1.3. The Partyless Baseline?......Page 264 A.3.1.4. Empirical Results......Page 266 A.3.1.5. Summary......Page 267 Addendum......Page 269 Bibliography......Page 323 Index......Page 345 Author Index......Page 349 "This book advances our partisan theory and presents a series of empirical tests of that theory's predictions (pitted against others). It considers why procedural cartels form, arguing that agenda power is naturally subject to cartelization in busy legislatures. It argues that the majority party has cartelized agenda power in the U.S. House since the adoption of Reed's rules in 1890. The evidence demonstrates that the majority party seizes agenda control at nearly every stage of the legislative process in order to prevent bills that the party dislikes from reaching the floor. Given our empirical evidence, we question the validity of theories that do not take into account the substantial influence of political parties."--BOOK JACKET

Scholars of the U.S. House disagree over the importance of political parties in organizing the legislative process. On the one hand, non-partisan theories stress how congressional organization serves members' non-partisan goals. On the other hand, partisan theories argue that the House is organized to serve the collective interests of the majority party. This book advances a partisan theory and presents a series of empirical tests of that theory's predictions (pitted against others). The evidence demonstrates that the majority party seizes agenda control at nearly every stage of the legislative process in order to prevent bills that the party dislikes from reaching the floor.