Conflict, Compromise, and Partisanship: Committees Under Term Limits

Abstract

Committees play an important role in policymaking (Francis, 1985), especially in states like Michigan where committee chairs and caucus leaders control the flow of bills through the committees (Hamm et al., 1999). In addition to the formal power committees have in policymaking, committee members influence policy through their expertise, experience, and their network of contacts. Often members’ occupational background and other pre-legislative experience and expertise are considered when leaders assign them to a committee. In legislatures with high levels of continuity in committee assignments across sessions, committee members become experts through training by interest groups and staff and by listening to testimony and working on a wide range of issues in the policy area (Porter, 1974). Committee members’ expertise leads other legislators to rely on them for information about complex issues sent to the floor by their committee. Finally, legislators frequently ask to serve on committees with jurisdiction over policy issues crucial to their district or to key constituents, making them a conduit for knowledgeable, interested local actors to influence policy-making. Thus, not surprisingly, some people, including interest groups (Sarbaugh-Thompson et al., 2002), consider committees to be where the action is in a legislature.KeywordsCommittee MemberTerm LimitMajority PartySpecific CommitteeCommittee ChairThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.