Participation and Policy Making in Senate Committees

Abstract

Asked about the selective character of participation during committee deliberations in the United States Senate, Max Baucus of Montana responded: only three or four are participating. There's really not much choice. It has to be that way. There's so little time and, also, we seem to find a lot of problems.' Paul Simon of Illinois paints a similar picture: problem is that senators are spread so thinly.... Often we can only put in an appearance. 2 Questioned about how he manages his committee workload, Claiborne Pell of Rhode Island replied: After a while, you learn to cope, to wiggle things around. I'm lucky because Labor and Foreign Relations are only about 100 feet from each other.3 This article is about coping and wiggling. More concretely, it explores a question that is central to understanding the process of lawmaking in the United States Senate: Who participates in the legislative work of Senate committees, why, and what are the consequences for policy making at that stage of the process? The arguments in this article are drawn from a book-length study of leadership in Senate committees, which examines in depth the committees on Commerce, Science, and Transportation; Environment and Public Works; Judiciary; and Labor and Human Resources.4 In the larger project, evidence is gleaned from a