Committee Assignments Research Articles

Military Committee Membership and Defense-Related Benefits in the House of Representatives

CONVENTIONAL wisdom about Congress holds that membership on a standing committee tends to be associated with constituency benefits in substantive policy areas under the jurisdiction of the committee. Indeed, according to Nicholas A. Masters, committee assignments in the House are likely to be based on the principle that the member should be placed where he can best serve his constituents?. The notion of constituency benefits is inferred when it is pointed out that the Interior Committees are dominated by members from the seventeen reclamation states of the west and that urban Democrats are believed to

Partisanship and Seniority in Legislative Committee Assignments: California After Reapportionment

in the organization of any legislative session. Assignment patterns which result in particular committee compositions can determine legislative policy outputs and may protect or frustrate the demands of outside interests. They can also have an internal effect on the legislature by enhancing leadership control and providing a means for allocating rewards and punishments to individual legislators. The two major types of assignment criteria, as practiced by American legislatures, are partisanship and seniority. Both houses of Congress rely on a combination of these two methods.' Political party lines are consistently followed in that all standing committee chairmen, and a majority of the members of each committee, represent the house-wide majority party in that session. At the same time, relative seniority on a congressional committee automatically determines which majority party member obtains the chairmanship, and also provides a means of ranking all other members of the committee within the two party groups. Partisanship and seniority separately or in combination appear also to be the principal factors in the committee assignment decisions of most state legislative chambers, although they are used less consistently than in Congress.2 This paper compares the committee assignment criteria of partisanship and seniority as to their effect on leadership control and stability in a legislature. We assume that both standards permit legislative leaders to use committee assignments as member rewards and punishments, but that they differ in the extent of flexibility afforded the leaders. Specifically, we hypothesize the following:

Partisanship and Seniority in Legislative Committee Assignments: California after Reapportionment

Partisanship and Seniority in Legislative Committee Assignments: California after Reapportionment

Committee Assignments in the California Senate: Seniority, Party, or Ideology?

Committee Assignments in the California Senate: Seniority, Party, or Ideology?

Committee Assignments in the California Senate: Seniority, Party, or Ideology?

Committee Assignments in the California Senate: Seniority, Party, or Ideology?

The Influence of State Party Delegations on House Committee Assignments

The Influence of State Party Delegations on House Committee Assignments

"Our Share of the Booty": The Democratic Party Cannonism, and the Payne-Aldrich Tariff

T HE importance of the Payne-Aldrich Tariff in the history of the Taft administration and the Republican party has long been recognized.' Wounds inflicted in the debate in the House and Senate during the torrid, cruel summer of 1909 never healed over the next four years, and President William Howard Taft failed ultimately to regain the initiative thereby lost. Ominously portentous for the G.O.P., these days of anger and recrimination also constituted a less well-known but significant event in the history of the Democratic party. During the Roosevelt administration, the congressional Democratic party had virtually dropped out of sight. Long years of permanent minority status, when the Republicans never lacked a majority of less than thirty-tothirty-five in the House of Representatives and fifteen-to-twenty in the Senate, gradually educed a debilitating habit of defeat. In both houses, the party often shrank to the bedrock elements of the South and the urban East, which meant that southern agrarians and city machine congressmen occupied the most important committee assignments and caucus positions. While each of these groups was not without able representatives, a decidedly parochial and narrowly sectional outlook inevitably developed. By 1909, that compelling sense of destiny which so infused the campaign days

Apprenticeship and Committee Assignments in the House of Representatives

Previous articleNext article No AccessResearch NotesApprenticeship and Committee Assignments in the House of RepresentativesCharles S. Bullock, IIICharles S. Bullock, III Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Journal of Politics Volume 32, Number 3Aug., 1970 Sponsored by the Southern Political Science Association Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.2307/2128839 Views: 2Total views on this site Citations: 6Citations are reported from Crossref Copyright 1970 Southern Political Science AssociationPDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Jonathan Lewallen Booster seats: new committee chairs and legislative effectiveness, The Journal of Legislative Studies 26, no.44 (May 2020): 495–522.https://doi.org/10.1080/13572334.2020.1771890Rainbow Murray, Réjane Sénac Explaining Gender Gaps in Legislative Committees, Journal of Women, Politics & Policy 39, no.33 (Jun 2018): 310–335.https://doi.org/10.1080/1554477X.2018.1477397 Melissa P. Collie , and Brian E. Roberts Trading Places: Choice and Committee Chairs in the U.S. Senate, 1950-1986, The Journal of Politics 54, no.11 (Oct 2015): 231–245.https://doi.org/10.2307/2131652Steven S. Smith, Bruce A. Ray The Impact of Congressional Reform: House Democratic Committee Assignments, Congress & the Presidency 10, no.22 (Mar 2010): 219–240.https://doi.org/10.1080/07343468309508018Robert L. Peabody Research on Congress: The 1970s and Beyond, Congress & the Presidency 9, no.11 (Mar 2010): 1–15.https://doi.org/10.1080/07343468109508041 John R. Gist Appropriations Politics and Expenditure Control, The Journal of Politics 40, no.11 (Oct 2015): 163–178.https://doi.org/10.2307/2129980

A Research Note on the Committee Reassignments of Southern Democratic Congressmen

ONE OF THE REVEALING processes associated with the committee system in the House and Senate is that of committee reassignment, i. e. of giving up one committee assignment to take up another. The committee transfer process furnishes one important form of evidence for the differential prestige of committees.' This evidence does not stand alone. The formal rules of the House recognize at least ordered classes of committee importance,2 and restrictions on multiple committee memberships emphasize the relative importance of different classes of committees.3 A third form of evidence of committee stratification is the distribution of initial assignments of new legislators across committees.4 Finally, Congressmen occasionally have articulated a recognition of the differences in desirability of committee assignments.5 It appears well established that the com-

Committee Assignments

Juvenile and Family Court JournalVolume 20, Issue 1 p. 32-32 Committee Assignments First published: May 1969 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1755-6988.1969.tb00434.xAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume20, Issue1May 1969Pages 32-32 RelatedInformation

Committee Assignments and the Nonconformist Legislator: Democrats in the U. S. Senate

Committee Assignments and the Nonconformist Legislator: Democrats in the U. S. Senate

Discussion: Agricultural Economists in Overseas Development Assistance and the Impact upon U.S. Universities

Professors Guither and Thompson have given us an interesting look into the anatomy of agricultural economists serving with overseas contracts. They are concerned with a question often debated in academic circles: Do overseas contracts aid or hinder the operation of an individual department? Their paper and the larger CIC-AID report on which their paper is based are mainly an opinion survey of the groups most intimately associated with AID university contracts. These include the contract staff, their colleagues, department heads, AID/Washington officials, university administrators, and host-country participants. Although these opinions are interesting and throw much light upon problems confronted in this area of the universities' activities, they need to be coupled with insight and, where possible, more specific, quantifiable information. In addition, I am sure that interesting case studies could have been developed from many university contracts. Almost all overseas projects have, at some time or other, had serious problems associated with them. Everyone acquainted with overseas projects knows of instances where individuals have been booted out of a country or sent home early, or the whole project cancelled by the host country. Case studies of these instances would be revealing and might be helpful in avoiding pitfalls in the future, not to mention the additional spice it would have lent to the report. It seems to me that the authors in their project should have looked into these cases to see whether or not any difficulties could be avoided. Without an objective, analytical approach in studying these problems, we are left with gossip and hearsay, which cannot be considered an appropriate method of project evaluation. One important problem that was given only scant attention in the report was the feeling that people may either fall behind or be left out if they take overseas appointments. There were no concrete indications in the report to substantiate this so-called isolation effect, but the very fact that many people feel that it exists is relevant whether it is true or not. If it does exist, it is relevant to question whether or not this needs to be the case. Some of the reasons why people may fall behind is that when they become involved in an overseas contract they not only lose out on important committee and research assignments but also many times are removed from the scene almost to the extent of resigning. They are no lon-

COMMITTEE ASSIGNMENTS

Juvenile Court Judges JournalVolume 19, Issue 3 p. 122-124 COMMITTEE ASSIGNMENTS First published: November 1968 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1755-6988.1968.tb00963.xAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onEmailFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Volume19, Issue3November 1968Pages 122-124 RelatedInformation

Committee Assignments

Juvenile and Family Court JournalVolume 18, Issue 3 p. 109-112 Committee Assignments First published: November 1967 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1755-6988.1967.tb00400.xAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Volume18, Issue3November 1967Pages 109-112 RelatedInformation

Party Leadership Change in the United States House of Representatives

Long periods of one-party domination, increased average tenure in office for Representatives, and the institutionalization of patterns of succession to the Speakership, have all contributed to a tendency toward leadership stability in the 20th-century House of Representatives. The election of Sam Rayburn (D., Texas) and John McCormack (D., Mass.) to the offices of Speaker and Majority Leader in 1940, of Joseph Martin (R., Mass.) to the office of Minority Leader in 1939, and of Leslie Arends (R., Ill.) to the position of Republican Whip in 1943, mark the beginnings of the longest tenures in these four positions for any incumbents in the history of Congress. When changes in top leadership occur—as with the overthrow of Minority Leader Charles A. Halleck by Republican Representative Gerald R. Ford, Jr., in 1965, or the succession of Majority Leader McCormack to the office of the Speaker in 1962 following the death of Rayburn—the consequences are considerable. In the case of revolt, individual careers are made and broken. The organization and policy orientations of a congressional party may be extensively altered. While orderly succession has less dramatic impact, it too has a significant effect on “who gets what, when and how.” Some members move closer to the seats of power and others fall out of favor. Key committee assignments, and hence the development of entire legislative careers, are likely to ride or fall on the outcomes.

The Careers of English Majors

SEVERAL YEARS AGO the National Council of Teachers of English appointed me to head a committee whose designated purpose was to prepare a bulletin for high school and college students on the topic Careers of English Majors. In preparation for the committee assignment, I first went to the library to determine what books, professional articles, or research reports were available dealing with this important topic. The shelves were bare. I uncovered a few research studies of liberal arts graduates that made occasional reference to English majors, and I also found a few articles and pamphlets that made some reference to the importance of the humanities or communication skills in the work of the business executive. But nowhere did I find any account of a scholarly research study of English majors that would yield the desired information on their potential in the career world.

Changing Membership Patterns in House Committees

Of the many excellent studies of Congress completed by political scientists in recent years, few, if any, suggest a departure from Woodrow Wilson's apt phrase, “Congressional government is Committee government.” Despite numerous efforts to analyze legislative action in terms of roll call votes, constituency characteristics, state delegations, and/or specialized interest blocs, the committee system remains the central focal point of congressional behavior and organization. Thus, if Wilson's nineteenth century insight is still valid, then it would seem that more intensive studies of the congressional committee system—in the manner employed by Huitt and Fenno, for example—would yield many new relevant facts concerning the complexities of the legislative process.As a case in point, the manner in which individual members of Congress are assigned to various committees has been well covered by Matthews, Clapp, and Masters. The situation in the Senate is such that each member carries at least two, and in many instances three standing committee assignments. In the House, the maximum standing committee work-load is two assignments, although most Representatives have only a single committee responsibility. However, in connection with this latter point, if one examines the standing committee assignments of all House members for the first session of every Congress from the 80th through the 89th, an interesting pattern emerges in which a gradual but steady increase in the number of double committee assignments is clearly evidenced during the past twenty years.

Committee Assignments

Juvenile and Family Court JournalVolume 16, Issue 4 p. 192-196 Committee Assignments First published: April 1966 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1755-6988.1966.tb00340.xAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Volume16, Issue4April 1966Pages 192-196 RelatedInformation

Committee Assignments 1964

Committee Assignments 1964

The Legislative Committee System in Arizona

tions in practice among the governments of the several states. While the general outlines of the political systems in the states reflect national patterns, the differences in the party systems, the interest group relationships, and the historical trends have caused dramatic divergencies from the national pattern. In recent years, increased attention has been paid to state legislatures in particular in an attempt to develop a comparative understanding of the dynamics of the political systems at the two levels.1 The present study of the Arizona legislature is designed to test some commonly held ideas derived from studies of the Congress and other state legislatures about the structure of the committee system. The power structure of an American legislature involves a complex distribution of prerogatives among various participants: the presiding officers, the committee chairmen, important committees, party officials, etc. Each retains certain powers while deferring to the others in the operation of the legislature. While this distribution is comparatively well known in the Congress, little is known about the dynamics of the system at the state level. This study is an attempt to examine with more precision the relationships between factional alignments and the distribution of committee assignments and committee chairmanships in view of the existing party structure and the high rate of turnover found in Arizona. For an understanding of the internal legislative structure, however, it will be necessary to describe the existing political situation and the state's legislative structure. Arizona has a bicameral legislature consisting of a Senate of twenty-eight members and a House of Representatives of eighty members. The Senate provides two seats for each of the state's fourteen counties while the House membership is apportioned among the counties on the basis of population. Thus, the twelve sparsely settled counties have twenty-four, or 86 per cent, of the twenty-eight Senate seats, while they contain only 31 per cent of the population. The House reflects much more accurately the population of the state in that the two metropolitan counties, Maricopa (Phoenix) and Pima (Tucson), have 66 per cent of the voting strength in the House and 69 per cent of the population.2