You are here

UWF Collections » UWF Theses and Dissertations » Kugelman Honors Program

Ideological caucus membership and committee assignments in the U.S. House of Representatives

Download pdf | Full Screen View

Abstract:
The most important step in passing legislation in Congress lies in the committees where legislation is marked up and sent to the floor of the chamber for a vote. Understanding the composition of these committees is an important step in understanding why legislation is passed and why legislation is shaped the way it is. Ideological caucuses have been described as formal organizations that seek to use their votes to achieve policy outcomes counter to the desires of party leadership. The relationship between the two is what this project covers. This project analyzes why ideological caucuses get the seats in committees in the House of Representatives that they do. Using the partisan theory of committee assignments and the assumption that caucuses wish to achieve goals counter to those of party leadership, with data from the House from 2005- 2010, three hypotheses regarding the relationship between caucus membership and committee assignments were tested. The results show that ideological caucus members do not tend to be assigned to desirable committees more often than non-caucus members in most cases. However, the Democratic party does assign moderate members to constituency committees significantly more often than extreme members, whereas the reverse is true for the Republican party, pointing to a difference in the two parties not accounted for in the models. This research shows that while ideological caucuses may be a factor in committee assignments, there is not enough evidence to prove that caucus membership significantly predicts committee assignments. Rational choice models of members of Congress only go so far in explaining the variance in committee assignments.
Title: Ideological caucus membership and committee assignments in the U.S. House of Representatives.
129 views
99 downloads
Name(s): Kinnard, Benjamin, author.
Type of Resource: text
Genre: Bibliography
Text-txt
Academic Theses.
Electronic Thesis Or Dissertation.
Issuance: monographic
Date Created: 2020
Other Date: 2020.
Publisher: University of West Florida,
Place of Publication: Pensacola, Florida :
Physical Form: electronic resource
Extent: 1 online resource (23 pages : illustrations)
Language(s): eng
Abstract: The most important step in passing legislation in Congress lies in the committees where legislation is marked up and sent to the floor of the chamber for a vote. Understanding the composition of these committees is an important step in understanding why legislation is passed and why legislation is shaped the way it is. Ideological caucuses have been described as formal organizations that seek to use their votes to achieve policy outcomes counter to the desires of party leadership. The relationship between the two is what this project covers. This project analyzes why ideological caucuses get the seats in committees in the House of Representatives that they do. Using the partisan theory of committee assignments and the assumption that caucuses wish to achieve goals counter to those of party leadership, with data from the House from 2005- 2010, three hypotheses regarding the relationship between caucus membership and committee assignments were tested. The results show that ideological caucus members do not tend to be assigned to desirable committees more often than non-caucus members in most cases. However, the Democratic party does assign moderate members to constituency committees significantly more often than extreme members, whereas the reverse is true for the Republican party, pointing to a difference in the two parties not accounted for in the models. This research shows that while ideological caucuses may be a factor in committee assignments, there is not enough evidence to prove that caucus membership significantly predicts committee assignments. Rational choice models of members of Congress only go so far in explaining the variance in committee assignments.
Identifier: 1151767436 (oclc), WFE0000686 (IID)
Note(s): Benjamin Kinnard.
Reubin O'D. Askew Department of Government, College of Arts, Sciences, and Humanities, University of West Florida.
Thesis (Kugelman Honors Program) University of West Florida 2020
Includes bibliographical references.
Subject(s): United States. Congress. House
University of West Florida
Academic theses
Library Classification: LD1807.F62k 2020 K56
Persistent Link to This Record: Read full text online
Restrictions on Access: Available online via FL-Islandora.
Use and Reproduction: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-EDU/1.0/
Host Institution: UWF

In Collections