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Title
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Ideological caucus membership and committee assignments in the U.S. House of Representatives.
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Author
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Kinnard, Benjamin
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Abstract/Description
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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...
Show moreThe 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.
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Identifier
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1151767436, WFE0000686
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Format
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Document (PDF)