Previous studies of House members' speech‐giving behavior treat the behavior as a product of members' individual goals. By uncovering leadership memoranda soliciting member participation in one‐minute speech giving, I find, first, that parties significantly structure one‐minute speech giving, with party‐orchestrated message campaigns accounting for about one‐third of the speeches given. Second, I find that a party‐based explanation illuminates individual members' speech‐giving behavior. Ideological proximity to the party leadership and party organizational factors strongly influence a member's willingness to be “on message.” These findings have important implications for studies of both party message politics and members' speech‐giving behavior.

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In intraparty congressional leadership races, the characteristics of candidates and the nature of their campaigns increase the salience of particular legislator goals and, in doing so, influence legislators' support of particular leadership candidates. Using multinomial logit regression analysis, the authors test this “goal salience” theory to determine what factors predict individual legislators' commitments to candidates in the 2006 House Republican majority leader's race. Notably, among other factors, the level of campaign donations made to Republican House members had a positive and statistically significant relationship with the choice of specific candidates.

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Drawing upon interviews with current and former members of Congress and congressional staff, plus existing research on political ambition, this chapter offers some tentative answers to the question of why certain lawmakers decide to be candidates for a party leadership post. Following the lead of political scientist Jennifer Lawless, it frames the discussion in terms of two kinds of ambition: nascent ambition, or the general “interest in seeking elective office,” and expressive ambition, “the act of entering a specific race at a particular time”. It shows that these two kinds of ambition ultimately determine who among all of its members leads the House, as well as the degree of stability and conflict that exists within both political parties.