No abstract

The authors use an informational-theoretical perspective to examine the appointment of legislative committees, using new measures of knowledge and expertise as well as a unique database. While competing theories (distributive and partisan) do not deny that legislative committees are a source of vital knowledge and expertise necessary for legislative policy making, information theory places the wisdom and expertise needs of collective decision making—that is, specialization—on very complex topics by legislative generalists as the raison d'être for a committee system. Thus, the authors investigate one of the fundamental arguments of information theory—that committees are formed to meet the basic knowledge and expertise needs of a legislative body. The findings from U.S. state legislative data indicate that significant member differences regarding prior knowledge and expertise exist by committee jurisdiction, state, and session, reinforcing the applicability of information theory while also suggesting the impact of setting and organizational factors. The authors also explore implications of these findings.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. Comparative Legislative Research Center is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Legislative Studies Quarterly. This study examines the adoption of two relatively new methods of state legislative oversight-rule and regulation review and sunset. The patterns and differences among the states through 1979 in utilizing these methods are analyzed. An empirical model concentrating on five factors-general legislative capabilities, existing oversight capabilities, administrative structure, executive power, and divided party control-is tested to account for the variation in both the adoption of these techniques and the specific method used. Using discriminant analysis, findings suggest that the adoption of rule and regulation review is associated with greater conflict between the executive and the legislature and greater divided party control, while the adoption of sunset is associated with low legislative professionalism and low existing oversight. Impressions of and reactions to the growth of bureaucratic power may be found in both the popular and academic literature (Peters, 1978).A concomitant concern has emerged for holding the bureaucracy accountable by increasing controls over bureaucratic decisions and over agency implemention of the law. The range of controls suggested includes: broad citizen controls (Kotler, 1969), increased executive management (Randall, 1979), increased judicial review of administrative procedures (Mainzer, 1973), and increased efforts of the legislative branch to oversee bureaucratic behavior. The last-increased efforts of the legislative branch-is the focus of this paper.Legislators have long held a plethora of traditional controls over the bureaucracy. Traditional mechanisms of legislative oversight are well known: the power of the purse, investigatory hearings of agency operations, legislative post-auditing, controls through various administrative procedures acts, personnel controls such as the advise and consent power over executive appointments and impeachment/removal powers over executive officials, and influence over executive/agency organizational structure and reorganization (power in this final example is usually post hoc) (Keefe and Ogul, 1977, pp. 387415; Jackson and Howard, 1976). Of course, legislatures ultimately Legislative Studies Quarterly, VI, 1, February, 1981 control all agency actions by legislative enactments. In addition to these organizational mechanisms, actions are sometimes taken by individual legislators. Through casework and ombudsman activities, legislators attempt to influence standard bureaucratic treatment of constituent problems. As Ogul (1976) has noted, this casework involvement can influence...

This article examines the influence of campaign election laws on patterns of candidacy in state legislative elections. Previous studies demonstrate that restrictions on campaign contributions affect levels of campaign spending and competition, but do such legal conditions influence the likelihood that incumbents running for reelection are even challenged? How important is this effect relative to other factors, such as ballot access laws and district political variables, in influencing rates of contestation in primary and general elections? Analyses of state- and district-level features in 1994, 1996, and 1998 show that low contribution limits increase challenger emergence in general elections.

No abstract