The Changing Value of Seniority in the U.S. House: Conditional Party Government Revised

Abstract

In this paper we argue that institutional changes to the seniority system have electoral consequences to incumbents. Building on the theory of Conditional Party Government, we argue that the consolidation of power in the hands of party leadership reduces the electoral value of seniority. This reduction occurs because power that was previously in the hands of committee chairs, whose roles are obtained through seniority, is ceded to party leaders. We present empirical evidence supporting this argument. Our findings suggest that the "condition" of Conditional Party Government, i.e. preference homogeneity among the majority party, is only a necessary condition; in order for centralization to occur, party reformers must also overcome the opposition of entrenched senior members. The empirical results suggest that studies of electoral outcomes should include institutional variables in their statistical models, and that studies of legislative institutions should consider electoral consequences when modeling rule changes made by legislators.Word count: 8,058

Measuring the Importance of Political Elites

“…Existing practice also has limitations of measurement. As a standard procedure, a set of manifest indicators, such as incumbency status, tenure, and public or party office (or a subset thereof) is plugged into models of legislative behavior to proxy latent influence, seniority, or quality of representatives (see, e.g., Hall and Shepsle, 2013;Hitt, Volden and Wiseman, 2017, for recent variants of this practice). While these indicators may be fairly straightforward to collect for a well-defined set of political actors, they will often be less than optimal accounts of the actual trait of interest.…”

Who Wants to Run? How the Devaluing of Political Office Drives Polarization

“…Hall and Shepsle (2014) argues that strengthening the leadership must come at a cost. The agenda power that the Democrats-and later, in the early 1990s, the majority-party Republicans-gave to their leadership came from senior (often Southern) committee chairs.…”

Leadership Power in Congress, 1890-2014: Evidence from PAC Contributions and Newspaper Coverage

“…It is worth emphasizing that while the condition in CPG is necessary, it is not sufficient (Hall and Shepsle, 2014;Goodman and Nokken, 2007…”

“…For a few examples among many possibilities, seeCarroll and Kim (2010),Hall and Shepsle (2014),Ladewig (2005),Patty (2008),Roberts and Smith (2003),Volden and Bergman (2006), andLebo, McGlynn, and Koger (2007).…”