The Legislative Matching Game: Committee Matching and Effective Legislating in the States

Abstract

I argue that the value of a particular set of committee assignments for a legislator is dependent on that legislator’s policy interests. By this, I mean that “good” assignments will match committee policy jurisdictions with member policy priorities. I develop this concept of committee-agenda matching and present a measure of this match for legislators in 12 state lower chambers. After some brief measure validation, I present a substantive application, demonstrating that this match poses serious consequences for individual legislator’s ability to shepherd their bills through the legislative process.

Expertise and the Championing of Policy Innovations in State Legislatures

“…Party leaders assign members to committees based on their professional backgrounds (Hamm et al, 2011), and legislators engage in agenda setting in areas that match their background (Hansen et al, 2019). Legislators are more successful when their policy agenda matches their committee assignments (Swift, 2019) or their professional backgrounds (Francis & Bramlett, 2017). Acting on newer ideas may require more specialized knowledge and legislators with one, or both, of these traits should be considerably more likely to champion them;3 if anything, then, these linkages will be even stronger for policy innovations than for typical legislation.…”