The Routinization of Committee Assignments in the U. S. House of Representatives

Gertzog, Irwin N.

doi:10.2307/2110567

Cited by 23 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…2 Legislators request committee assignments, and the party grants their requests (see Smith &Deering 1984: 239, andShepsle (1978). Gertzog (1976) found that 90% of new members in the House were granted their committee requests within three terms. However, everyone cannot get the seats they desire.…”

Section: Brief Literature Review On Committee Assignmentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The committee assignment process as an optimal contracting problem

McGarrity

2006

Public Choice

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This paper adapts a simple model from the optimal contracting literature to explain the relationship between political parties and non-incumbent candidates. The model predicts that legislators with a higher opportunity cost of government service will receive better committee assignments. Using data that spans 12 Congresses (97th to 108th), I find that when the opportunity cost of Senate service is measured by previous occupation, freshmen senators with a high opportunity cost for serving (those who were lawyers) were given good committee assignments, while freshmen senators with a low opportunity cost for serving (professors, and those with relatives already in politics) were given worse committee assignments. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, Inc. 2006

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Section: Brief Literature Review On Committee Assignmentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The committee assignment process as an optimal contracting problem

McGarrity

2006

Public Choice

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“…Most researchers of congressional processes have argued that, although congressional parties formally make committee assignments, individual member preferences dominate in the process, and parties merely accommodate those preferences with little consideration for party goals (Gertzog 1976;Shepsle 1978;Smith and Ray 1983;Westfield 1974). This article, however, takes as its main view that parties in Congress play pivotal roles in the selection of members of committees.…”

Section: Theory and Hypothesesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Continuing Puzzle of Committee Outliers: A Methodological Reassessment

Peterson

Wrighton²

1998

Congress & the Presidency

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“…The matching of assignments to requests, constrained only by scarcity, is both a guiding principle and an accurate description of the committee assignment process. (1978: 238) , Shepsle's impressive data set and its rigorous analysis, including estimates of statistical models, together with earlier findings by Gertzog (1976) and Westefield (1974) and more recent work by Bullock (1985), provide strong support for the appropriateness of an accommodation leadership strategy in congressional committee appointments.…”

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confidence: 89%

Entering the Committee System: State Committee Assignments

Hedlund

1989

Western Political Quarterly

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ONTEMPORARY American legislatures are organized around committee systems which are largely responsible for how legisla-. tures work and what they accomplish. Any analysis or description of Congress or a state legislature gives a prominent position to committees and the roles they play; however, the emphasis in committee research has been on Congress.One important yet understudied area of state committee activity relates to the committee appointment process. In his review of committee selection, Eulau (1985) listed 4 studies at the state level, compared with 63 on Congress. In a modest effort to contribute to our knowledge of state committee selection, the present study provides insights regarding this process and its consequences for the legislature in one stateWisconsin-for six recent legislative sessions-

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The Routinization of Committee Assignments in the U. S. House of Representatives

Cited by 23 publications

References 5 publications

The committee assignment process as an optimal contracting problem

The committee assignment process as an optimal contracting problem

The Continuing Puzzle of Committee Outliers: A Methodological Reassessment

Entering the Committee System: State Committee Assignments

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