Legislative Organization Theory and Committee Preference Outliers in State Senates

Author:

Prince David W.,Overby L. Marvin

Abstract

AbstractRecently, several studies of Congress and the state legislatures have found evidence to support the information theory of legislative organization, that is, that legislatures develop committees whose characteristics reflect those of the parent body so as to acquire unbiased policy and political information. However, most of these studies have been conducted on the lower, larger legislative chambers. Senates, as smaller bodies that often follow the lead of legislation originating in their lower chambers, may have less need for unbiased information, perhaps allowing those bodies to develop more outlying, unrepresentative committees. We test this hypothesis in 42 state senates and find that unrepresentative committees also tend to be the exception in these upper chambers. Furthermore, as shown in previous studies of state house committees, the frequency of committee outliers in state senates appears to be idiosyncratic, with cultural, political, and institutional variables being unable to account for their observed patterns. While results support the information theory of legislative organization, evidence of outliers among party delegations on committees in these senates provides some support for the party-dominant theory.

Publisher

Cambridge University Press (CUP)

Subject

Political Science and International Relations,Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous)

Reference55 articles.

1. Testing Committee Composition Hypotheses for the U. S. Congress;Groseclose;Journal of Politics,1994

2. Marshall, Bryan W. , Prins, Brandon C. , and Rohde, David W. . 1997. “Theories of Legislative Organization: An Empirical Study of Committee Outliers in the Senate.” Working Paper, Political Institutions, and Public Choice Program. Michigan State University.

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