The Informational Role of Caucuses in the U.S. Congress

Abstract

In this article we assess the ability of caucuses to complement and counterbalance the informa tional roles of the committee system. Corroborating earlier work, we find that caucuses are often composed of policy outliers. However, we also find that the caucuses in policy areas with outlying committees typically have memberships made up of outliers from the opposite side of the floor median. Given these findings, we conclude that the caucus system acts to counterbal ance the inherent biases of the committee system by providing the floor with an informational perspective unrepresented within the committee system.