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Representatives and senators on the floors: Legislating in the pre- and post-reform eras
Abstract
In the postwar years, the United States Congress has changed in substantial ways. The peak of those changes came in the 1970s. The factor most affected by these changes in congressional organization has been the role of committees in the legislative process. In studying the consequences of these reforms, extant research is significantly at odds in evaluating the importance of committees in the postreform period. Relatedly, scholars have forwarded divergent claims about the role of parties, especially party leadership, in the policymaking process in recent years. Given these disagreements, my purpose in this project is to reassess the role of committees and that of parties in the postwar Congress with a focus upon floor behavior. I examine two floor activities--speeches and amendments--for a host of legislative enactments of postwar years in an effort to assess floor behavior by certain groups of members. The key points of query are: How influential are committees and parties, particularly party leaders, in the policy process in the postreform era compared to the prereform era? The results of this study suggest that in the House, there has been a consistent decline in both speaking and amending activity in the latter era compared to the former. In the Senate, there has been a concurrent increase. The differences between committee versus noncommittee members in terms of floor speeches across the two eras are nonexistent; between the majority and minority party members, they have narrowed in the latter era. Committee members have tended to propose fewer amendments but have enjoyed relatively more success in securing their passage. Majority party members have tended to offer more amendments, although the minority party members have been almost as successful in gaining their adoption. These findings suggest two implications. First, overall levels reveal that in the postreform period, floor activity has declined in the House but increased in the Senate. Second, percentage differences between membership involvement show a somewhat greater role for the minority during the postreform period.
Subject Area
Political science|American history|American studies
Recommended Citation
Ahuja, Sunil, "Representatives and senators on the floors: Legislating in the pre- and post-reform eras" (1995). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI9604394.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI9604394