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Party Discipline in the U.S. House of Representatives
 9780472119615, 9780472121199, 2015009529

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Party Discipline in the U.S. House of Representatives Kathryn Pearson University of Michigan Press Ann Arbor

Page iv → Copyright В© by the University of Michigan 2015 All rights reserved This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the publisher. Published in the United States of America by the University of Michigan Press Manufactured in the United States of America 2018 2017 2016 2015 4 3 2 1 A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Pearson, Kathryn. Party discipline in the U.S. House of Representatives / Kathryn Pearson. pages cm. — (Legislative Politics and Policy Making) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-472-11961-5 (Hardcover : acid-free paper) — ISBN 978-0-472-12119-9 (Ebook) 1. United States. Congress. House. 2. United States. Congress. House—Committees. 3. United States. Congress. House—Rules and practice. 4. Political parties—United States. I. Title. JK1410.P43 2015 328.73'0766—dc23 2015009529

Page v → To Chad and Lincoln

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Acknowledgments I am grateful to the many people who helped me become interested in the U.S. Congress well before I arrived at Berkeley for graduate school and began this project. Perhaps it was the family trip to Washington, DC, when I was ten and I visited the U.S. Capitol for the first time. My parents, Ed and Lynda Pearson, couldn’t tear me away from the gallery where we were watching members gather for a roll call vote on the floor. They were never quite sure where my interest in studying politics came from, but they have always been my number-one supporters. Their love, support, and encouragement made it possible for me to follow my passion to Washington, DC, Berkeley, back to DC, and to Minnesota. As a student at Claremont McKenna College, I quickly discovered that my passion was studying American politics—not Econ/Accounting, as I had originally intended—particularly with my exceptional mentors, Jack Pitney and Michael Goldstein. Spending a semester in Washington, DC, and writing a senior thesis for Jack solidified my interest in studying Congress. I hope that I inspire some of my own undergraduates the way they inspired me. Congresswoman Jane Harman gave me my start on Capitol Hill—an invaluable crash course in how to be a Legislative Assistant for a member who, to her credit, was never satisfied simply following party cues and always wanted to know every detail about the policies the House was considering. My next boss, Congresswoman Connie Morella, was an important role model. I will forever appreciate the opportunities she gave me as her Legislative Assistant and how much she taught me about life on CapitolPage x → Hill. My experience working for her motivated, in part, this research. Often a dissenting voice within her party, she demonstrated the independence, courage, legislative entrepreneurship, and bipartisan comity that are too unusual in the contemporary Congress. She treated her constituents, colleagues, and staff with respect, whether or not they agreed with her. Although it has evolved over the years, this project began with my dissertation at UC Berkeley. My committee was wonderfully supportive—and critical when appropriate—and I am tremendously grateful to my dissertation adviser, Ray Wolfinger, and committee members Jack Citrin, Eric Schickler, and John Ellwood. When Ray agreed to advise my dissertation, he warned me that he was hard on his students. In reality, he was extremely supportive and generous with his time and feedback. I am still laughing at the colorful anecdotes that he would share over lunch, in his graduate seminar, and in his undergraduate Congress class. I am forever grateful for the way that Ray challenged me to be a better scholar and for his mentorship, support, and friendship. Jack constantly challenged me to think beyond the intricacies of Congress. Working as his research assistant expanded my intellectual interests and sharpened my data skills, and I have appreciated his advice, support, and friendship ever since. Arriving at Berkeley after spending five years working on Capitol Hill, I thought I knew a lot about Congress. Working with Eric, I quickly realized just how much I didn’t know, and I am grateful for all that he has taught, and continues to teach, me. I can’t think of a better role model in this discipline than Eric, and I am grateful for his intellectual and professional insight and his friendship. The interviews I conducted with members and former members of Congress, along with staff and former staff, greatly improved this book, and I appreciate the valuable time and candor that so many shared with me. I was very fortunate to spend a year as a Research Fellow at the Brookings Institution, a vibrant intellectual community that provided me with the time and resources to conduct interviews, code data, and write. In particular, Sarah Binder, Tom Mann, and the other two fellows, Matt Green and Andy Karch, provided valuable feedback and encouragement throughout the year. I stayed in Washington, DC, the following year, greatly benefiting from the support of the terrific community at the American Political Science Association’s Centennial Center and the University of California Washington Center. I appreciate the advice and encouragement of many political scientists and congressional experts. I am especially grateful for the feedback and support from Scott Adler, Stan Bach, David Brady, Meg Carne, Dennis Chong, Michael Crespin, Casey Dominguez, Linda Fowler, Thomas Page xi →Hammond, Michael Heaney, Jennifer

Lawless, Frances Lee, Forrest Maltzman, David Mayhew, Eric McGhee, Nathan Monroe, Rita Parhad, David Rohde, Cindy Simon Rosenthal, Judy Schneider, Wendy Schiller, John Sides, Tracy Sulkin, Sean Theriault, and seminar participants at the University of Texas at Austin, New York University, the University of Virginia, Dartmouth, Northwestern, the University of Oklahoma, and in the Political Institutions and Public Choice Program, which was then at Michigan State. While my research assistants and I gathered extensive amounts of data, I am grateful for data provided by others. The Center for Responsive Politics generated campaign finance data from 1990 to 2012. I relied on Charles Stewart and Jonathan Woon’s committee-assignment data from the 103rd to 112th Congress, Garrison Nelson’s committee assignment data from the 100th to 102nd Congress, and Keith Poole and Howard Rosenthal’s DW-NOMINATE data. I thank Gary C. Jacobson for sharing his congressional election data and Andrew Taylor for sharing his “Tuesday Group” data. I am grateful for the intellectual and financial support of my home department, and for all of my terrific colleagues at the University of Minnesota. I particularly appreciate the support of Dara Strolovitch, Phil Shively, Andy Karch, Howie Lavine, Joanne Miller, Martin Sampson, Bud Duvall, Larry Jacobs, and Kathryn Sikkink. I have greatly benefited from the help of several outstanding research assistants over the years. Collecting and checking data is time consuming and tedious, and I sincerely thank Emily Baer, Anthony Chergosky, Logan Dancey, Ashley English, Michael Julius, Thomas Leeper, Kjersten Nelson, Adam Olson, Monica Schneider, and Libby Sharrow for their careful and cheerful work on the data for this project and related projects, along with the many, many insightful discussions about Congress we have had along the way. I owe a special thanks to Phil Chen, whose Stata skills and patience were invaluable, particularly when it comes to the legibility of the figures ahead. I would especially like to thank Melody Herr for her great advice and support throughout the entire process, along with three anonymous reviewers for their helpful suggestions. Finally, I want to thank my husband, Chad Reichwald, for his tremendous support of this project (even entering some last-minute data) and of my career, and especially for making me so happy, along with our son Lincoln. This book is dedicated with love and appreciation to Chad and Lincoln.

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One Introduction House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) had had enough. After two years of frustration caused by defections from his own party’s members on important votes, Boehner removed four Republican members from influential committees after the 2012 elections. One of them, Walter Jones (R-NC), had long caused headaches for GOP leaders by siding with Democrats on key votes. The others, conservative “Tea Party” Republicans David Schweikert (R-AZ), Justin Amash (R-MI), and Tim Huelskamp (R-KS), frequently—and vocally—objected when the Speaker needed his fellow partisans’ support on critical issues, especially “must pass” budget bills forged by compromising with President Barack Obama and Senate Democrats. While Boehner’s moves to enforce party discipline made headlines, they were not unprecedented. In 2002, House Republican leaders removed a bill that had been scheduled for consideration on the House floor to punish its sponsor, conservative Congressman Christopher H. Smith (R-NJ), for his disloyalty to his party (Pomper 2002). Leaders’ actions had nothing to do with the content of the policy in question. Smith’s bill to establish microloans in developing countries was not controversial, and it had already cleared the Senate. In 2005, Republican leaders again punished Smith for breaking with the party on policy issues, this time by revoking Smith’s chairmanship of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee—two years before his six-year term was set to expire. Party leaders selected Congressman Steve Buyer (R-IN), a reliable supporter of the party, to replace him, despite Buyer’s unpopularity with many veterans’ groups (Allen 2005). Page 2 →At a critical stage in a battle over the budget between President Ronald Reagan and House Democratic leaders in October 1987, Speaker Jim Wright’s (D-TX) $14.5 billion reconciliation bill was headed for defeat on the House floor. After voting against the bill and leaving the House floor, Congressman Jim Chapman (D-TX) returned and changed his vote—violating a promise he had made to his constituents—to ensure the bill’s passage by a margin of 206–205 (Wehr 1987). Thirteen months later, Wright ensured that Chapman edged out other Democrats to transfer to the powerful House Appropriations Committee (Hook 1988). Congresswoman Constance A. Morella (R-MD) served on the committees to which she was initially assigned—the Science Committee and the Post Office and Civil Service Committee—for her entire sixteenyear House career, despite her desire to transfer to more powerful committees.1 These committees are among the least popular in the House, frequently losing members who are transferred to more prestigious committees (Groseclose and Stewart 1998). Morella’s frequent votes against her party undercut her requests to leaders to transfer her to a more powerful committee, particularly to the Appropriations Committee, which funded so many programs housed in her own congressional district.2 These examples highlight some of the mechanisms that party leaders can use to exert discipline by rewarding and punishing members for their loyalty, or disloyalty, to the party. In the wake of Democratic reforms to centralize power in the hands of party leaders beginning in the 1970s and continuing by both parties in the decades that followed, party leaders in the contemporary House of Representatives have accrued considerable power. With nearly every reform, party leaders have gained more and more influence over the careers of their rank-and-file members. Party leaders allocate resources and opportunities to their members, picking and choosing among their ranks when determining which members’ bills and amendments to consider on the House floor, whose requests for committee transfers to honor, and whose campaigns to assist. Although members’ constituents ultimately determine their electoral fate, leaders’ decisions may help or hinder members’ legislative careers, electoral success, and their ability to represent their constituents—all of which affect their attractiveness to their constituents and ultimately shape the legislative agenda. Political parties in the House of Representatives promote collective accountability and enhance the representation of group interests in a chamber comprised of 435 individually elected members with a range of policy preferences

and priorities and who represent a diverse array of constituencies. While parties are a durable pillar of congressional organization, party Page 3 →cohesion varies from Congress to Congress. At times, party leaders seem overzealous in their attempts to induce members to support the party program, while in other instances they seem almost uninterested or unable to mobilize their members behind their party’s legislative agenda. While leaders’ use of party discipline is a key ingredient of party coherence, there has been surprisingly little discussion about how party leaders systematically elicit and enforce party loyalty. Understanding the ways in which congressional party leaders discipline their members is increasingly important in light of increasing levels of partisan polarization in the House of Representatives, whereby partisans vote with one another in opposition to members of the other party. While the polarization resulting from the increase in intraparty unity and conflict between the parties has attracted great interest among scholars and political observers alike, increased party unity is not necessarily the result of party discipline, although it can be. Identifying party discipline has proven elusive. Congressional scholars debate the strength and significance of parties, and even whether congressional party discipline exists. Analyses of roll call votes have detected some evidence of party influence, showing, for example, that members sometimes cast votes in support of their party even when they conflict with their own preferences. Less is known, however, about how leaders exact such loyalty from rank-and-file members or what it means for leaders to discipline their members. In the chapters that follow, I analyze the mechanisms and conditions of party discipline and the countervailing forces that undermine it. I identify the potential instruments of discipline available to leaders to reward and punish members for their loyalty to the party; assess leaders’ use of these instruments; and identify the members targeted for discipline. The central argument of this book is that party leaders confront an underlying tension between two overarching goals when it comes to enforcing discipline, navigating a conflict between their need to maintain policy control to pass a partisan policy agenda while also maintaining majority control by preserving their 218-plus vote electoral majority. Majority party leaders need party discipline to maintain control over the legislative agenda and to pass their legislative priorities, but they also need to ensure the reelection of their members to maintain their majority status in the next Congress. When leaders reward members for their loyalty, they may forgo opportunities to help their most electorally vulnerable members—many of the very members who are most likely to vote against the party because their constituents are less supportive of the party agenda. UnderstandingPage 4 → this tension is critical because it helps to explain variance in discipline. Further, leaders also deal with disloyalty from members from safe districts who prioritize ideological purity over pragmatism and thus reject measures that a Speaker may bring to the floor that aren’t conservative or liberal enough. Ultimately, I identify the conditions under which party leaders prioritize policy control and when they prioritize majority control. When leaders prioritize policy control, they reward members who consistently support the party and occasionally punish those who do not. But electoral concerns sometimes require leaders to use resources such as committee assignments and campaign contributions—which might otherwise be used to further policy control—to help members facing competitive reelection contests, tolerating their votes against the party or other disloyal acts. Leaders’ prioritization of policy control and majority control in their allocation of resources depends on their agenda and the political context. This book traces party discipline for nearly a quarter of a century, from 1987 to 2012, encompassing the leadership of six Speakers—three Democrats and three Republicans—including Speakers Jim Wright (D-TX), Tom Foley (D-WA), Newt Gingrich (R-GA), Denny Hastert (R-IL), and Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), and the first Congress in which Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) served as speaker. This time span allows for a balance of indepth analysis and systematic analysis with ample variation in the electoral and political conditions that affect party discipline. Situating the analysis entirely in the postreform era means that party leaders have several tools at their disposal—whether or not they employ them—to discipline their members. This book nonetheless illuminates critical changes and consistencies in party leadership, in leaders’ willingness to discipline their members, and in the response of rank-and-file members.

Identifying Party Discipline

The increase in partisanship in the House of Representatives since the 1970s has attracted great interest among scholars and congressional observers alike, but there has been little attention paid to precisely how party leaders elicit and enforce party loyalty. In the wake of the institutional and political changes that transformed congressional parties beginning in the 1970s, a sea change in the literature on Congress occurred. By the 1990s, scholars were engaged in a heated and prolific debate over the role of congressional parties. This marked a sharp contrast from congressionalPage 5 → scholarship that focused on individual members and their committee roles, particularly from the late 1930s to the mid-1970s (e.g., Fenno 1973; Polsby 1968; Shepsle 1989). In his seminal work, Congress: The Electoral Connection, David Mayhew famously articulated the prevailing scholarly view of congressional parties in 1974: “The fact is that no theoretical treatment of the United States Congress that posits parties as analytic units will go very far” (Mayhew 1974, 27). Congressional parties, Mayhew argued, could help members with their electoral goals, but they did not pursue policy programs or pressure their members to vote with them. As Mayhew himself has noted (Mayhew 2001), he was writing during the low point of intraparty cohesion in voting, and party cohesion began to rise significantly in the years that followed. Scholars developed and analyzed two leading theories of congressional parties during the 1990s: conditional party government theory (Rohde 1991; Aldrich 1995; Aldrich and Rohde 1998, 2000) and the party cartel theory (Cox and McCubbins 1993, 1994, 2005). Although there are significant differences between these two partisan theories, implicit in both is the potential for majority party leaders to pursue a policy program, shape legislative outcomes, and to discipline their members. David Rohde’s Parties and Leaders in the Postreform House (1991) reversed a long decline in scholarly interest in parties in the House of Representatives, detailing the revival of party activity and articulating the theory of conditional party government (CPG). According to CPG, members’ willingness to cede power to their leaders depends on the homogeneity of members’ preferences within their party caucus and the distance between the preferences of the two parties. CPG thus explains variation in party power, particularly as parties gained strength during the 1970s and 1980s. As more liberals were elected to the House, Democrats became an increasingly like-minded majority beginning in the late 1960s and the 1970s, and their ideological distance from Republicans grew, prompting Democratic members to enact a series of reforms to centralize power in the hands of majority party leaders to achieve results favored by most majority party members. When Republican leaders gained majority control of the House in 1995, rank-and-file members’ preferences, according to CPG, explain the party leaders’ further centralization of power: “Gingrich and his allies wanted to strengthen the GOP party leadership in order to gain greater control over the agenda and greater influence over the choices of Republican members. The party Conference was willing to grant these greater powers because the party had a high degree of preference homogeneity, Page 6 →which had been reinforced by the large and very conservative freshman class of 1994” (Aldrich and Rohde 1998, 565–66). CPG assumes that leaders’ disciplinary power hinges on the collective control granted to them by their members—which is itself conditional on the homogeneity of their members’ preferences and the distance between the two parties—and also party leaders’ willingness to use it. Rohde (1991) illustrates the consequence of increased Democratic cohesion when it comes to punishing defectors. In 1987, for example, the call for punishing Democratic backers of Reagan’s major policy initiatives from rank-and-file Democrats preceded Speaker Wright’s willingness to act (Rohde 1991, 78). Rohde does not, however, systematically test leaders’ discipline of their members, nor does his theory account for the importance of electoral concerns and chamber margins. Gary Cox and Mathew McCubbins (1993, 2005, 2007) model parties in the House as a legislative cartel, whereby the majority party is able to “usurp the rule-making power of the House” (1993, 278) and wield power over every stage of the legislative process to achieve majority party interests. They argue that parties are—and have consistently been—stronger than most scholars recognize. In contrast to CPG, Cox and McCubbins view congressional parties’ strength as relatively stable throughout the postwar era, notwithstanding significant variation in party leaders’ power due to the electoral bases and ideological preferences of their members. Even during the 1937–65 era when party leaders had relatively few tools and members rarely agreed on policy, Cox and McCubbins maintain that the majority party had a veto over the legislative agenda (2005). Recent

evidence, however, suggests that a conservative coalition of southern Democrats and Republicans not only prevented legislation favored by majority party Democratic leaders, which Cox and McCubbins allow, but also set the agenda in several policy areas over the objections of liberal Democratic leaders (Pearson and Schickler 2009b; Schickler and Pearson 2009). By contrast, I argue that party leaders pursue two overarching goals—policy control and majority control—and the prioritization of these goals in each Congress depends on several contextual factors that vary from Congress to Congress. According to the party cartel theory, the majority party’s ability to solve collective action problems in the House rests on their “automatic” control and also on their “active” control, that is, their power to discipline their members, and they view congressional parties’ strength as relatively stable throughout the postwar era. While Cox and McCubbins provide empirical evidence showing that parties provided selective incentives to loyal party members in the form of desirable committeePage 7 → transfers from the 80th to the 100th Congress, they stop short of uncovering other important, less visible tools employed by party leaders to advantage loyal members as a means of discipline, and they do not consider the many ways that members can express their loyalty to the party beyond their roll call votes. Even in the second edition of Cox and McCubbins’s Legislative Leviathan (2007), the most recent data come from the 100th Congress (1987–88), the earliest of twelve Congresses that I consider. Contemporary scholarship on congressional parties accelerated when Keith Krehbiel entered the debate by challenging scholars to prove that “apparent party effects” (Krehbiel 1993) are more than just the expression of members’ ideological preferences. In his 1993 article “Where’s the Party?” Krehbiel questioned whether parties matter at all once scholars take into account members’ policy preferences, arguing that what scholars identify as party effects are instead “artifacts of preferences rather than evidence of party discipline, party cohesion, party strength, or party government” (2000, 225). In the political science firestorm that followed, Krehbiel held firm as a self-described “interested but skeptical spectator” of the scholars in the “party parade” (1999, 31). Much of the scholarly work that followed contrasted one or both of the partisan theories to Krehbiel’s nonpartisan models of legislative institutions (1991, 1998, 2000), which emphasize the importance of the median, or pivotal, voter on legislative procedures and outcomes. Krehbiel’s challenge also instigated a “hunt for party discipline” (e.g., McCarty, Poole, and Rosenthal 2001). Scholars began to systematically explain how parties exert influence in postreform congressional politics (e.g., Aldrich and Rohde 1998, 2000; Binder 1996; Binder, Lawrence, and Maltzman 1999; Sinclair 1995, 1999). Scholars detect partisan effects in analyses of roll call votes and interest group scores that show higher levels of party support than their ideology would predict (Ansolabehere, Snyder, and Stewart 2001; Binder, Lawrence, and Maltzman 1999; Snyder and Groseclose 2000; McCarty, Poole, and Rosenthal 2001; Cox and Poole 2002), but they stop short of specifying how leaders exact party loyalty. For example, Snyder and Groseclose (2000) find evidence of party discipline through an analysis of closely contested roll call votes. They derive a scale of underlying preferences from lopsided votes, where party pressure should not matter, which they then use to derive party pressure when analyzing close votes, where pressure is likely to be applied. Finding party influence in members’ voting records may in fact mean that party leaders discipline their members, but it says nothing about how they do it. As the debate over party effects makes clear, despite record high Page 8 →levels of party-line voting over the past decade and reforms increasing the power and prerogatives of party leaders, the process of congressional party discipline is difficult—but important—to systematically identify. In a 2012 assessment of the scholarly literature on congressional parties, C. Lawrence Evans concludes that “[t]here is some evidence that leaders use agenda setting, the provision of information, promises of sanctions or rewards to fellow members, substantive changes in the relevant legislation, careful bargaining, the mobilization of the public and interest group pressure, and a host of other tactics to advance their legislative and political agendas. Unfortunately, existing scholarly research provides only fragmentary guidance about how often these tactics are employed and under what conditions” (Evans 2012, 82–83; emphasis added). There is no consensus, then, among political scientists as to what constitutes party discipline, or whether it even exists. By explicitly determining the mechanisms of discipline at leaders’ disposal and the conditions under

which leaders use them to punish and reward members for their loyalty, this study of party discipline helps to close this gap. The many definitions of the term “discipline” reflect its multiple usages, so some clarity is necessary. According to Webster’s Dictionary,3 discipline is used as both a verb and a noun referring to punishment, training, and correction. Party leaders can therefore exert discipline, defined as “instruction by means of misfortune, suffering, and punishment,” “training to act in accordance with established rules,” or “to punish in order to gain control or enforce obedience.” Members of Congress can then also demonstrate discipline, defined as “controlled behavior resulting from disciplinary training,” “a state of order based on submission to rules and authority,” or “habit of obedience.” I begin by conceptualizing discipline as a verb, that is, an action taken by leaders. Party leaders may exert discipline through the use of rewards and punishment, which they expect will result in compliant behavior among rank-and-file members. Although I analyze discipline in both forms—that exerted by leaders and that occurring among members—my starting point and central focus is on leaders’ behavior. I ask when and how leaders exert discipline in the allocation of scarce resources and opportunities, rewarding loyalty with preferential treatment and punishing disloyalty by withholding such benefits.4 Party discipline in the House of Representatives can also be conceptualized as leaders wielding “sticks” and “carrots.” Accordingly, party leaders have a growing arsenal of carrots at their disposal with which to reward members, but their sticks are more limited. Given the constraints on what Page 9 →party leaders can take away from their members, party discipline is more likely to be exerted in the allocation of resources and opportunities. Indeed, former Speaker Newt Gingrich explained it this way: “I’m not big on punishment, I’m very big on rewards.”5 Most significantly, leaders cannot expel a party member from Congress or prevent him or her from running for reelection.6 Only a member’s constituents have the power to send him or her home through defeat in a primary or general election. When it comes to party caucus membership, all Democrats are automatically members of the Democratic Caucus and all Republicans are automatically members of the Republican Conference.7 The use of potent sanctions, such as expelling a member from the party caucus or a committee, is rare (Schickler and Rich 1997). Indeed, it was major news when Congressman James Traficant (D-OH) was actually expelled from the Democratic Caucus in the 107th Congress after he voted for Republican Dennis Hastert for Speaker and Democratic leaders refused to assign him to any committees (Cohn 2001, 6). Subsequently, he was indicted and lost his bid for reelection from prison. Party leaders’ increased power in the postreform era has provided them with many tools and opportunities to both help and hinder members as they pursue their goals. Fenno (1973) identifies members’ main goals—reelection, influence within the House, and good public policy. During an era in which party leaders had considerably less power, Fenno illustrated how members used their committee assignments to attain these goals. In the decades that followed, party leaders increased their power at the expense of committee power, so that today party leaders play a significant role in helping members achieve these goals. To the extent that committees still play an important role in helping members pursue their goals, it is party leaders who determine which members gain access to the most useful committees through the committee assignment process. I have identified three domains in which majority party leaders may exert discipline: the consideration of members’ legislation on the House floor, campaign resources, and committee appointments, including transfers to exclusive committees and committee chairmanships. Majority party leaders largely determine the legislative calendar, the rules governing debate and amendments on legislation, bill referrals to committees, and the allocation of legislative opportunities. Party leaders control their respective Steering Committees, which decides committee assignments, committee transfers, and, since the late 1990s for Republicans, committee chairmanships and ranking member positions. Party leaders also control a growing arsenal of campaign resources through their own leadership politicalPage 10 → action committees (PACs) and the party campaign committees, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) and National Republican Congressional Committee

(NRCC). Leaders’ main opportunities to punish their members occur by omission: skipping over disloyal members in the allocation of limited committee positions, legislative opportunities, and financial resources. In a chamber where key positions and time to consider legislation are limited, party leaders’ decisions affect members’ opportunities for advancement and legislative success. Leaders do not have unlimited campaign dollars to allocate and must decide among their colleagues’ requests, taking many factors into account. Thus punishment merely by the withholding of benefits can be significant. Chapter 3 more fully explains each of the domains in which party leaders may exert discipline.

Party Leaders’ Goals In Party Influence in Congress (2007), Steven Smith analyzes theoretical and empirical debates on parties in Congress and finds that neither CPG theory nor party cartel theory account for both the policy and electoral goals of congressional party leaders. Smith argues that scholars have at times overlooked party influence, particularly as leaders maximize their flexibility in fulfilling both of these goals. Much of Smith’s data analysis reevaluates existing theories, particularly when it comes to finding party influence in spatial models of roll call votes. An exception is chapter 7, in which Smith, Lawrence, and Maltzman test new data on how frequently individual members are on the winning side of a roll call vote. They predict, and confirm, that majority party members are more likely to be on the winning side of a roll call vote because “the majority party shows discipline that generates wins while minority party legislators go their own way” (Smith 2007, 184). Party discipline is thus a focus of Smith’s analysis as well, but I analyze party discipline from a different perspective. Instead of detecting discipline by analyzing members’ roll call votes, I test whether party leaders exert discipline by rewarding members for their demonstration of party loyalty. Smith concludes with a call for a theory of party leaders’ strategies that accounts for the multiple collective goals of parties and their trade-offs (Smith 2007, 206). In my analysis of leaders’ use of party discipline, I argue that party leaders pursue two overarching goals that are, at times, in tension with each other: passing a partisan policy agenda (policy control) and bolstering their Page 11 →electoral majority (majority control). Majority party leaders need party discipline to pass their legislative priorities, but they also need to ensure the reelection of their members to maintain or expand their majority status in the next Congress. When leaders exercise party discipline by rewarding members for their loyalty, they may forgo opportunities to help their most electorally vulnerable members, as these are the members who often represent districts where the party’s policies are least popular and therefore most difficult for members to support. Leaders may exert party discipline to pursue policy control. Party leaders reward loyalty to provide them with incentives for continued or increased loyalty and to provide other members with incentives to follow their lead. It is natural for leaders to want to thank the members who have helped the party. The benefits they receive—whether in the form of help with their own bills, committee positions, or campaign dollars—and the attendant publicity bolster their chances of reelection. Since reelection and policy achievements are primary goals for all members of Congress, they have an incentive to obtain preferential treatment from the leadership, presumably by demonstrating their loyalty. In addition, members who are rewarded for their loyalty serve as a sharp example to other members. It only takes one high profile example to send a message to the entire party caucus. One litmus test of loyalty is consistently voting with the party majority on legislation considered on the House floor and on procedural matters. Such loyalty is particularly valuable in an era of tight competition for party control of Congress, when parties want to be able to point to a record of legislative accomplishment and every vote counts. Indeed, most scholars conceptualize discipline in terms of policy control. Leaders also pursue majority control, or electoral advantage. The House is a majoritarian institution where majority party control essentially means everything. Control of the legislative process, institutional rules and procedures, and key resources rests on majority party control, that is, holding at least 218 seats. To attain or maintain majority status (and thereby maintain or enhance their own position), party leaders strive to elect as

many fellow partisans as possible. Electoral goals, then, may pose significant constraints on leaders’ incentives to exert party discipline in the allocation of legislative opportunities, committee assignments, and campaign assistance. This electoral motive might well push leaders to discount the loyalty of their party’s candidates and help the most vulnerable. Targeting resources to the most vulnerable members, regardless of their party loyalty, is an efficient use of campaign dollars if the goal is maximizing the party’s seats in Congress. Page 12 →Leaders prioritizing majority control have incentives to reward their most prodigious fundraisers for the party. Members forming leadership PACs and making contributions to fellow incumbents and the party’s congressional campaign committee increase their party’s chances for retaining seats in the next election. All partisans are advantaged when their party expands its margin. Without such incentives, individual members would be less likely to spend time fundraising for their colleagues. Party leaders therefore solve a collective action problem inherent in mobilizing electoral resources when they reward the members who make contributions. Particularly as partisan margins have narrowed and party control has essentially been up for grabs since 1996, electoral goals influence leaders’ allocation of resources and opportunities, particularly when it comes to campaign finance. Campaign contributions give members another way to express party loyalty above and beyond their voting record. Party leaders prioritizing electoral goals will reward members who demonstrate their party loyalty by contributing campaign dollars to fellow partisans and the party committees, and leaders will assist electorally vulnerable members regardless of their loyalty. Party leaders generally act as a team in pursuit of the party’s goals. That is not to say that they do not compete with one another or bring different strengths to the leadership. Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, for example, had a long history as rivals, and they drew support from different groups of members within the Democratic Caucus. Yet as I assess leaders’ goals and the constraints on their power, I assume that they, and all leadership teams, generally act as a unit in pursuit of the same party agenda and electoral goals. While this assumption may mask internal competition for power and overlook some compromises they may make with one another, it rests upon the idea that they share a linked fate. Their fortunes depend upon the legislative and electoral success of their party. For majority party members, the Speaker of the House directs the leadership team inside the House. Indeed, the Speaker is the only leader mentioned in the Constitution, and the only leader elected by the entire chamber. On the Republican side, the Republican Conference, comprising all Republican members of Congress, nominates the party candidate for Speaker and elects the Republican whip, Conference chairman, National Republican Congressional Committee chairman, and House Policy Committee chairman. Republican leaders are elected on the basis of their loyalty and performance, expressed in their voting records, legislative activities, and electoral teamwork (Schickler and Pearson 2004). The whip appoints a chief deputy majority and several deputy whips. The whip operation—an Page 13 →operation that has grown significantly over this time period—ensures that the leadership secures at least 218 votes to pass partisan legislation. Both in and out of the majority, the structure of the Democrats’ leadership team has been similar to Republicans’, though with more ideological, racial, and gender diversity (Schickler and Pearson 2004). The Democratic Caucus elects a candidate for Speaker, a whip, Caucus chairman, and vice chairman. The Democratic leader appoints the chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and an assistant to the majority or minority leader. The Democratic whip organization parallels the Republicans’ in that it has grown significantly and includes a broad range of members appointed to many positions—only the more senior of whom are made public—to maximize leaders’ efforts to persuade members using regional, committee, ethnic, racial, and ideological connections. Leaders are accountable to, and constrained by, their members. Not only do they need their votes to be elected, they need their support to pass a legislative program. Further, they are subject to intense scrutiny; the opposing party and the media keep track of their political, ethical, and personal missteps (Zelizer 2004). Indeed, as partisanship increased in the House, so did attacks on party leaders’ abuses of the minority party and ethical conduct.8 Since 1988, two Democratic leaders, Speaker Jim Wright and Whip Tony Coelho, ended their terms—and careers—early when they resigned from the House under ethics scrutiny. If leaders overreach or

underperform, they are likely to be challenged the next time they run, or even be forced to step down. Speaker Newt Gingrich was the target of an unsuccessful “coup” by conservatives in his Conference to supplant him in 1997. Gingrich resigned after Republicans lost House seats in the 1998 election, and his would-be replacement, Robert Livingston (R-LA), resigned from Congress after his extramarital affairs were revealed. Leaders’ pursuit of policy control and majority control are both critically important. These goals are not independent of each other; the attainment of one goal affects achieving the other. The prioritization of leaders’ goals, and the relationship between them, depends on the electoral, institutional, and political circumstances in a given Congress.

An Analysis of Party Discipline My analysis shifts the focus away from what political scientists and journalists typically consider, the discipline that members exhibit in voting, to an analysis of leaders’ propensity to use their potential mechanisms of discipline.Page 14 → Using new and unique data, I test hypotheses about party leaders’ pursuit of policy control and majority control in the allocation of resources to their rank-and-file members. I find that the relative priority of these goals depends on the political context in a given Congress. Specifically, my analysis shows that strong leaders with partisan policy agendas, particularly in Congresses with narrow chamber margins where they need most every vote to pass a legislative program, exert party discipline in pursuit of policy control. In Congresses where leaders’ concerns about retaining majority party control are more pressing, leaders focus on helping vulnerable members, while still rewarding loyalty in some domains. I employ extensive statistical analyses supplemented with interviews with party leaders, members, and staff. I have created comprehensive new data sets to analyze the allocation of benefits in the legislative, campaign, and committee domains from 1987 to 2012. Through statistical analyses of party leaders’ decisions from 1987 to 2012, and through qualitative interviews with former party leaders, staff, and members, Party Discipline in the House of Representatives establishes that leaders allocate resources and opportunities on the basis of members’ voting records, partisan rhetoric, fundraising, and electoral vulnerability. The careful analyses of the rewards and punishments at leaders’ disposal, and the variation in their allocation across Congresses, show that discipline takes on several forms and needs to be understood as a multidimensional concept. Uncovering the mechanisms of discipline deepens scholars’ insight into members’ goals, leaders’ strategies, and party influence and partisan polarization in the House of Representatives.

Implications Party influence on congressional policy-making, representation, and institutional design has important consequences. The scholarly debate over the strength and significance of congressional parties does not adequately consider one of the components of party influence: party discipline in the House. Identifying instruments of discipline and their use, exploring the development of discipline over time, comparing discipline imposed by the two parties in and out of the majority, and identifying which members are disciplined sheds light on this debate. A better understanding of congressional party discipline informs debates among political scientists, pundits, and practitioners alike. Leaders’ allocation of resources and opportunities affect every member’s legislative Page 15 →career, electoral success, and ability to represent his or her constituents. When leaders exert discipline, it affects legislative outcomes. Members have incentives to toe the party line, even if it means prioritizing party over district interests. Party discipline shapes the composition of key policy-making committees, as well as the content of the legislative agenda by prioritizing some members’ bills over those of other members. Often, although certainly not always, the members who demonstrate less loyalty to their party are ideological moderates. The evidence I present that party leaders make congressional life less rewarding for moderates helps explain the rise of party polarization and the near extinction of moderate members of Congress. Party discipline—in conjunction with the majority party leaders’ agenda—may also preclude centrist members

from offering policy alternatives favored by moderates of both parties, and thus shape the content of the legislative agenda and lead to more extreme policy outcomes. Uncovering some of the mechanisms of discipline thus deepens our understanding of party influence and partisan polarization. The 112th Congress stands out as an exception. The members who demonstrated less loyalty were often extremists rather than moderates, particularly those affiliated with the Tea Party movement. Little effort was made to discipline such members in the 112th Congress (although that was not the case in the 113th Congress), suggesting that leaders are more hesitant to discipline members with close ties to party activists. Discipline then has significant implications for policy-making. Leaders’ decisions in these domains shape the legislative agenda considered and passed by the Congress. Leaders’ decisions regarding the legislative calendar, committee assignments and leadership, and the allocation of campaign resources are of great consequence to members’ legislative and electoral careers, along with the constituents they represent. Leaders’ use of discipline may present members with a representational dilemma. For an individual member, hewing the party line may mean voting against the interests of his or her constituents. But if a member fails to demonstrate sufficient loyalty to the party, leaders may hinder her efforts to represent her constituents by serving on powerful committees or by offering legislation on the House floor.

Book Plan The expansion of leadership power through changes in institutional and party rules, changes in the party agenda, and the increase in electoral competitionPage 16 → over the last two decades are key to understanding leaders’ strategic use of discipline and prioritization of goals in each Congress considered. In chapter 2, I trace critical institutional, political, and electoral changes in the House of Representatives from 1987 to 2012. I expect that the majority party policy agenda, the party’s margin, and the level of electoral competition affect how party leaders prioritize policy control and majority control. In chapter 3, I explain the ways in which members can demonstrate their loyalty to the party. I describe my measures of party loyalty and the empirical strategy for testing leaders’ party discipline. I then detail the three domains of resources and opportunities leaders allocate to their members—legislative, campaign, and committee. Chapters 4 through 6 contain the key analyses of the mechanisms of discipline. Chapter 4 evaluates how party leaders, particularly majority party leaders, allocate legislative opportunities to their rank-and-file members. The empirical focus is on how party leaders decide which members’ bills, amendments, resolutions, and “suspensions” are considered on the House floor, and under what conditions, from 1987 to 2012. Leaders’ allocation of legislative opportunities as a mechanism of discipline varies from Congress to Congress, hinging on party leaders’ agenda and their prioritization of multiple goals in varying electoral and institutional circumstances. Members’ best opportunities to shape legislation are in their committees, but committees vary in their level of activity, their prestige, and the extent of their jurisdiction. Only a fraction of members can serve on the most prestigious committees. Leaders, through their roles on party steering committees, determine these assignments. Chapter 5 analyzes leaders’ willingness to exert discipline when determining committee transfers and chairmanships and the effects of the retreat from a strict seniority system. I extend research showing that leaders reward loyalty by committee assignment. I analyze the composition of standing committees and transfers to committees. I focus on rules changes in both the Democratic Caucus and Republican Conference rules governing committee assignments and their effects. From 1987 to 1994, the Democratic Caucus expressed its willingness to violate seniority norms occasionally in deposing and selecting committee chairmen, keeping committee chairmen responsive to the party caucus. Republican leaders’ attempts to centralize party control from 1995 to 2006 have gone much further, leading to the eclipse of seniority norms and a concomitant change in the incentives presented to ambitious rank-and-file members. From 2007 to 2010, Speaker Pelosi made it clear that she would bypass unresponsive committee chairs and committees, and she did Page 17 →so in several important instances. Initially, Boehner tried to win over new Tea Party Republicans with committee assignments in hopes of inducing

loyalty before they cast a single vote on the House floor, but two years later he punished four key defectors by stripping them of their plum committee assignments. Finally, I explore campaign assistance. With the rise of competition for majority control, party leaders have dramatically increased their roles in their colleagues’ elections. Beginning in the mid-1990s, party leaders took on dual roles as financiers of their vulnerable colleagues’ campaigns and as collection agencies acquiring contributions from their safer members. Party leaders bolster their colleagues’ campaigns with contributions from the party congressional campaign committees (i.e., the NRCC and DCCC), leadership PACs, and their personal campaigns. Chapter 6 analyzes the recipients of leaders’, and also their colleagues’, campaign contributions. Do party leaders use campaign assistance as a mechanism of discipline, or does leaders’ pursuit of electoral majorities overwhelm their other goals? To analyze the recipients of campaign assistance, I compiled data on every contribution made to, and received by, members, their leadership PACs, and party congressional campaign committees. I analyze which members receive campaign assistance from their party leaders and rank-and-file members, controlling for electoral vulnerability. Not surprisingly, this is one domain where leaders prioritize electoral goals. However, they also find opportunities for discipline: analyses of electorally safe members’ receipts shows that leaders contribute more resources to loyal members than to disloyal members when the stakes are low. I also use these data when determining whether leaders reward contributors to the party’s congressional campaign effort when they allocate legislative and committee opportunities. I conclude by assessing differences in party discipline in the House and Senate in Chapter 7. With the pivotal party switches of Republicans-turned-Democrats Senator James Jeffords in 2001 and Senator Arlen Specter in 2009, party discipline in the Senate has received more attention than in the House. The power of Senate party leaders over their colleagues’ careers, however, is more limited than their House counterparts’. Many of the potential mechanisms of discipline at House leaders’ disposal are a function of the institutional features of the House. For example, party leaders use their agenda-setting power and the Rules Committee to determine which members may offer legislation and amendments on the House floor. In the Senate, the frequent use of unanimous consent agreements and the Page 18 →lack of a germaneness rule mean that leaders cannot prevent senators from offering their legislation on the Senate floor. This chapter concludes with a final assessment of House leaders’ prioritization of goals when they allocate scarce resources and opportunities in the varied electoral and institutional circumstances from 1987 to 2012. Leaders’ decisions have significant implications for policy-making, representation, and governance. The remainder of this book allows for an analysis of the effects of contextual changes from Congress to Congress, informing predictions of what to expect from future Congresses.

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Two Party Leaders’ Increased Power and Incentives to Exert Discipline Congressional reforms over the past three decades have increased the power of party leaders. As a result, leaders have an arsenal of potential tools that enable them to exert party discipline by rewarding loyal members with resources and opportunities. Leaders, however, can use these same tools and strategies to help the electorally vulnerable instead, reflecting the underlying tension between policy control and majority control. Party leaders in the contemporary House of Representatives wield more power over the careers of rank-and-file members than they have in 100 years. Party leaders’ key prerogatives that enable them to exert discipline have emerged out of a series of reforms and practices that began in the early 1970s. Since then, leaders have continued to expand their power over rank-and-file members through a series of institutional and party rules changes. Indeed, analyzing party discipline would not have been possible, or at least not interesting, without the significant electoral, institutional, and political changes affecting the House of Representatives since the 1970s.1 While this systematic analysis of party discipline begins in the 100th Congress (1987–88)—a Congress characterized by partisan conflict over policy issues and Speaker Jim Wright’s aggressive use of his prerogatives—the institutional and political roots undergirding leaders’ potential for discipline were planted in the preceding decades. Page 20 →

Agitating for Reform From 1937 to the late 1960s, Democrats held the majority for all but four years, yet Democratic leaders wielded relatively little power. During the “textbook Congress” era, strong committee chairmen exerted considerable control over the legislative agenda, and legislative outcomes were often dominated by a conservative coalition of southern Democrats and Republicans who voted against the majority of northern Democrats on the floor and in key committees, often thwarting majority party leaders’ initiatives (Brady and Bullock 1980; Bolling 1965; Cooper and Brady 1981; Jones 1968; Polsby 2003; Pearson and Schickler 2009b; Schickler and Pearson 2009; Shepsle 1989). Democratic leaders held together procedural rather than policy majorities (Jones 1968), and majority party Democratic leaders lacked the institutional tools and the support of their members to exert control over their party (Rohde 1991; Polsby 2003). Richard Bolling (D-MO), in his book House Out of Order (1965), argued that the Speaker during this period was “something like a feudal king—he is the first in the land; he receives elaborate homage and respect; but he is dependent on the powerful lords, usually committee chairmen, who are basically hostile to the objectives of the national Democratic Party and the Speaker” (Bolling 1965, 70). Liberal Democrats, including Bolling, frustrated by the institutional advantages conservative Democrats wielded despite Democrats’ majority party control, formed the Democratic Study Group (DSG) in 1959. The DSG, ranging from 115 to 170 members during the early years, met regularly, elected leaders, created policy task forces, provided information about legislation and campaign services to members, and created a whip system to coordinate and mobilize legislative coalitions (Sheppard 1985; Stevens, Miller, and Mann 1974). Perhaps most important, the DSG was a critical force working with the Democratic Caucus in drafting, and agitating for, many of the institutional reforms that followed. During the conservative coalition era, a strict seniority system determined committee chairmanships: chairmanships went to the committee’s longest-serving majority party member. Conservative southern Democrats held a disproportionate number of chairmanships, as they typically represented districts that generated no real Republican competition, and thus they tended to hold safe seats that allowed them to serve for long periods of time (Polsby 2003). With this committee gatekeeping power, the conservative coalition often succeeded in

blocking legislation favored by party leaders and liberal Democrats. Committee chairmen rather than Page 21 →party leaders, then, at times exerted discipline over individual members of Congress. According to a report circulated by the DSG, The Myths of Reform (1985, 1): Committee chairmen also had immense power to influence Members’ votes, both in committee and on the Floor. Because of the chairman’s control over legislation, committee activities, and the individual Members’ subcommittee assignments, and because there were no public records of how Members voted in committee or on Floor amendments, a Member could be pressured to vote with the chairman, even if this meant voting against the Member’s convictions or the best interests of his or her district. Unlike the Member’s constituents, the chairman would know how the Member voted and could reward or punish accordingly. Committee assignments, too, reflected a conservative bias, as Democrats on the Ways and Means Committee determined committee assignments.

1970s Reforms In the late 1960s and early 1970s, political changes paved the way for institutional reforms that shifted power in the House from committee chairmen to party leaders. As the Republican Party became viable in more areas in the South, competitive two-party elections meant that southern conservatives were increasingly likely to run as Republicans, and southern Democrats’ constituencies became more liberal over time (Rohde 1991; Polsby 2003). Over time, these changes led to a decrease in the proportion of southern conservatives in the Democratic Caucus. An influx of new Democrats in the 1964 and 1974 elections further increased support for liberal policies and provided critical support for institutional reforms. The 1974 elections added 75 new, mainly liberal Democrats for a net gain of 48 Democratic seats. These so-called Watergate babies hastened reforms already under way, as many of them joined forces with DSG members in agitating for reform. Junior members anxious to attain power combined with liberal Democrats intent on passing a legislative program, forming a majority that enabled Democrats to adopt several party and institutional reforms. These reforms greatly enhanced the power of party leaders at the expense of committee chairs’ power, while at the same time democratizing Page 22 →the House in ways that allowed junior members to exert power, particularly as subcommittees increased their power and autonomy (Rohde 1991; Schickler, McGhee, and Sides 2003). In 1969, Democrats transformed the Democratic Caucus into an active policy-making forum. Whereas the Democratic Caucus typically had just met at the beginning of each session, a rules change required monthly meetings of the Caucus and gave members the opportunity to bring issues to the Caucus for “debate and action” (Democratic Study Group 1985, 2). In January 1971, the Caucus launched the first attack on the seniority system, providing that “the Committee on Committees need not follow seniority when nominating committee chairmen.” In 1973, the rules were reformed again to require an automatic secret ballot on committee chairmen at the start of each Congress, making it easier for members to remove a recalcitrant committee chair. The effects were significant; three committee chairmen were deposed after the 1974 elections. According to the DSG’s report: The first votes on committee chairmen were held in February of that year, but no effort was made to defeat any chairman for fear it would jeopardize acceptance of the reform. Nonetheless, the change had an immediate impact. Previously impervious chairmen were suddenly responsive and even solicitous to Members generally as well as to members of their own committees. A few chairmen, however, continued to run their committees as autocrats and two years later, at the start of the 94th Congress, the Caucus replaced three veteran chairmen. (1985, 3) Several other factors contributed to the ouster of longtime committee chairmen Wright Patman (D-TX), William Robert Poage (D-TX), and F. Edward Hebert (D-LA): their advanced age, conservative voting record, region, and a ready replacement acceptable to the liberal, northern Democratic Caucus majority (Hinckley 1976). The incentives for party loyalty were clear to prospective committee chairs. Not only did sitting committee chairmen

become more loyal to the party in their voting records in the years immediately following the passage of the restrictions on the seniority system, but so did those who were fairly close to obtaining committee chairmanships, particularly those members who were the next in line to become chairmen under the seniority system (Crook and Hibbing 1985). The 1970s reforms endowed party leaders with power not possessed by a leader since Speaker Joe Cannon (R-IL) was stripped of his power by a Page 23 →group of progressive Republicans and minority party Democrats in 1910 (Jones 1968; Rohde 1991; Schickler 2001). No longer would the Ways and Means Committee double as the “Committee on Committees,” determining Democratic members’ committee assignments and committee transfers. In 1975, Democrats empowered the leadership-controlled Steering and Policy Committee to make committee assignments. Chaired by the Speaker, the Democratic Steering and Policy Committee was composed of party leaders and eight members appointed by the Speaker. The Speaker also hired staff for the Steering and Policy Committee, further enhancing his power. The reforms gave the Speaker much more control over the legislative agenda. In 1975, the Speaker was authorized to select the chairman and Democratic members of the House Rules Committee, rendering the Rules Committee an “arm of the leadership in fact as well as in theory,” according to the DSG report (1975, 4). With a 9–4 supermajority of handpicked, loyal Democrats, the Rules Committee would no longer thwart the leadership’s legislative agenda by simply refusing to report a rule governing the consideration of legislation or granting favorable rules to legislation opposed by majority party leaders. In addition, the Speaker was given the power to refer legislation to more than one committee, to set time limits on committee consideration, and to expedite the consideration of legislation in committee and on the House floor.

The Uneven Expansion of Democratic Leaders’ Power and the Republican Response, 1987 to 1994 The reforms of the 1970s were critical in shifting power from committee chairmen to party leaders. Throughout the next two decades, a series of party reforms, House reforms, and leadership innovations continued to increase party leaders’ power, even if the trajectory was uneven at times, as leaders differed in their willingness to maximize their power. Indeed, although the increasingly homogeneous Democratic Caucus facilitated strong leadership, the goals and skills of individual leaders also mattered (Rohde 1991). In January 1987, James (Jim) Wright (D-TX) succeeded Tip O’Neill (D-MA) as Speaker of the House after O’Neill’s retirement. Thomas S. Foley (D-WA) was elevated in the leadership ranks from majority whip to majority leader, and Tony Coelho (D-CA) became majority whip. The political landscape was ripe for a powerful Speaker to challenge President Page 24 →Reagan, and rank-and-file Democrats were hungry for legislative victories and strong leadership. Democrats “at last saw an opening for their policy agenda, and they expected their leadership to knock down any internal obstacles” (Connelly and Pitney 1994, 82). O’Neill did not aggressively expand the power of the speakership; indeed, he is often associated with the famous adage “all politics is local,” emphasizing his attention to constituency, rather than party, issues. By contrast, Wright articulated a partisan legislative agenda and immersed himself in the details, furthering his own powers in the process of pursuing Democrats’ legislative agenda (Connelly and Pitney 1994; Rohde 1991). CQ Weekly described Wright’s leadership, including his tight hold on the Rules Committee, nearly a year into his speakership: “Ever since the Democratic Caucus voted in 1974 to make Democratic members of the committee appointees of the Speaker, the Rules panel has operated as an arm of the leadership. The link has been stronger than ever since the beginning of the 100th Congress in January, when Jim Wright of Texas became Speaker. Wright quickly showed his determination to lead a well-managed House that would be productive in his first year in office” (Hook 1987, 2449). Wright used procedural maneuvers to block Republican-supported alternatives and ensure the passage of Democratic legislation (Connelly and Pitney 1994; Rohde 1991). In October 1987, for example, Wright stretched the rules of the House to their limits to advantage Democrats during the consideration of a budget reconciliation

bill. After the special rule governing consideration of the budget bill had failed, Wright called for a “new legislative day” to enable him call up a new special rule on the same actual day that it had been crafted in the Rules Committee (see Green 2010, 147–50, for more details). Wright’s use—or, in the view of Republicans, abuse—of partisan procedural tactics, particularly on the House floor, prompted complaints and fueled Republicans’ pursuit of ethics charges against Wright. Newt Gingrich spearheaded the attacks on Wright’s ethics, including Wright’s personal gains from sales of his book, which eventually led to Wright’s resignation. Democratic leaders’ increasing use of their prerogatives was not linear. Speaker Wright was more aggressive in promulgating a party program and centralizing power than was his successor, Thomas (Tom) Foley (D-WA). Foley had risen through the party’s ranks as a committee chair, party whip, and majority leader, and he had a reputation for prioritizing governance over partisan politics. When Foley was elected Speaker in June 1989 in the wake of Wright’s resignation, he was seen as “the antidote to Wright’s roughshod partisanship” (Hoy 1994, 3290). Members, however, Page 25 →soon became dissatisfied with his leadership. A key aide for Speaker Foley described differences between Wright and Foley, then contrasted Foley’s influence with his Republican successors: The House had just come out of a very legislatively active 100th Congress under Jim Wright—one of the most active in years. Wright viewed legislation like a hunting lodge with trophies; legislation was a big thing. Wright took a hard-nosed discipline approach, which bruised some feelings and lost him some support. Hard-nosed discipline was not Foley’s strength.В .В .В . Foley was not a disciplinarian in the classic view of keeping troops in line. This was conditioned by his circumstances.В .В .В . In contrast to Gingrich and Hastert, Foley was challenged by senior committee chairs—[Jack] Brooks, [Dan] Rostenkowski, and [John] Dingell were all more senior—and they didn’t support Foley if they didn’t agree. It’s different today with committee chairs; they don’t have the same influence and authority.2 Democrats had high expectations for their ambitious agenda in the 103rd Congress, following the election of President William Jefferson Clinton in 1992. Two years later, however, when Foley was defeated for reelection in 1994 and Democrats lost their majority for the first time in forty years, Democrats had failed to pass two of their biggest agenda items, health care reform and welfare reform. Foley was widely viewed as a less effective Speaker than Wright. According to a congressional observer, his “characteristic graciousnessВ .В .В . thwarted him as he struggled to balance his dual role as the institutional leader of the House against his partisan position as the congressional torchbearer of his party” (Hoy 1994, 3290). With their large margins in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Democratic leaders had assumed that they would lead the majority for the foreseeable future. The ideological homogeneity of the Democratic Caucus continued to increase during this period, and Democratic leaders and committee chairmen had less need for Republican votes to pass their legislation. Although the reforms of the 1970s were aimed at majority party Democrats, the reforms and their adoption and adaptation had significant implications for congressional Republicans. The rise of Democratic leadership power led to a decline in Republican influence. With an increasingly homogeneous Democratic Caucus and weakened committee chairs, the influence of the cross-party conservative coalition waned. Democrats were less likely to seek Republican support in committee and on the House floor. Shut out of the process, Republicans Page 26 →responded with increased partisanship and centralization, but not without internal debate over minority party strategy. Connelly and Pitney (1994) describe a great divide among House Republicans between the embittered “bomb throwers” and the “responsible partners in governing.” Newt Gingrich (R-GA) emerged as a leader of the bomb-thrower wing of the party when he and other junior Republicans formed the Conservative Opportunity Society (COS) in 1983, a group devoted to “sharpening partisan distinctions on the House floor” (Connelly and Pitney 1994, 27). The COS gained attention for their frequent special order speeches attacking Democrats and, under the guidance of Bob Walker (R-PA), confrontational parliamentary tactics designed to make

Democrats look bad. In 1985, Olympia Snowe (R-ME) and Tom Tauke (R-IA) formed “The ’92 Group” to provide a counterweight to the COS in both substance and style. The ’92 Group drafted legislative proposals and attempted to forge compromises with Democrats, but as the number of Republican moderates decreased and Republicans’ frustration increased, Newt Gingrich moved from a “fringe figure” among House Republicans to a member of the party leadership in 1989 (Connelly and Pitney 1994; Theriault 2013). As Speaker Wright shut Republicans out of the legislative process and the bomb-throwing faction within the Republican Party increased, partisan conflict dominated much of the legislative process by the late 1980s. The bomb throwers focused on scoring political points that would be translated into electoral victories rather than on achieving small legislative achievements. The contrast between the strategies of the COS and the ’92 Group—and the shift in the party’s preferences—are reflected in the transition in the Republican leadership. Robert Michel (R-IL) was elected Republican leader in 1981. He was a conciliatory leader and often cooperated with Democratic leaders. Michel served as the Republican leader until his retirement in 1994, even as frustration among his rank-and-file members grew. Other conciliatory members of the leadership team, however, such as Conference chair Jerry Lewis (R-CA), were replaced by aggressive partisans.3 In a contest with Edward Madigan (R-IL), a close ally of Michel’s, Gingrich was elected Republican whip in 1989 by a two-vote margin. When Michel announced his retirement in 1993, Gingrich held a press conference where he declared that in his bid to be Republican leader, he already had support from 106 Republicans, and his would-be rival Gerald Solomon (R-NY) bowed out of the race (Connelly and Pitney 1994, 59). Gingrich’s bomb-throwing tactics had been vindicated, setting the stage for further partisan conflict during his Speakership two years later. Page 27 →

Republican Party Control and the Expansion of Leaders’ Prerogatives A sea change in congressional politics occurred when Republicans gained 52 seats in 1994, giving Republicans a majority in the House of Representatives for the first time in 40 years. The goals of the Republican leadership in the House shifted overnight as they abruptly—and surprisingly—assumed responsibility for governing and pressure to maintain a majority in the next election. Their first task was to fulfill the partisan policy agenda they had articulated during the campaign in their Contract with America, a platform of ten conservative legislative proposals that few ever thought would make it to the House floor. Republicans’ surprising victory catapulted Gingrich into the speakership. Both parties responded to the 1994 elections by replacing some of their conciliatory leaders with more partisan leaders with little interest in seeking bipartisan compromise. Gingrich replaced retiring Minority Leader Bob Michel, who had built a reputation as a conciliatory coalition-builder. After Democratic Speaker Tom Foley’s defeat, Democrats elected strong partisans such as Minority Leader Richard Gephart (MO), Minority Whip David Bonior (MI), and Deputy Whip Rosa DeLauro (CT). In addition to Speaker Gingrich, the Republican leadership team included conservative partisans such as Majority Leader Richard Armey (TX) and Majority Whip Tom DeLay (TX), often referred to as the “Hammer” for his aggressive tactics (Maraniss and Weisskopf 1996). Speaker Newt Gingrich wielded considerable power in the 104th Congress. New GOP committee chairmen were term-limited to six years, making clear that party leaders, not committees, were in charge.4 Rather than relying on a Speaker-dominated Steering Committee, as Democrats had done, Gingrich handpicked committee chairs, violating seniority in key cases. Gingrich appointed Robert Livingston (R-LA) chair of the Appropriations Committee—even though he ranked fifth in committee seniority. He bypassed the senior Republican on the Energy Committee and on the Judiciary Committee (Carlos Moorhead [R-CA] in both cases). Further, new rules gave committee chairs the power to appoint subcommittee chairs instead of relying on seniority, but chairs had to consult with the Speaker. For example, when William Clinger (R-PA), chairman of the Government Reform and Oversight Committee, appointed subcommittee chairs, at the behest of Gingrich he skipped over two more senior committee members to give posts to freshmen.

Party leaders, not committee chairs, determined the legislative agenda. Page 28 →Republicans, including committee chairs, were grateful to Gingrich for his role in the 1994 elections. Not one GOP committee chair had ever experienced life as a committee chair during an era in which committee government was the norm, and as a result, Gingrich encountered less resistance from committee chairs than his Democratic predecessors had. When committee chairs did resist at times, Gingrich simply established task forces that reported directly to him. Several bills in the 104th and 105th Congresses, including a Republican health care reform bill, were not marked up or approved by the committees with jurisdiction over the bills. In June 1997, the Republican leadership simply appointed a health care reform task force to draft legislation. They presented it in final form to the Republican Conference and took it directly to the Rules Committee and, the next day, to the House floor, bypassing the Commerce Committee and Ways and Means Committee altogether. At the end of the 105th Congress, Appropriations Committee chairman Livingston complained that he did not play a role in negotiating the final budget agreement. Partisan conflict intensified under GOP majority rule. It even got physical; during the 104th Congress, members had physical altercations just off the House floor, and several members’ words were struck from the official Congressional Record. Republican John Mica referred to President Clinton as a “bugger” in November 1995, delaying House business for hours while his words were struck from the record and Democratic members continually brought up votes to punish him in protest. Scholars and journalists alike highlighted the acrimony in books such as Party Wars (Sinclair 2006), Fight Club Politics (Eilperin 2006), and The Broken Branch (Mann and Ornstein 2006). Majority party status had essentially ended the struggle between those Republican leaders seeking compromise with Democrats to attain small victories and those hoping to score political points by criticizing Democrats. The bomb throwers, it seemed, had been vindicated in the 1994 elections, and their leader, Speaker Newt Gingrich, centralized party control and pushed a vigorous legislative agenda he had crafted. With a narrow majority, however, the Republican Party leadership, unlike their immediate Democratic predecessors, could not afford to lose many votes, especially as frustrated moderate Democrats provided little help. The close partisan division also translated into uncertainty about what the next election would bring, heightening pressure on Republican leaders to pass their agenda and increasing partisan conflict as Democrats mounted stiff resistance. With the sudden—and surprising—loss of power over the institution in 1994, Democratic leaders struggled to adapt and assert their relevance as the Page 29 →minority party in a chamber characterized by majority party dominance—dominance that they had fostered in the preceding Congresses. Contrary to expectations set by historical precedent and pollsters alike, even as controversy swirled over President Clinton’s relationship with Monica Lewinsky, Republicans lost congressional seats in the 1998 midterm elections, reducing their eleven-seat margin to a five-seat margin. The Republicans’ loss led Gingrich to step down as Speaker (Fritz 1998). Adding to Republicans’ woes, Speaker Gingrich’s initial would-be replacement, Robert Livingston (R-LA), withdrew from the contest and resigned from the House after his extramarital affairs were exposed. In the midst of this turmoil, Deputy Whip Dennis Hastert emerged as the party’s choice for Speaker in the 106th Congress. Hastert’s reputation as a serious, but low-profile, legislator established him as an antidote to Gingrich. Despite the expectation that he would restore civility in the House and be more willing to work with Democrats, he actually further centralized party leaders’ power in the House and continued to shut Democrats out of the legislative process (Schickler and Pearson 2004; Mann and Ornstein 2006). Hastert did not, however, replicate Gingrich’s combative style or quest for media attention. Periodically, journalists would even question his power relative to his deputy, Majority Whip Tom DeLay (Martinez and Koszcuk 1999). The extent to which term limits on committee chairs bolstered leaders’ power became clear six years after they started, as large numbers of chairmanships were vacated. An interview process for prospective committee chairmen by the leadership-dominated Steering Committee—on which the Speaker and the majority leader controlled seven of the twenty-eight votes—gave Hastert considerable control over the process and giving those interested in chairing committees additional incentives to demonstrate their loyalty to the party. In November 2002, the Republican Conference passed a rule subjecting Appropriations subcommittee chairs to the same

interview process, further enhancing leaders’ power. When Hastert succeeded Gingrich, many observers expected leadership centralization to loosen a bit. But while Hastert’s style was more low-key than Gingrich’s, he actually expanded the power of the leadership. When George W. Bush was elected President in 2000, Hastert focused on passing their shared conservative policy agenda. Despite their narrow majorities from 1995 to 2006, Republican leaders relied on their own members’ votes to pass their legislative program instead of trying to attract support from centrist Democrats, even rebuffing the Blue Dog Democrats who initially expressed great interest in workingPage 30 → with Republicans. Speaker Hastert made it clear that he was not interested in passing legislation that required significant Democratic support in a speech at a Congressional Research Service-sponsored conference in the Cannon House Office Building in October 2003. Referred to now as the “Hastert rule,” Hastert explained that he would not bring a bill to the House floor for a vote unless a majority of Republicans approved. Although the “Hastert rule” receives media attention from time to time (particularly when leaders violate it, which does occur from time to time), it is not actually a rule, nor is it a new practice in the postreform era. Yet Democrats seeking to cooperate with Republicans in crafting policy were nonetheless quite frustrated during the Gingrich and Hastert speakerships. According to a key Democratic leadership aide who has worked for Democratic leaders for more than twenty-five years, “our people who would normally deal with Republicans were rebuffed.”5

Democrats’ Return to (Enhanced) Power In the 2006 elections, with a net gain of thirty seats, Democrats won majority party control for the first time in twelve years. And Democrats’ victory catapulted Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) from Minority Leader to Speaker of the House. Upon taking the gavel at the start of the 110th Congress, Pelosi became the first woman Speaker of the House, presiding over a chamber made up of 84 percent men. Pelosi benefited from the leadership centralization that had occurred during the preceding twelve years of GOP control. By 2007, the Speaker had more tools and prerogatives than her Democratic predecessors had had—giving Pelosi significant influence over the legislative agenda and over the careers of rank-and-file members. Pelosi maximized her influence, pursuing partisan policy initiatives, fundraising for her colleagues, excluding the minority party from decision making, and relentlessly attacking Republicans. Indeed, she was sometimes criticized for picking favorites. Pelosi was well positioned to take advantage of the speakership. Since her election to the House in 1987, she had been a loyal partisan—her party support score, as measured annually by CQ Weekly, never dipped below 96 percent—but it was her fundraising loyalty to her party (raising money for Democratic candidates) that was key to her first leadership race. Pelosi defeated rival Steny Hoyer (D-MD) in the race for minority whip in October 2001, after raising more than $3 million for Democratic Page 31 →candidates during the 2000 cycle, whereas Steny Hoyer’s AmeriPAC only raised $680,000. Pelosi defeated Hoyer by a vote of 118–95 among House Democrats (Foerstel 2001). In her next, and much easier, race in 2002, Pelosi defeated Harold Ford, Jr. (D-TN) by a vote of 177–29 to become Minority Leader (Martinez 2002). As minority leader, Pelosi established a reputation as a pragmatic leader who enforced party discipline. Once elected minority leader, she left the Progressive Caucus (comprised of liberals) and reached out to moderate and conservative Democrats, although some members complained that her closest advisors were her liberal colleagues (Barshay 2006). Under Pelosi’s leadership, majority party Democrats voted together at the highest rate in fifty years, averaging 92 percent support in both 2007 and 2008, according to CQ Weekly. At the outset of Pelosi’s speakership, observers wondered whether Democratic committee chairs—some of whom had chaired their committees twelve years earlier—would assert their power over the agenda. According to a key Pelosi aide, however, Democrats were so appreciative of their return to the majority after the “searing experience” of being in the minority that they were willing to cede power to the leadership.6

Pelosi and the Democratic leadership controlled the agenda from the start. Bypassing committees, Democrats passed their “hundred hours agenda” consisting of legislation to tax the oil industry, the 9/11 Commission’s recommendations, an increase in the federal minimum wage, discounts for Medicare prescription drugs, cuts to student loan costs, and an expansion of embryonic stem cell research well before the deadline. The weakened committee system was evident in several other ways. To avoid criticism at the outset of their return to the majority, for two years Democrats maintained Republicans’ six-year term limits on committee chairs. Changes involving the Rules Committee since the 1970s highlighted the power of the Speaker at the expense of congressional committees. The 1975 reform giving the Speaker of the House the authority to appoint the majority party members of the Rules Committee with Caucus approval, significantly bolstered the responsiveness of committee members to party leaders and the agenda-setting power of the majority party leadership (Bach and Smith 1988; Oppenheimer 1977, 1981; Rohde 1991; Schickler 2001; Sinclair 1995). The reforms immediately consolidated majority party power at the expense of conservative southern Democrats. In the years that followed, the Rules Committee evolved to manage the “uncertainty” generated by an increasingly disgruntled minority and provide critical Page 32 →advantages for the majority party by limiting the number of open rules and preventing the minority party from amending legislation at the expense of majority party policy preferences (Bach and Smith 1988; Sinclair 2006). Even in the absence of significant reforms to the Rules Committee since 1975, the committee nonetheless continued to change in important ways. By 2007, Speaker Pelosi had such a hard time persuading members to join the Rules Committee that she appointed an unprecedented number of freshmen, four, to the committee, and the committee dropped its “exclusive” designation so that all members could add an additional committee assignment (Kimitch 2007). As the number of members’ amendments permitted by special rules declined, it seemed the powerful “arm of the leadership” had become a rubber stamp for the leadership instead. Despite her power, Pelosi nonetheless faced many challenges during her first two years as Speaker. She was under constant scrutiny as the face of the Democratic Party and as the first woman Speaker. In the 110th Congress, she led a new—and slim—majority of 233 Democrats in a Congress polarized along partisan lines. Republicans were united or near united against Democrats’ significant legislation, and Pelosi struggled to work with President Bush. One of the defining issues of Pelosi’s first two years as Speaker—and one of the most significant issues in American political life in 2007—was the war in Iraq. While Pelosi and her Democratic colleagues successfully campaigned against President Bush’s handling of the war in Iraq, and in some cases his decision to go to war in the first place, in the 2006 elections they did not articulate a specific plan for extricating the United States from Iraq. Pelosi ultimately delivered the president a supplemental appropriations bill to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, only able to offer disgruntled Democrats symbolic opportunities to vote against the war. After the 2008 elections, the Democratic Caucus expanded in the 111th Congress, and Pelosi was intent on passing the president’s legislative program. To do so, Pelosi balanced satisfying the most liberal and conservative wings of her Caucus, including members in the Blue Dog Coalition, a group of centrist and conservative Democrats, and the Progressive Caucus, a group of liberal Democrats. Pelosi frequently met with subgroups of Democrats, including weekly meetings with the freshmen, to seek consensus on the party agenda (Peters and Rosenthal 2010). Perhaps even more striking than Democrats’ record party unity in the 110th Congress was the high level of Democratic unity in the 111th Congress, 91 percent in 2009 and 89 percent in 2012, when the Democratic majority was more heterogeneous than it had been in the previous Congress, and Pelosi faced the challenge of passing rather than attacking the president’s legislative program. Page 33 →Externally and internally, Democrats had high expectations for the 111th Congress. In the eyes of her colleagues, at least, Pelosi and her leadership team demonstrated an impressive ability to unify Democrats in support of the president’s agenda. When it came to the president’s most important legislative priority, health care reform, Pelosi’s role can hardly be overstated. She was critical in starting the process in the House before President Obama became intricately involved. When key House Democrats threatened to withdraw their support over disagreements related to abortion funding, Pelosi worked out a deal in her office to appease both

sides. And when it seemed that the House and Senate would not be able to reconcile their versions of reform after Senate Democrats lost their filibuster-proof majority, Pelosi’s leadership was critical in crafting and executing a complicated legislative strategy that resulted in the bills that President Obama ultimately signed into law. Although Democrats lost their majority in the 2010 elections, Pelosi maintained her position as Democratic leader by easily defeating her centrist colleague, Heath Schuler (D-NC), in a Democratic Caucus vote of 150–43 (although 19 Democrats failed to support her on the House floor). Despite her unpopularity among the GOP electorate, as minority leader in the 112th Congress, Pelosi continued to lead her party’s attacks on Republicans and serve as the face of House Democrats in the media. As leader in the minority, however, Pelosi found herself with next to none of the agenda-setting power that she had enjoyed in the 111th Congress, and she was even excluded from some high-level negotiations with the White House and congressional leaders (Shiner 2011).

Speaker John Boehner Republicans gained 64 seats to win a 242–193 majority in the 2010 elections, their best showing since 1946, leading to the election of a Republican Speaker, John Boehner. Boehner won with no opposition, as he had served as minority leader during Pelosi’s speakership. First elected in 1990, Boehner’s path to leadership started with his allegiance to Newt Gingrich and his strategy of confrontation. As a freshman, Boehner was one of the “gang of seven” that urged GOP leaders to aggressively criticize Democratic leaders (Schatz 2010). During Gingrich’s speakership, Boehner served as Republican Conference chair, but he was defeated by J. C. Watts (R-OK) over his presumed involvement in a coup attempt against Gingrich (Schatz 2010). Boehner rehabilitated himself with the Republican Conference with his work as a Page 34 →committee chair, leading the Education and Workforce Committee until 2006, when he was elected majority leader after DeLay stepped aside after being indicted by a Texas grand jury (Schatz 2010). The midterm landslide of 2010—described by President Obama himself as a “shellacking”—was overdetermined. House Democrats had gained 55 seats in the elections of 2006 and 2008, many of which were vulnerable to a Republican tide; the economy was still struggling; President Obama was unpopular; and the president’s signature legislative achievement, health care reform, was unpopular (Jacobson 2011). Additionally, the 2010 elections were significantly affected by the enthusiasm generated among some Republicans by the “Tea Party” movement and its antigovernment rhetoric. The newly elected Tea Party members of the House, however, hindered Speaker Boehner’s ability to lead the Republican Conference, despite Republicans’ relatively large majority. When he was elected Speaker in 2011, Boehner’s conservative credentials were solid, but suspect in the eyes of Tea Party members nonetheless. A decade earlier, Boehner had negotiated with Democrats—including liberal icon Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA)—on No Child Left Behind legislation, but during the first two years of the Obama presidency, Boehner vociferously opposed Democrats’ key agenda items, including the stimulus bill and health care reform (Schatz 2010). Boehner’s support for mainstream Republican groups such as the Chamber of Commerce was at odds with the Tea Party’s focus on spending cuts and limited government rather than traditional Republican business priorities. In a departure from his immediate predecessors, Boehner did not immediately enhance the Speaker’s power, and he even took some small steps to curb his own power. At the outset, he promised to use open rules during the consideration of appropriations bills—limiting leaders’ power to pick and choose which members’ amendments to allow through the Rules Committee—a practice that Democrats had ended in 2009. Boehner promised to give more deference to committee chairs than Pelosi had. Under his leadership, the House imposed a moratorium on earmarks dedicating money to members’ districts—a tool Hastert and Pelosi had used to help secure members’ votes—a move consistent with his own personal history of eschewing earmarks. The year 2011 was marked by difficult budget battles for Speaker Boehner. In April, Tea Party Republicans dug in

their heels against a bill to avert a government shutdown because they viewed the bill’s spending cuts as insufficient. Forty percent of Tea Party Caucus members voted against final passage of the continuing resolution supported by the Speaker, comparedPage 35 → to 19 percent of the remaining Republicans (Chergosky 2013). A few months later, Tea Party members again defected at higher rates (47 percent) than their Republican colleagues (21 percent) when Boehner brought a bill to the floor to raise the debt ceiling and establish a “supercommittee” to identify $1.5 trillion in budget cuts (Chergosky 2013). In the final New Year’s Eve budget showdown of 2011, Boehner was forced to violate the “Hastert rule” by passing a bill that the majority of his party opposed, as 63 percent of Republicans voted against the budget deal to extend the Bush-era tax cuts for most earners and postpone scheduled budget cuts that he had negotiated with the president and Senate Democrats. Only 15 percent of Tea Party Caucus members supported the compromise, compared to 42 percent of other Republicans (Chergosky 2013). According to CQ Weekly, three other bills Boehner brought to the floor in the 112th Congress also violated the “Hastert rule” (Kelly 2013). In February 2012, Roll Call described Boehner’s leadership: Since taking the gavel, the Ohio Republican has explicitly pursued an approach to leadership that rejects the traditional, top-down, carrot-and-stick approach of former Speakers, such as Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, in favor of a more hands-off style. But that decision has come at a cost to Boehner. While his continued leadership of the party is not in doubt, in multiple interviews his colleagues said the Speaker’s desire to use a more open approach has made shepherding his raucous Conference increasingly difficult.В .В .В . His leadership leads to a climate [of] “Eh, who cares. What’s he doing to do to me?” one Republican lawmaker said, adding that at some point Members will simply say, “Sorry, we’re not going back to that well.” .В .В . Traditionally in leadership, “there’s the carrot, and there’s the stick. And there’s no stick” with Boehner, a veteran lawmaker said. (Stanton 2012) After the bruising 112th Congress, Boehner showed a new willingness to exert party discipline in the 113th Congress. He increased his own votes on the party’s Steering Committee to five, decreasing the number of votes for the class of 2010, and in turn decreasing the influence of the Tea Party members. Boehner tried to persuade Tom Price (R-GA) to drop out of the race for party conference chair, and although he failed, Boehner helped Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) win by a narrow margin. Boehner also removed four members from their powerful committees—three Tea Party members who often caused problems for Boehner, and one moderate who also defected too frequently,Page 36 → although for different reasons—moves explored in more detail in chapter 5. Nonetheless, the 113th Congress started off with more headaches for the Speaker. The Speaker was reelected only after an attempted leadership “coup” was called off at the last minute (Strong 2013). Twelve Republicans voted against him, the most significant majority-party opposition to a Speaker during this period (until Boehner’s reelection in the 114th Congress). Thanks to the reforms of the 1970s and leaders’ expansion of the prerogatives they provided, every majority party leadership team considered in this analysis had the potential to use their tools aggressively and further expand their power. Indeed, as new leaders at the start of the 100th, 104th, and 110th Congresses respectively, Speakers Wright, Gingrich, and Pelosi and their leadership teams in particular actively pursued partisan policy agendas, asserting leadership power and benefiting from further party reforms to consolidate leadership power. The careers of Speakers Wright and Gingrich, however, ended after only two Congresses, and they were succeeded by more pragmatic, less controversial leaders. Leadership power receded under Democratic Speaker Foley’s leadership, even as he tried to promulgate President Clinton’s agenda in 1993–94. Speaker Hastert, by contrast, continued to centralize Republican leadership, and worked to pass President Bush’s policy agenda from 2001 to 2006. By 2007, when the Speaker’s gavel was passed to Nancy Pelosi, she claimed all the powers that went with it, including the powers accrued by her Republican predecessors and more. Her successor, John Boehner, retreated in the face of intraparty conflict in the 112th Congress, asserting more power early in the 113th Congress after the embarrassing defeats of the 112th Congress. Even in the postreform era, then, significant differences existed among majority party leaders’ tenures. Without denying leaders’ individual strengths and weaknesses, the political and institutional contexts in which they served influenced their

goals and successes in achieving them. These same factors affect leaders’ willingness to exert party discipline to pursue their goals.

A Theory of Party Discipline Party leaders must navigate an underlying tension between two overarching goals when it comes to enforcing party discipline, maintaining policy control to pass a partisan policy agenda and maintaining majority control by preserving—and hopefully expanding—their 218-plus vote chamber majority in the next election. These goals are interrelated; passing the Page 37 →policies they campaigned on, along with legislation necessary to keep the government functioning smoothly and to respond to external events, should, all else equal, enhance the party’s “brand name” and bolster members’ electoral success. Yet when leaders reward members for their loyalty, they forgo opportunities to help their most electorally vulnerable members—the very members who are most likely to vote against the party because they typically represent districts that do not support the party agenda. Leaders’ prioritization of these goals, along with the constraints on leaders’ ability to attain them, differ from Congress to Congress, depending on the political context, affecting leaders’ use of discipline. The tension between these goals in different contexts helps to explain the variance that I find in leaders’ use of specific mechanisms of discipline across the empirical chapters. In the chapters that follow, I test the central argument that majority party leaders prioritizing policy control discipline their members more frequently than leaders pursuing majority control. More specifically, leaders have an incentive to exert party discipline when chamber margins are narrow and they need nearly every vote to pass their policy agenda, and when they have ambitious partisan policy agendas. New leaders, in particular, often have ambitious partisan policy agendas, as they have an incentive to prioritize policy goals to establish their authority and build a record. Leaders pursuing policy control are particularly likely to reward members’ party loyalty, expressed in voting, by providing members with incentives for continued, or increased, loyalty. Majority party leaders pursue majority control, or prioritize the party’s electoral needs, when they have a substantial share of electorally vulnerable members in their caucus. While passing a policy program may improve the party brand, voters choose between individual candidates in individual districts, and the party label is one of several considerations that may help—or hinder—a candidate’s electoral chances in a particular district. Economic conditions, structural advantages for incumbents of one party or the other, the popularity of the president, and redistricting cycles also affect partisan tides in congressional elections (Jacobson 2011), and leaders may want to take advantage of—or protect their party from—such electoral forces. When leaders prioritize electoral concerns, party discipline becomes a secondary concern. Leaders prioritizing majority control, or electoral goals, have incentives to reward their most loyal party fundraisers and assist their electorally vulnerable members in the allocation of legislative opportunities, committee assignments, and campaign assistance. Page 38 →

Important Contextual Factors To understand leaders’ incentives to exert discipline and the constraints on its use, I assess differences in the institutional and electoral context in which majority party leaders governed in each Congress from 1987 to 2012. Majority party status matters, of course, but some differences are rooted in differences between the parties and their experiences in and out of the majority. From the late 1930s to the 1970s, conservative Southern Democrats often disagreed with liberal northern Democrats, whereas Republicans lacked such stark divisions. Even as Democrats have become more ideologically unified (Rohde 1991; Polsby 2003), majority party Republican leaders typically lead a more ideologically homogenous caucus then Democrats do (Poole and Rosenthal 1997). Further, the Democratic Caucus (like the Democratic Party) is still composed of members from multiple and overlapping groups that subcaucus accordingly, including women, blacks, Hispanics, Asians, moderate Democrats (Blue Dogs from 1995 onward), and progressive Democrats, along with their mix of urban, suburban, and rural districts. Indeed, by 2013 white male congressmen were a minority within the Democratic Caucus. While

Democratic groups often agree on policy, they don’t necessarily prioritize the same agenda items. As detailed above, Republican leaders passed rules to centralize leadership control from the outset of their time in the majority, making significant changes in House rules and Republican Conference rules to tighten their control over the institution and rank-and-file members. Republican committee chairmen lacked autonomy and power compared to their earlier majority party Democratic counterparts, and Republican chairmen and members alike were more willing than their Democratic counterparts had been to cede control to their leaders. After forty years in the minority, Republicans were ecstatic to have gained control of the House. Many Republicans, especially the 73 new members, credited Speaker Gingrich and the Contract with America for the party’s success. Committee chairmen—none of whom had ever served as chairs in the majority—assumed their new roles without much preparation or independent power bases. Appreciation, combined with inexperience in the majority, mitigated any protests from rank-and-file members or committee chairmen about the centralization of party control. The 1994 election significantly changed the electoral calculus for both parties going forward. Since the 1994 elections, the narrow margins between the parties have meant that either party could conceivably be in the majority after the next election. While Democrats’ majorities from Page 39 →1987 to 1994 ranged anywhere from 81 to 100 seats, Republican majorities during the twelve years that followed were much smaller, ranging from 12- to 26-seat majorities. Republican leaders, pursuing a partisan agenda, needed almost every Republican vote to pass their major legislative agenda. With smaller margins and fewer seats up for grabs, competition intensified. Indeed, while Democrats were ecstatic to regain the majority in the 2006 elections, they lost the majority only four years later. Although there are important differences between the two parties, simply distinguishing between Democratic and Republican control overlooks important explanatory factors in leaders’ prioritization of their goals and willingness to exert party discipline. Before focusing on which types of members leaders reward and punish in the legislative process, I will now turn to an explanation of three important contextual differences between the Congresses under consideration, and my expectations for leaders’ behavior. Chamber Margins The first important contextual difference is the margin between the two parties in the House of Representatives. Figure 2.1 highlights the significant variation over time. In Congresses with close margins, majority party leaders need almost every one of their members’ votes to pass a legislative program. Narrow margins also reinforce the fierce competition between the parties. With fierce electoral and policy competition between the two parties, minority party members provide few extra votes for the majority (see Lee 2010 on this dynamic in the U.S. Senate). With large chamber margins, majority party leaders can typically afford to lose votes and still pass their legislative program, even without help from the minority. However, according to one former Democratic leader, this mindset caused problems for party leaders in the 103rd Congress when Democrats were trying to pass President Clinton’s programs. Republicans didn’t provide many, if any, votes, and Democratic leaders could not rely on senior—even retiring—members representing safe districts to pass Clinton’s programs, so they inculcated a culture of party loyalty among new members, including vulnerable members. This was particularly evident when Congresswoman Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky (D-PA) switched her vote to support President Clinton’s budget in 1993—even as many retiring Democrats voted no. Republican members on the House floor chanted “bye bye Marjorie” when it looked like the budget was heading for defeat until Democrats attained her critical vote and the reconciliation Page 40 →bill narrowly passed.7 Indeed, Margolies-Mezvinsky was defeated in 1994. A former Democratic leader explains the difficulty and necessity of relying on Democratic votes: Fig. 2.1. Chamber margins The seeds of demise were sown because there used to be so many Democrats we could pass almost

anything. . . . So, people found it easy to vote no—special interest groups, district, opponent, whatever, you got a pass. . . . In 1993, Congresswoman Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky had to switch her vote because people who didn’t need to were hogging the reds [i.e., voting with Republicans]. A culture developed that forced party loyalists [in the 103rd Congress], and women seemed to step up more, endangering their careers. The more senior members were not used to it.

Despite their narrow margins from 1995 to 2006, majority party Republican leaders typically relied on their own votes to pass their legislative program instead of trying to attract support among centrist Democrats, Page 41 →much to the disappointment of some Blue Dog Democrats during the late 1990s. When majorities can count only on their own members’ votes, leaders place a higher value on members’ loyalty—and will do more to extract it. In an assessment of Republicans’ first year in the majority in the National Journal, Richard Cohen explained: [T]he current House clearly places a greater premium on Members’ exhibiting loyalty once their party has completed its internal deliberations. That pressure has increased because the GOP’s slender majority leaves little room for freelancing. For the Democrats, likewise, their aim of recapturing the House requires them to work in unison more effectively than they did when they were in control. (Cohen 1996) Table 2.1 details the chamber margins and the surplus beyond the 218 simple majority threshold for passing a measure on the House floor.8 Majority party Democrats’ margins were typically larger than those of Republicans, ranging from a surplus of 15 in the 110th Congress to 49 in the 102nd Congress. Republicans’ surpluses ranged from a high of 15 (in the 113th Congress) to a low of 3 (in the 107th Congress). These margins have consequences for party discipline, as leaders are more likely to exert party discipline by rewarding loyalty in Congresses when they need it most to pass a legislative program. Table 2.1. House Chamber Margins Congress Democrats Republicans Majority Surplus 100 258 177 40 101 259 174 41 102 267 167 49 103 258 176 40 104 204 230 12 105 207 227 9 106 211 223 5 107 211 221 3 108 109 110 111 112 113

205 201 233 256 193 200

229 232 202 178 242 233

11 14 15 38 24 15

Page 42 → Vulnerable Incumbents The second contextual factor that varies from Congress to Congress is the number of vulnerable incumbents in each upcoming election cycle. To be sure, just as members never stop thinking about reelection, party leaders never stop thinking about majority party status and their margins after the next election. The question is the extent

to which they prioritize electoral concerns relative to other concerns. Even as incumbents dominate at the polls with reelection rates typically topping 90 percent and an increasing number of districts are “safe” for one party or the other (Theriault 2008), there is variation from cycle to cycle, especially when partisan tides threaten one party. The more vulnerable members facing reelection, the more concerned party leaders are about the upcoming elections. In Congresses where many majority party members face competitive races and leaders are particularly concerned about reelecting their majority, they will prioritize their pursuit of electoral goals. In an era of tight party competition—with close margins and a declining number of close races—leaders have incentives to help their most vulnerable members in any way they can. I rely on CQ Weekly race rankings to measure members’ electoral concern in each Congress. These rankings are superior to simply using a member’s margin of victory in the previous election because the race rankings take a member’s past performance into account and they also incorporate dynamic changes in a member’s electoral situation since the last election. Members may be facing tougher, or weaker, opponents, may have been involved in a scandal, or their party may be unpopular. Every fall of an election year, CQ Weekly categorizes the 435 House races based on their electoral competitiveness: “no clear favorite,” defined as a “true tossup in which neither party has established a definite lead”; “leans,” a race in which “one party has a slight edge, but the contest remains highly competitive, and an upset is a viable possibility”; “favored,” a race in which “one party has a strong lead and appears likely to win, but an upset cannot be completely ruled out”; and “safe, ” a race in which “one party is such a heavy favorite that a loss is virtually impossible” (see, e.g., CQ Weekly, 27 October 2008, 2869). The number of competitive seats each party is defending in the upcoming election is the most critical information to party leaders, especially as it is one of many factors signaling to leaders the potential for a partisan tide. Table 2.2 breaks down CQ Weekly’s race rankings by Congress, matched with the upcoming election year, and by party. While the chamber margins shown in figure 2.1 also affect leaders’ perception of their electoral Page 43 →situation, margins don’t provide information about changes in the party’s electoral dynamics since the last election, making the number of vulnerable seats one party is defending relative to the other, as shown in table 2.1, a better measure of electoral concern in each Congress. These data also demonstrate the important reality of “toss-up” politics in the House since 1994. With large margins in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Democratic leaders assumed that they would be in the majority for the foreseeable future, whereas since the 1994 elections neither party has safely been able to assume majority party control for an extended period of time. As shown, however, Democratic leaders still had concerns about the size of their margins prior to 1994, as the majority party’s safe seat advantage declined. From the 1988 cycle to the 1994 cycle, Democrats worried about defending more districts with every cycle. In 1992, Democratic leaders were more concerned than usual. Many Democratic incumbents were vulnerable because they were defending seats altered by redistricting following the 1990 Census, defending overdrafts connected to the House Bank scandal, and fighting the public’s generally low opinion of Congress (Jacobson and Dimock 1994). Majorityparty Republicans’ safest year was 1998, during which they had a 34 safe seat advantage, but most years they had some reason to be concerned about their majority status, especially in 2006, when they ultimately lost majority party control. These data shed light on leaders’ electoral concern, but they don’t necessarily provide the entire context. In an interview with former Speaker Page 44 →Newt Gingrich, he indicated that Republican leaders were particularly concerned about their fate in the 1996 elections—a year with a spike in the number of competitive seats. Republicans were defending many seats held by first-term incumbents, typically the most difficult to defend (Jacobson 2004), and President Clinton had rebounded in the polls after winning some key legislative battles, which would help Democrats in a presidential election year. Table 2.2. Party Leaders’ Electoral Concerns

Upcoming Congress Majority Toss- Competitive Competitive Safe Safe Safe Majority Election Party up Republican Democratic Republican Democratic Seats Party Safe Year Races Seats Seats Seats Seats Seat Advantage 1988 100 D 11 33 38 134 219 353 85 1990 101 D 10 28 44 138 215 353 77 1992 1994

102 103

D D

36 40

81 39

80 67

92 133

146 155

238 288

54 22

1996 1998 2000

104 105 106

R R R

34 22 18

73 34 37

66 45 35

144 183 175

117 149 170

261 332 345

27 34 5

2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012

107 108 109 110 111 112

R R R D D R

13 5 13 23 43 27

36 41 45 49 20 35

27 24 18 35 45 23

183 190 175 126 173 194

176 174 184 202 154 156

359 364 359 328 327 350

7 16 в€’9 76 в€’19 38

Party Policy Agenda Majority party leaders’ policy agendas vary from Congress to Congress. In some Congresses, leaders pursue ambitious partisan policy agendas, sometimes in conjunction with the president of the same party. In others, the agenda is primarily dictated by law reauthorization timelines, the budget cycle, and routine matters without much else on the agenda. Indeed, some recent Congresses have been labeled “do nothing Congresses” for their lack of legislative accomplishments.9 If leaders are in fact pursuing an active, partisan policy agenda, they should be more likely to value their members’ loyalty in providing the support necessary to pass their program, especially given that partisan priorities are typically not likely to generate much support from the other party. To determine whether or not majority party leaders in a given Congress bring an ambitious partisan policy agenda to the floor, I analyze each Congress in two ways. First, I coded CQ Weekly’s Key Votes for each session of Congress and combined them into a single measure for each Congress. Numbering from around 10 to 16 per Congress, these are the votes considered the most important in each session, either because they represented a major controversy, a matter of presidential or political power, or because of their potentially great impact on the lives of Americans. As shown in table 2.3, I coded the bill or amendment in one of the following ways based on its source: driven by majority party leaders’ policy agenda; in response to unexpected, external forces (e.g., response to 9/11 or floods); emerging during routine budgeting debates (i.e., appropriations bills and routine reauthorization bills and their amendments); emerging in response to the president’s agenda; emerging from cross-party pressure; or emerging from the minority party’s agenda. Table 2.3 presents the sums of each type of legislation in each year and Congress. The data show that Speaker Wright pursued an aggressive, partisan policy agenda, Speaker Gingrich pursued an aggressive, partisan policy Page 45 →agenda, and Speaker Pelosi pursued an aggressive, partisan policy agenda. Although these three Speakers stand out, it is important to note that Speakers Foley, Hastert, and Pelosi felt pressure to pass the legislative agenda of their newly elected same-party presidents. Second, I read CQ Weekly’s end-of-session legislative analyses to identify important sources of the legislative agenda. I found that their descriptions of each session’s overall legislative activity confirmed my results in every congress. For example, at the end of the 1995 session CQ Weekly reported: “The vote studies show how thoroughly the conservative Republican agenda dominated Congress.” By contrast, in 2000 CQ Weekly

remarked: “Republican leaders opened the second session of the 106th Congress emphasizing new tactics rather than rolling out a fresh list of legislative priorities” (Katz 1996, 195; Parks 2000, 2867).

Congress

100th (1987–89) 101st (1989–90)

Table 2.3. Pursuing a Partisan Policy Agenda? Source of CQ’s Key Votes Majority Same Party Opp. Party Minority Cross- External Routine Budget Party President’s President’s Opposition Party Forces or Leaders Agenda Agenda Pressures /Other Reauthorization 13 3 2 7 6 10

2

102nd 5 (1991–92) 103rd 8 (1993–94) 104th 20 (1995–96) 105th 10 (1997–98) 106th 7 (1999–2000) 107th 5 (2001–02) 108th 5 (2003–04) 109th 6 (2005–06) 110th 12 (2007–08) 111th 11 (2009–10) 112th 9 (2011–12)

3

3

6 1

8

12

1

1

5

1

1

2

4

9

5

5

1

7

7

5

5

4

6

5

2

7

3

3

2

4

2

4

2

3

1

3

1

5

1

3

2

9

6 5 1

4

Page 46 → Table 2.4 summarizes the contextual factors already presented, by Congress. It captures, albeit roughly, differences in leaders’ concerns regarding chamber margins, electoral vulnerability, and the pursuit of a partisan policy agenda in each congress. While all of these factors concern every leader to some extent, an “X” in a column’s cell indicates a particular high priority. For example, the table illustrates that in the 102nd Congress, the majority party was particularly concerned about the number of vulnerable Democratic seats (80). As the table indicates, in every Congress since 1995 the majority party has needed nearly all of their members’ votes, and “toss-up” politics meant that either party could conceivably win majority party control after the next election, although it was obviously more likely in some Congresses than others.

Congress

Table 2.4. Summary of Majority Party Contextual Factors, by Congress Majority Narrow Chamber Partisan Policy Agenda Electoral Concerns Toss-up Politics Party Margin

100th (1987–89) 101st (1989–90) 102nd (1991–92)

Democrats

X

Democrats

X

Democrats

103rd Democrats (1993–94) 104th Republicans (1995–96) 105th Republicans (1997–98) 106th Republicans (1999–2000) 107th Republicans (2001–02) 108th Republicans (2003–04) 109th Republicans (2005–06) 110th Democrats (2007–08) 111th Democrats (2009–10) 112th Republicans (2011–12)

X X X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X X

X X X

X X

X

X X

Page 47 →Leaders have an incentive to pursue policy control by exerting party discipline when margins are narrow and they need nearly every vote to pass their policy agenda. New leaders in particular have an incentive to pursue a partisan policy agenda to establish their authority and build a legislative record. Moreover, policy control is particularly important if the leaders’ policy agenda serves as the opposing party’s alternative to the president’s agenda, as was the case in the 100th, 104th, and 110th Congresses. Leaders pursuing policy control will be most likely to reward members’ party loyalty expressed in voting, providing members with incentives for continued or increased loyalty in the same domain. Leaders will prioritize majority control when they have a substantial share of electorally vulnerable members in their caucus and national tides are running against them. While passing a policy program may improve the party label, voters choose between individual candidates, and the party brand name is one of several considerations that may help—or hinder—a candidate’s electoral chances. Electoral goals, then, may pose significant constraints against leaders’ incentives to exert party discipline in the allocation of legislative opportunities, committee assignments, and campaign assistance. Leaders prioritizing majority control will assist their electorally vulnerable members and reward their most loyal fundraisers.

Intraparty Groups: Targets of Discipline? Intraparty groups that form for the purpose of distinguishing themselves from the majority party over largely ideological differences have the potential to cause problems for party leaders as they try to pass their agenda. (They can also be helpful, as was the case with the Democratic Study Group during the 1960s and 1970s.) Speakers Gingrich, Pelosi, and Boehner each contended with intraparty groups inside their caucus or conference that posed, or had the potential to pose, challenges to their leadership. The theory of party discipline suggests that leaders will be more likely to target such groups for discipline when they hinder a leader’s party policy

agenda. In the analyses in the chapters ahead, I analyze three intraparty groups in five Congresses that, at times, caused problems for party leaders because of their disagreements over the majority party’s position on important policy issues. In the 104th and 105th Congresses, I analyze the Tuesday Group; in the 110th and 111th Congress, I analyze the Blue Dogs; and in the 112th Congress, I analyze Tea Party members. Page 48 → The Tuesday Group At the outset of the 104th Congress, Republican leaders did everything they could to discourage the formation of organized caucuses outside their control. Republicans abolished legislative service organizations (LSOs) in a purported attempt to clean house and cut congressional spending. LSOs had employed staff, occupied space in House office buildings, and provided extensive legislative information. LSOs such as the Congressional Black Caucus, the Democratic Study Group, and the Congressional Caucus for Women’s Issues had enjoyed significant clout in recent Democratic-controlled Congresses (Hammond 1999). Abolishing LSOs was intended to diminish Democratic strength, but it also served as a signal to Republicans wanting to organize. The move centralized GOP leadership control, signaling to majority party members that caucuses would not influence nor participate in legislative decision making (Hammond 1999; Singh 1996). During the debate, Democrat David Obey protested: “This has nothing to do with reform. This has everything to do with centralizing information in the hands of one man” (Wolf 1994). Despite leaders’ efforts to rein in organized factions, at the beginning of the 104th Congress approximately 50 moderate Republicans formed the Tuesday Group (Kolodny 1999). The Tuesday Group, originally dubbed the “Tuesday Lunch Bunch,” formed to work to moderate policy within their own party. Their strategy was to influence party leaders to modify legislation and remove controversial provisions rather than to offer their own substitutes (Kolodny 1999). The Tuesday Group even had an official representative in the leadership, yet the tension between Tuesday Group members and the leadership was clear. To counter elements of the leadership’s more conservative agenda, Tuesday Group members drafted amendments and lobbied the leadership and Rules Committee behind the scenes. Tuesday Group meetings, typically held at noon on Tuesday, focused on information exchange and building support (Kolodny 1999). The Tuesday Group coalesced around abortion and environmental issues, key areas where they differed from the Republican majority. They focused most of their attention on offering or defeating appropriations amendments that would have weakened environmental protections and limited abortion rights. Tuesday Group member defections, for example, occurred on amendments about Title X Family Planning funds in both the 104th and 105th Congresses’ Labor, Health and Human Services Appropriations bills. Slim congressional majorities should have enhanced the Page 49 →Tuesday Group’s power. The leadership, however, often persuades these members to support the party position (Maraniss and Weisskopf 1996). An interview with a legislative assistant to a Tuesday Group member expressed distress that the Tuesday Group members were often “wimps.” Indeed, the Tuesday Group does not disclose its membership for fear of retribution or accusations of disloyalty from outside conservative groups. Blue Dog Coalition At the beginning of the 104th Congress, nearly 30 moderate and conservative Democrats formed the Blue Dog Coalition, usually referred to simply as the Blue Dogs. They described themselves as “a serious player in the policy arena, promoting positions which bridge the gap between ideological extremes” (Tanner 1997). Blue Dogs were frustrated by the liberal Democratic leadership, claiming that that their “moderate-to-conservativeviews had been вЂchoked blue’ by their party in the years leading up to the ’94 election” (Tanner 1997). The Blue Dogs advocate fiscal restraint, focusing on their annual plan to balance the budget. In 1995, they played a significant role in welfare reform. Representative Nathan Deal (GA) offered the “Blue Dog

substitute” to the Republican welfare reform plan. Although it failed, many of its provisions were included in the final bill. Shortly after leading the Blue Dog effort in welfare reform, Deal switched parties and became a Republican. When they formed, observers noted that their ideological centrism and willingness to break with their party compelled both Republican and Democratic leaders to take their views seriously. A clear example of caucus influence was the Blue Dogs’ success in bringing to the floor a measure to reduce the deficit. In 1997, the House Rules Committee did not allow the Blue Dogs to offer their Fiscal Year 1998 budget substitute as an amendment to the budget resolution, fearing that it might have the votes to pass the House (Rubin 1997). The Blue Dogs then joined forces with Joe Barton (R-TX) and pushed for a balanced budget enforcement plan that would create caps on entitlement programs (Taylor 1997). Facing considerable pressure from their conservatives, Republican leaders brought Barton’s measure, H.R. 2003, to the House floor. Initially, Blue Dogs complained that Democratic leaders did not take their views into account as often as they should. Republican strategy, coupled with changes in the Democratic Caucus, caused a significant shift in the Blue Dogs’ tactics between 1995 and 2007, when Democrats returned Page 50 →to the majority. Throughout their twelve years in office, Republican leaders chose to move policy as far to the right as possible to keep their conservative members on board rather than seek more moderate compromises to attract the Blue Dogs. As one aide to a Blue Dog Democrat lamented in an interview, “The GOP leadership has adopted a Republicans-only approach to passing all bills; they have the strategy of getting 218 votes with Republican votes. We have no opportunity for input; it’s a Republicans-only process.” Republican leaders rejected overtures from the Blue Dogs, and Democratic leaders increasingly stressed party unity. When Republicans targeted Charles Stenholm, a long-time leader of conservative Democrats, for defeat in the Texas 2003 partisan redistricting plan, it was the final blow in a series of Republican rejections of Blue Dogs’ attempts at bipartisan cooperation. The election of Pelosi as Democratic whip in 2001 caused great concern among Blue Dogs. Despite these misgivings, Blue Dogs’ “outsider” tactics gradually turned into “insider” tactics as partisanship increased in the Republican-controlled Congresses, and the Blue Dogs found that Pelosi was more inclusive than they had expected. Despite the discomfort that stemmed from increased pressure for unity from Democratic leaders and members alike, the Blue Dogs became fairly well integrated within the Democratic Caucus. Increased team unity within the Democratic Caucus is reflected in the rise in party voting among Blue Dogs while in the minority. In 2003, the average Blue Dog Democrat voted with his or her party 79 percent of the time, nearly 10 percentage points below the average Democrat. Between 1995 and 2003, the mean Blue Dog party loyalty score of those who served in both years rose by 13.5 points. The Blue Dogs exert more influence as a coalition in the majority party, and at times caused headaches for majority party leaders. After Democrats regained the majority, the Blue Dogs adopted a rule that if two-thirds of their members support a policy, all Blue Dogs are bound to support it. Although they infrequently invoke this rule, it is a powerful tool. In the majority, however, Blue Dogs voted with the majority at high levels. In 2009, the average Blue Dog had a party loyalty score of 85 percent. They were often able to support the party because they influenced the legislative process along the way. In the majority, both Pelosi and Hoyer were well aware that they need the votes of at least some of the approximately 50 moderate-to-conservative Blue Dogs. Blue Dogs forced leaders to reduce spending in several appropriations bills and budget resolutions, reinstate pay-as-you go budgeting rules, modify the bill on the executive branch’s Page 51 →electronic surveillance power (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act), and modify health care reform. The influence of majority party Blue Dogs was far superior to that of the majority party Tuesday Group members during the Gingrich and Hastert eras. Tea Party Republicans The Tea Party movement emerged in early 2009. In February, CNBC reporter Rick Santelli’s televised attack on the Obama administration’s housing policy and call for a “Chicago Tea Party” went viral,10 and conservative activists and the media—Fox News in particular—responded. Conservative frustration and antiObama sentiment fueled the Tea Party movement. Tea Party activists flooded congressional town hall meetings,

disparaging President Obama and the Democratically controlled Congress, and formed local Tea Party groups. By the 2010 election cycle, Tea Party candidates were competing in, and winning several, Republican primaries with financial support from Tea Party contributors (Skocpol and Williamson 2012). In October, the New York Times identified 129 “Tea Party” non-incumbent House candidates (Zernike et al. 2010), all of whom were Republicans and became active in politics through the Tea Party movement or received significant support from local Tea Party groups. Thirty-nine of these candidates were elected to the 112th Congress, joining 45 other GOP freshmen who may have also been influenced by and supported by the Tea Party movement, even if they didn’t meet the Times’ s criteria. Even before the 2010 election, many Republicans in the House affiliated with the Tea Party movement. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), an outspoken conservative often at odds with Republican leaders, founded the House Tea Party Caucus in July 2010, and by 2011 its membership had reached 60, including fifteen of the freshmen (Allen 2011). There was no doubt that Boehner had a harder time dealing with the members of his own party than his predecessors had. Intraparty conflict spilled out in the open, regularly covered by the media. While Gingrich and Hastert had problems with the “Tuesday Group” Republican moderates who would occasionally side with Democrats, the Tea Party members posed particular problems for Boehner. Tea Party members were often unwilling to support Boehner in forging budget compromises with Democrats in the Senate or President Obama, tying the Speaker’s hands in negotiations and forcing him to rely on Democratic votes to pass budgetary Page 52 →measures. Tea Party Republicans such as Michele Bachmann (R-MN) and Allen West (R-FL) attracted national attention with vociferous attacks on their own party’s leaders. By contrast, moderate Republicans in the Gingrich and Hastert era had made it a point to keep their negotiations behind closed doors and negotiate for amendments that largely moderated social policy at the margins rather than derail party efforts publicly.

Page 53 →

Three Party Loyalty and the Potential Mechanisms of Party Discipline Members of Congress express party loyalty in several ways. Political scientists tend to focus on roll call votes, and for good reason. To pass its legislative program, the majority party needs 218 members to support it, and it typically must rely on its own members for support. Roll call votes are well known to party leaders and interested observers. Yet, as party line voting—where a majority of one party votes against the majority of the other—has reached record highs and partisan conflict has greatly intensified, members and leaders have focused on additional ways to contribute to the party’s policy, political, and electoral successes. Interviews with former leaders, members, and their staff confirm that leaders monitor and value their members’ party loyalty, and that loyalty encompasses far more than simply roll call votes in support of the party’s position. While of course leaders indicate that voting is indeed critical, they also mentioned other ways to express loyalty, such as speaking favorably about the party, donating money to the party and fellow partisans, trust, and being a “team player.” Drawing upon interviews and previous scholarship, I use members’ legislative behavior to operationalize party loyalty in five ways: roll call voting loyalty, special rule loyalty, fundraising loyalty, discharge petition loyalty, and rhetorical loyalty as demonstrated in one-minute speeches delivered on the House floor. Leaders themselves assess loyalty in some ways that are quantifiable, even if they only keep rough running tallies in their heads and they do not engage in the precision and statistical analyses presented here. Some of the data I use include information that come Page 54 →from sources that members of Congress read, such as CQ Weekly or the clerk’s website.

Roll Call Voting Loyalty An obvious litmus test of loyalty is the rate at which members vote in favor of legislation supported by the majority party and opposed by the minority party on the House floor. To pass their legislative agenda on the House floor (and to avoid embarrassment), the majority party needs 218 of 435 votes. But even in Congresses with large majority party margins, attaining 218 votes is not always easy. The majority whip and the whip team keep track of members’ votes and leaders remember who fails to support the party when it comes to important votes. I capture members’ roll call voting loyalty with party unity scores compiled by Congressional Quarterly, and I use this measure of roll call loyalty in the analyses that follow. At the end of each year, CQ Weekly publishes each member’s party unity score, consisting of the percentage of votes in which a member of Congress votes with his or her party on roll call votes where the majority of each party opposes the majority of the another, adjusted for participation so that the score is calculated from the votes actually cast. Figure 3.1 shows members’ average CQ Weekly party unity scores, by party, every year from 1987 to 2013. Clearly, members’ party loyalty in roll call voting increased significantly in both parties during this time frame. Republicans averaged only 72 percent in 1989. By comparison, average party support reached 91 percent in 1995, 2001, and 2003, and a record high of 92 percent in 2013—all years in which Republicans held the majority. Democrats’ unity averaged only 79 percent in 1992, the last year of Foley’s speakership, compared to record high averages of 92 percent in both 2007 and 2008 and 91 percent in 2009 under the

leadership of Speaker Pelosi. As members’ average loyalty increases, the standard deviations decrease: members are increasingly clustered at the loyal end of the continuum with less room to increase their loyalty in voting. Some might argue that the increase in members’ party line voting exhibited in figure 3.1 suggests that there has been an increase in party discipline in the House of Representatives. Does an increase in party unity averages mean that party leaders have exerted more party discipline through a system of rewards and punishments? While perhaps correlated, high party unity is not in and of itself evidence that leaders effectively worked to produce loyalty among their members (see, e.g., Krehbiel Page 55 →1993). The increase in party line voting among members coincides with the increasing homogeneity of members’ policy preferences within each party (Rohde 1991; Poole and Rosenthal 1997), meaning that it is difficult to disentangle the effects of discipline from members’ overall agreement. Over this time period, the partisan realignment in the South reduced the share of conservatives in the Democratic Caucus and increased the share of conservatives in the Republican Conference, although it is worth noting that the increase in Democratic members after the 2006 and 2008 elections diversified their membership without an adverse effect on party unity. Yet, as Frances Lee documents in the Senate, many roll call votes that divide the parties are devoid of ideological content and instead reflect partisan competition (Lee 2009). Fig. 3.1. Average roll-call-voting party loyalty in the House, 1987–2013

Procedural Loyalty: Support for Failed Rules Former Republican and Democratic leaders concur on the importance of voting in favor of the party’s rules that govern consideration of legislation. According to former Speaker Newt Gingrich, “Procedural votes are infinitely more important because they are about control of the House. [Voting no] is an absolute violation of party loyalty.”1 In the words of a former Democratic Caucus chair: “The rule is always important.В .В .В . GivingPage 56 → money in the modern era helps; that had really just begun in 1993 and 1994.”2 According to a former Democratic whip: As whip, the most important thing was making sure we never lost a rule. If you lose one rule, [you] lose party discipline .В .В .В . It’s [party discipline] very tough in the House. I let members vote against the bill but not the rule. The rule is not an issue in members’ districts.3 Most major legislation is brought up for consideration on the House floor only after a special rule is passed that sets the terms of debate and the amendment process.4 Rules are crafted by the Rules Committee, which consists of nine majority party members selected by the Speaker and four minority party leaders selected by the minority leader. Rules make legislating in the House more efficient and orderly. More significantly, as the majority party increasingly relies on closed and structured rules that only allow preselected amendments, special rules allow the majority party to structure the choices available to members and thus achieve political or policy objectives and even “tilt the outcome of a choice among alternatives” (Bach and Smith 1988, 87). If, for example, a member wants to offer an amendment to a bill that would garner at least 218 votes but he or she is opposed by the majority leadership, the Rules Committee, under the direction of the Speaker, will simply not allow the member to offer that amendment. Occasionally, this strategy of drafting closed or structured rules to preclude members from offering amendments backfires, and majority party members vote against the rule, much to the distress of majority party leaders. Because rules allow majority party leaders to control both the process and content of the policies under consideration, it is very important to leaders that they pass. Open rules that do not limit amendments tend to pass by voice vote, but they have been declining in number. Rules that limit amendment opportunities often engender fierce opposition from the minority party and therefore typically pass on party line votes. If a rule fails, majority party leaders lose their agenda control on

the bill in question, as the bill does not come to the House floor for consideration unless a different rule passes. This explains why votes on special rules, according to several current and former members and their staff, are the ultimate test of loyalty. In the words of a former Democratic (majority) party leader, “it’s all about the rule.” When members cannot vote with their party on substantive issues, leaders still expect them to vote with the party on the special rule. When the Page 57 →policy issue in question generates significant opposition from a member’s constituents, leaders will give the member a “pass,” provided they have the requisite 218 votes necessary to pass the bill. Rule votes are largely invisible to constituents. Procedural intricacies are difficult to explain and of interest to few constituents. Rules do not fail often, but when they do, leaders pay close attention to defection. The House rejected two special rules in the 100th Congress, three in the 101st, one in the 102nd, six in the 103rd, one in the 104th, five in the 105th, two in the 107th, and no special rules were rejected in the 106th, 108th, 109th, 110th, 111th, or 112th Congresses.5 If a rule is headed for defeat or is actually defeated, majority party leaders typically work with the Rules Committee to alter the legislation, the rule, or both until they are certain that 218 members will support it. Members’ support for rules is higher than their overall party support in roll call votes, but these measures are highly correlated (Sinclair 2006). I calculated members’ support on rules that divided the parties, and Republican unity on votes on special rules was relatively low in the 100th and 101st Congresses, averaging only 79 percent and 85 percent, respectively. With large Democratic margins and without much hope of passing their legislation or winning the majority, Republicans had fewer incentives to unify in opposition, even as the number of restrictive rules precluding their participation was beginning to rise. By the 102nd Congress, Republicans’ average procedural unity increased to 95 percent, and it remained at that level or higher from the 103rd Congress on, reaching 99 percent in the 106th Congress. Democrats’ average procedural loyalty is consistently high as well, dipping below 90 percent only in the early years of GOP majority control in the 104th and 105th Congresses. Of course, majority party leaders want their members’ consistent support on special rules. But because the most visible and upsetting defections are those that cause a special rule to actually fail on the House floor, I create a measure capturing the percentage of failing special rules that a majority party member supported (used only in the 106th, 108th, 109th, 110th, 111th, or 112th Congresses when special rules actually failed). In the analyses that follow, I measure rule loyalty as the percentage of failing rules supported by majority party members.

Support for Leaders’ Agenda Control: Discharge Petition Loyalty Discharge petitions pose a threat to majority party leaders’ agenda control, potentially enabling a simple majority of members to overcome party leaders’Page 58 → ability to block legislation from reaching the floor (Crombez, Groseclose, and Krehbiel 2006). If 218 members sign a discharge petition, the bill (or resolution) specified on the petition is considered on the House floor, after a vote, under the terms on the petition. Although the discharge process is cumbersome and not often successful (see Cox and McCubbins 2005), it provides an opportunity for a determined, cross-party majority to overcome majority party leaders’ (or committee) gatekeeping. Until 1993, the names of the petition signatories were made public only in the 48 cases in which a petition reached 218 signatures and was printed in the Congressional Record. As a result of a successful discharge petition drive led by James Inhofe (R-OK), discharge petitions were made public in 1993. Democratic leaders strongly opposed the rule change, but Inhofe and his allies leaked signatories to the press, which pressured additional members to sign.

During the public era of 1993 to 2012, over the objections of majority party leaders and without the support of a majority of the majority party, three discharge petitions reached 218 signatures. In the Democratic-controlled 103rd Congress, two discharge petitions brought legislation to the House floor, including the rule change that made discharge petitions public (signed by 45 Democrats) and a constitutional amendment that required a balanced budget (signed by 54 Democrats), which was ultimately not enacted. In the Republican-controlled 107th Congress, a successful petition (signed by 20 Republicans) was key in the enactment of the McCain-Feingold/Shays-Meehan campaign finance legislation. Despite their infrequent success, discharge petitions pose a threat to majority party leaders and their control over the agenda. In interviews, members and former members attest that majority party leaders become, to quote one former leader, “very angry when their members sign them.” For majority party members, signing a discharge petition is therefore a sign of disloyalty. To measure support for leaders’ agenda control, or discharge petition loyalty, I collected every discharge petition filed from 1993 to 2012 and coded their signatories.6 These data come from the House clerk’s office website.7 I then calculated a score for each member based on the proportion of petitions he or she signed in each Congress. Table 3.1 shows the average percentage of petitions signed by members of each party, by Congress. Majority party members rarely sign discharge petitions. Majority party Democrats were most likely to sign during the 111th Congress, when they averaged around 1 out of the 13 filed (8 percent of the petitions), and they were least likely to sign during the 110th Congress, when they averaged Page 59 →0.002 percent of petitions. Republican majority party signatories peaked in the 104th Congress, signing an average of 4 percent of all 15 petitions. The increase in minority party signature activity from 1993 to 2012, however, is striking. In the 103rd Congress, minority party Republicans signed, on average, 46 percent of discharge petitions, and in the 104th Congress, minority party Democrats signed an average of only 13 percent of petitions. By the 106th Congress, discharge petition activity sharply increased, with Democrats filing more and signing more as Democrats adjusted to life in the minority party. On average, Democrats signed 73 percent of the petitions filed in the 106th Congress, while only seven Republicans signed any. Only 21 Republicans signed a discharge petitions in the 109th Congress, and only eight Republicans signed more than one petition. By contrast, the average Democrat signed 13 of the 18 petitions filed in the 109th Congress. Back in the majority beginning in 2011, Republicans Page 60 →signed an average of only 3 percent of the petitions, while minority party Democrats signed an average of 63 percent. Table 3.1 shows that while discharge petition loyalty was strongest during Speaker Hastert’s tenure, it was consistently high throughout this time period. Multivariate analyses of all discharge petitions filed from 1993 to 2012 confirm that majority party members are unlikely to sign discharge petitions, regardless of their seniority or committee assignments, in sharp contrast to northern Democrats’ frequent signatures from the 1930s to the 1970s, when their agenda was stymied by a cross-party coalition of conservative southern Democrats and Republicans (Pearson and Schickler 2009a). Table 3.1. Discharge Petition Signatures, by Party and Congress Congress 103rd N = 21 104th N = 15 105th N=6

Democrats Republicans 3% 46% (0.06) (0.18) 13% 4% (0.09) (0.06) 33% 1% (0.14) (0.03)

106th

73%

0%

N = 10 107th N = 12 108th

(0.22) 72% (0.22) 69%

(0.02) 2% (0.04) 0%

N = 15 109th N = 18

(0.18) 72% (0.20)

(0.01) 1% (0.03)

110th N = 16

0% (0.01)

59% (0.19)

111th 8% 46% N = 13 (0.20) (0.26) 112th 63% 3% N=6 (0.17) (0.07) Note: Cells contain the average percentage of discharge petitions signed by members in each party, with standard deviations in parentheses. The Ns reflect the total number of discharge petitions in a Congress. Information about the majority party is in bold. In the analyses that follow, I use a measure of discharge petition loyalty calculated as the percentage of petitions in a Congress that a majority party member does not sign, with a score of 100 indicating that a member did not try to circumvent leaders’ agenda control by signing any petitions. For minority party members, discharge petition loyalty is the percentage of petitions a member does sign, as it demonstrates an effort to both circumvent and bring attention to majority party gatekeeping.

Partisan Battles on the House Floor: Rhetorical Party Loyalty Floor speeches provide members of Congress with opportunities to enhance their own party’s reputation and criticize the other party. One-minute speeches in particular provide members with opportunities to demonstrate their commitment to their party. Because these speeches give members opportunities to prove their partisan credentials above and beyond their voting record, I use them to create a measure of members’ rhetorical party loyalty. Unlike in the Senate, known for its rules allowing unlimited debate on any topic, opportunities for House members to speak on the floor are somewhat limited, particularly opportunities for members to speak about whatever they choose. Legislating in the House is governed by special rules that set strict time limits on debate on major legislation and, increasingly often, on the number of amendments that members may offer. Members’ opportunities to speak out about topics of their choice—for example, offering commentary on politics, policy, or on issues of importance to their constituents—are therefore often confined to one-minute speeches, morning hour, and special orders. I focus on one-minute speeches because they occur at the beginning of most legislative days. Any member may seek recognition to “make a speech on a subject of his or her choice not exceeding Page 61 →one minute in duration” (Dreier 1999). The Speaker determines how

many one-minutes to allow, usually informing both party’s leaders in advance, and the order in which members arrive determines when and whether they speak. As one-minute speeches occur at the beginning of each legislative day, members, staff, and leaders are likely to either be on the House floor following a vote on the previous day’s journal or in their offices watching C-SPAN for information about the legislative day ahead. One-minutes have become known for members’ frequent partisan attacks. In recent years, party leaders have taken an active role in coordinating one-minutes. The Republican Theme Team and the Democratic Message Group recruit members to deliver one-minutes on an issue designated as the party’s daily message (Harris 2005; Schneider 2007). Republican leader John Boehner (R-OH), for example, used his website to post a partisan “one-minute speech of the day” in the 110th Congress (2007–08).8 Congressional observers, and even some members, have criticized one-minutes for their partisan content, bemoaning the fact that they start the day off with a partisan tone. A 1997 report by Kathleen Hall Jamieson, “Civility in the House of Representatives,” recommended that the House either eliminate one-minutes or move them to the end of the day. A bipartisan group of over 50 members of Congress sent letters to the Speaker in the 104th, 105th, and 106th Congresses to complain that one-minutes had become “a series [of] sound bite assaultsВ .В .В . highly conducive to the kind of attacks that used to be reserved for campaign commercials” (Schneider 2007). Reformers have not been successful in their attempts to curb one-minutes. Previous studies of one-minute speeches find that members who are disadvantaged in the institution, such as junior members, minority party members, “backbenchers,” non-committee chairs, and congresswomen are most likely to take advantage of unconstrained time (Maltzman and Sigelman 1996; Morris 2001; Rocca 2007; Pearson and Dancey 2011). I collected data on every one-minute speech in each Congress from 1989 to 2012 for this analysis. The Congressional Record is available online, but it must be downloaded into text files and separated by member to determine how many speeches members give and to run the content analysis programs for each member’s speeches. I used a content analysis program, Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count, or LIWC, developed by James Pennebaker (Pennebaker, Booth, and Francis 2007). LIWC is a word-based count system that works through a set of specific “dictionaries” that are applied to a given text. I created dictionary categories that enabled LIWC to capture mentions of the word, or forms of or other references to, Democrat and Republican (see Dancey and Pearson 2012).9 If a member mentionedPage 62 → either party or a related word, a research assistant read the entire speech and coded it as negative in tone, positive in tone, neutral in tone, or unrelated to either party. Next, I generated separate counts for each member of the number of speeches that are primarily negative about the other party and primarily positive about one’s own party, and then I combined the measures into an overall count measure of each member’s speech party loyalty used in the analyses that follow. The following one-minute speech by Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) illustrates a partisan speech attacking the other party. Mr. Speaker, I would like to pose a question today, a question for the majority leadership of this House. My constituents are asking me, how high does the price of gasoline have to go before the Democrat leadership of this House decides to vote to allow domestic energy production? How much are Americans going to have to pay before they will bring our bills to the floor to address this issue? They are wanting to know. They also want to know why no refineries have been built since 1976. They want to know why permits seem to be slow walked when it comes to exploring for natural resources. Today, my constituents in Memphis, Tennessee, are paying $3.63 for one gallon of gasoline. That’s nearly 55 percent more than they were paying when Speaker Pelosi took over. The American people are wanting answers. And what is the energy solution that the Democratic leadership has offered?

Well, it has been banning the traditional light bulb. Americans want answers, Mr. Speaker, but even more, they want some action. They want the problem solved. (Congressional Record H4159, 20 May 2008)

Partisan rhetoric pervades the contemporary Congress at the start of the legislative day. As table 3.2 indicates, attacks against the other party are particularly prevalent among minority party members. Minority party members are typically more likely to attack the other party than to defend their own party, but members nonetheless lauded their own party’s accomplishments. Although members delivered partisan speeches throughout this time period, partisan speechmaking accelerated in the 103rd Congress. In the 103rd Congress, for example, minority party Republicans gave an average of 4.49 speeches criticizing Democrats and 2.60 positive speeches about their own party. Two years later, majority party Republicans gave an average of 2.27 speeches praising their own party and only 1.71 speeches criticizing Democrats. Democrats, by contrast, gave an average of only Page 63 →0.74 positive speeches about their own party and 1.53 negative speeches about Republicans in the 103rd Congress, compared to 0.83 and 4.01 such speeches in the 104th Congress, respectively. These trends continued over the next two decades. Republicans gave an average of 3.28 negative speeches about majority party Democrats in the 111th Congress and 1.46 positive speeches about Republicans. Two years later, back in the minority, Democrats spent much more time delivering partisan speeches (an average of 3.10 negative speeches about Republicans compared to 0.62 positive speeches about their own party) than did Republicans, who spent more energy defending their own party (an average of 0.75 speeches) than they did criticizing Democrats (0.41 speeches). During a time of intense partisan competition, members seek to bolster their own party’s reputation—particularly when in the majority—and denigrate the other party, particularly in the minority.

Congress (Years) 101st (1989–90) 102nd (1991–92) 103rd (1993–94) 104th (1995–96) 105th (1997–98) 106th (1999–2000)

Table 3.2. Rhetorical Loyalty, by Party and Congress Democrats’ Speeches Republicans’ Speeches All Speeches Pro-Democrats Anti-Republicans All Speeches Pro-Republicans Anti-Democrats 9.93 (14.68) 9.67 (17.42) 10.69 (18.27) 8.45 (11.06) 7.00 (16.22) 5.96 (15.30)

.52 (1.31) .48 (1.29) .74 (2.16) .83 (2.24) 1.31 (5.04) .64 (1.82)

.63 (1.68) .62 (1.65) 1.53 (3.72) 4.01 (9.16) 2.66 (8.70) 1.41 (4.53)

12.45 (13.68) 12.79 (14.77) 18.27 (22.95) 7.89 (13.20) 8.30 (16.74) 7.50 (19.88)

.58 (1.38) 1.07 (2.26) 2.60 (4.98) 2.27 (4.84) 1.23 (3.96) 1.71 (5.39)

1.43 (3.49) 2.33 (4.49) 4.49 (8.41) 1.71 (4.42) 1.29 (3.81) 1.10 (3.45)

107th (2001–02) 108th (2003–04) 109th (2005–06)

4.04 (8.09) 5.02 (10.65) 7.57 (14.82)

.24 (.59) .34 (.98) .99 (2.40)

.69 (1.91) 1.21 (3.24) 2.68 (6.09)

4.94 (13.54) 5.16 (13.30) 7.78 (22.71)

.33 (1.25) .31 (1.13) .84 (4.53)

.35 (1.37) .38 (1.19) .98 (5.18)

110th 8.00 2.08 1.34 8.75 .79 2.69 (2007–08) (13.16) (4.84) (3.36) (21.99) (2.49) (6.51) 111th 10.53 .77 1.3 15.01 1.46 3.28 (2009–10) (16.22) (1.93) (3.44) (26.06) (4.89) (6.70) 112th 10.68 .62 3.10 7.76 .75 .41 (2011–12) (15.54) (1.28) (5.60) (16.98) (4.18) (4.62) Note: Cell entries are the mean number of members’ partisan speeches, with standard deviations in parentheses. Page 64 →

Fundraising Loyalty Party leaders look to their members for assistance in pursuing electoral advantages, and they have incentives to reward their loyal fundraisers. Fundraising is an important demonstration of party loyalty, but since members’ fundraising helps leaders achieve their goal of majority control rather than policy control, I distinguish between these types of loyalty in the analyses that follow. Majority party control means everything in the House. Most members of Congress represent relatively safe districts and face weak challengers, so they have fewer incentives to raise large sums of money for their own campaigns above and beyond what is necessary to ward off potential challengers. This lack of incentives poses a collective action problem—why should members in safe districts spend their time fundraising for other candidates when they will still share in the benefits of majority party status? Although members began fundraising for their parties during the 1980s, a sea change in party fundraising occurred after the 1994 elections. In the 104th Congress, following a 52-seat party switch and a change in the majority party, leaders of both parties recognized that majority control was up for grabs, hinging on the election outcomes in a handful of districts, and party fundraising proceeded apace. Party leaders provided incentives for such fundraising—and directives, such as party campaign committee dues—to help overcome this collective action problem. Leaders regard members’ campaign contributions as an expression of party loyalty above and beyond supporting the party position in roll call votes. Generally requiring more effort than voting with one’s party on a special rule or bill, raising money for the party sets members apart from colleagues whose party loyalty is expressed only in their voting records. And as members and leaders adopted larger roles as financiers of their colleagues’ campaigns, vulnerable members turned to congressional campaign committees, party leaders, and their colleagues for increased assistance. Contributions to Congressional Campaign Committees

Increasingly, party leaders encourage their members to help raise funds for the party’s vulnerable candidates in the upcoming elections (Kolodny 1998; Sabato and Larson 2002; Cann 2008). During the 1990s, majority party Republican leaders formed the Retain Our Majority Program, setting quotas for incumbents to contribute to the National Republican Page 65 →Congressional Committee (NRCC) help their more vulnerable colleagues (VandeHei 1999). A Republican member of Congress unhappily revealed in an interview in 2003 that party leaders approached him and informed him that his subcommittee chairmanship obligated him to contribute at least $50,000 to his party.10 Democratic members have been aggressive fundraisers since 1994, but they have not always prioritized raising money to help their colleagues. In fact, they initially debated whether to allow members to contribute to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), according to a former DCCC chairman.11 Members on the leadership track—ambitious members—began it. In the [Beryl] Anthony regime, we fought about it. We worked hard to even allow it by changing the DCCC rules to allow members to contribute. It was against the rules for DCCC to contribute in a primary too. Members gave to other members but not to the DCCC. It started when [Vic Fazio] was there. [Martin Frost] in the minority needed it more for ready cash. We needed to share the wealth. The Caucus chair did fundraising too. We began the process of starting to tithe, but largely learned it from the Republicans. Many members’ contributions exceed leaders’ requests, especially contributions from rank-and-file members with ambitions of being a committee chair or future leader (Cann 2008). Congressional campaign committees contribute money to congressional candidates in the form of direct contributions and coordinated expenditures. Although less common, they may also make independent expenditures on behalf of candidates provided these are not coordinated with the candidates. Congressional campaign committees also provide a variety of resources to help candidates, including staff, recruitment, research, polling, communications, fundraising assistance, and grassroots activities. Such activities are also reported to the Federal Election Commission as in-kind contributions. Before it was banned, congressional campaign committees also used soft money to run party issue-advocacy ads, but these are outside the scope of this study (as they were outside of Federal Election Commission reporting requirements). Leadership PACs Members of Congress and other elected officials began to form leadership PACs in the 1980s (Baker 1989; Corrado 1997), although members Page 66 →were already contributing to their fellow partisans.12 Leadership PACs are unique because members of Congress and other elected officials—not outside groups such as unions, trade associations, or ideological interest groups—form them to contribute up to $10,000 per cycle ($5,000 in the primary and $5,000 in the general) to their colleagues and would-be colleagues. Initially, the scope of leadership PACs was minimal, but with every new cycle more members form them. Like making a contribution to the party’s congressional campaign committee, forming a leadership PAC allows members to express their party loyalty in a competitive environment. Member-to-Member Contributions An increasing number of members of Congress, particularly those from safe seats, help fellow members with contributions of up to the maximum individual contribution limit per election from their own campaign funds. Party leaders encourage members to contribute from their campaigns to their colleagues’ races, as well as to the congressional campaign committee, strengthening the relationship between the party-in-government and the congressional party organization (Sabato and Larson 2002).

As shown in tables 3.3 and 3.4, I analyze these types of fundraising separately: contributions members make from their personal campaigns to their party congressional campaign committee (i.e., the DCCC or NRCC); contributions members make from their personal campaigns to other House candidates of their party, separated by incumbents and nonincumbents; and contributions members make from their own leadership PAC to House candidates. I obtained these data from the Federal Election Commission for the 1988 election cycle and from the Center for Responsive Politics for the 1990–2012 election cycles. Specifically, I calculated every contribution made from incumbents to candidates running in the general election for the House of Representatives (which includes incumbents, challengers, and open seat candidates, analyzed separately) and to the party’s congressional campaign committee and national committee, and I present the averages, by party. I also collected data on every member of Congress’s leadership PAC contributions to general election candidates and party committees. Tables 3.3 and 3.4 document members’ fast-growing role as party fundraisers. Members’ contributions, whether from their own campaigns and leadership PACs to individual members or to the congressional campaign committees, increased dramatically over time, even if not with every cycle. Page 67 →In the 1988 election cycle, Democratic members gave, on average, $2,768 to other congressional candidates, $649 to the DCCC, and $5,328 from leadership PACs. By the 1998 cycle, these totals were $10,989, $13,004, and $9,180, respectively, and by the 2008 cycle they were $161,302, $27,550, and $51,257, respectively. Republican members contributed, on average, $1,693 to other congressional candidates, $22 to the NRCC, and $555 from their own leadership PACs in the 1988 cycle. By the 1998 cycle, these totals for Republicans were Page 68 →$8,577, $40,304, and $22,847, respectively, and in 2008 they were $109,203, $14,365, and $60,609. A sharp increase in contributions from both Republican and Democratic members occurred in the 103rd and 104th Congresses, concomitant with the onset of an era of electoral uncertainty. Table 3.3. Fundraising Loyalty: Average Contributions from Democratic Members of Congress, by Type and Congress Congress/Election Year To Party To Incumbent House Candidates To Nonincumbent House Candidates From Leadership PAC Leadership PACs 100th $649 $2,141 $627 $5,328 16 (1988) (258) (312) (94) (1,327) 101st (1990)

$1,384 (199)

$2,166 (285)

$568 (59)

$2,931 (1,216)

16

102nd (1992)

$1,899 (208)

$2,012 (264)

$810 (129)

$3,141 (1,279)

13

103rd (1994)

$2,008 (221)

$2,336 (414)

$678 (98)

$7,833 (3,539)

15

104th (1996)

$6,661 (1,048)

$3,759 (542)

$2,751 (389)

$5,375 (2,341)

14

105th (1998)

$13,004 $6,735 (1,633) (570)

$4,254 (486)

$9,180 (3,121)

23

106th

$8,072

$7,738

$4,173

$18,536

(2000)

(1,714)

(827)

(595)

(5,863)

107th (2002)

$49,769 $8,406 (6,240) (699)

$4,486 (434)

$23,865 (7,117)

48

108th

$85,431 $10,866

$5,693

$21,653

56

(2004)

(6,692)

(573)

(5,534)

109th

$145,469 $12,170

$14,194

$35,853

(2006)

(9,064)

(1,738)

(7,596)

110th (2008)

$161,302 $17,558 (12,562) (1,908)

$9,992 (1,433)

$51,257 (9,694)

121

111th (2010)

$135,094 $23,986 (13,770) (3,267)

$4,637 (732)

$51,099 (9,470)

137

(982) (988)

38

89

112th $98,234 $11,839 $8,055 $42,834 131 (2012) (10,258) (1,624) (1,627) (9,205) Source: Data come from the Federal Election Commission and the Center for Responsive Politics; entries are calculated by the author. Cell entries are average dollar amounts, with standard errors in parentheses. In the analyses that follow, I operationalize fundraising loyalty as members’ total contributions to their party campaign committee, from their campaigns to House candidates, and from their leadership PACs to House candidates. Table 3.4. Fundraising Loyalty: Average Contributions from Republican Members of Congress, by Type and Congress Congress/Election Year To Party To Incumbent House Candidates To Nonincumbent House Candidates From Leadership PAC Leadership PACs 100th $22 $881 $812 $555 5 (1998) (0) (126) (161) (437) 101st (1990)

655 (399)

1,735 (217)

1,560 (283)

1,319 (948)

7

102nd (1992)

443 (168)

1,634 (382)

1,289 (385)

1,455 (1,008)

7

103rd

4,705

1,617

5,119

3,821

6

(1994)

(638)

(282)

(1,304)

(2,403)

104th (1996)

16,574 (3,319)

5,946 (582)

2,624 (364)

1,1045 (4,753)

15

105th (1998)

40,304 (5,026)

5,326 (420)

3,251 (447)

22,847 (6,789)

40

106th (2000)

10,449 (2,489)

5,250 (552)

2,074 (221)

32,825 (7,276)

62

107th (2002)

48,653 (5,795)

5,380 (545)

2,582 (399)

39,484 (8,199)

77

108th

78,467

11,500

2,142

60,776

105

(2004)

(7,578)

(2,182)

(207)

(10,090)

109th (2006)

117,766 13,401 (17,568) (1,283)

5,989 (1,092)

75,833 (12,608)

121

110th (2008)

109,203 10,093 (12,876) (1,283)

4,272 (578)

60,609 (12,151)

113

111th (2010)

118,216 6,343 (11,547) (965)

7,246 (1,231)

56,553 (10,443)

110

112th 157,416 9,164 4,151 67,113 153 (2012) (48,485) (1,197) (823) (12,974) Source: Data come from the Federal Election Commission and the Center for Responsive Politics; entries are calculated by the author. Cell entries are average dollar amounts, with standard errors in parentheses. Page 69 →These five measures of party discipline are correlated, as the correlations presented in tables 3.5 and 3.6 show, but some of the weaker correlations indicate that they draw upon different skills and efforts of members. The analyses make clear that voting, both roll call voting and voting to support the most controversial rules, are the most important measures of loyalty that help leaders attain policy control, and fundraising loyalty is increasingly valued by leaders. Roll call loyalty is most highly correlated with the other measures of loyalty, although not in every instance. The relationship between roll call loyalty and fundraising loyalty, and with speech loyalty, increase over time, likely because members who already vote with the party at high levels are looking for other ways to demonstrate their loyalty to the party and help the party’s fortunes.

Potential Mechanisms of Party Discipline

Party leaders have several mechanisms available to reward the faithful and, by omission, to punish the disloyal. As detailed in chapter 2, parties became stronger in the postreform era, and rank-and-file members ceded more legislative prerogatives to their leaders. While it is obvious that these new prerogatives could be used to exert discipline, identifying the extent of such discipline and the process by which it occurs remains difficult, and the mechanisms of discipline are underspecified in the scholarly literature. I analyze three domains in which party leaders may seek to use discipline when allocating benefits and opportunities: legislative preference, committee positions, and campaign assistance, briefly described below. The next three chapters address each domain separately, and I leave the measurements for each individual chapter. Legislative Preference The legislative calendar provides party leaders opportunities to exert discipline when they allocate legislative opportunities to their rank-and-file members. The empirical focus of chapter 4 is on how party leaders decide which members’ bills, amendments, resolutions, and “suspensions” were considered on the House floor, and under what conditions. House majority party leaders set the legislative calendar, deciding which bills and resolutions are considered on the House floor. They use their influence over the House Committee on Rules to determine whether Page 72 →any member may offer an amendment under an open rule, or, more likely, which specific amendments may be considered during debate over legislation, often allowing the amendments of certain members and precluding others. By employing their prerogatives, leaders pick and choose among members’ requests for legislative preference. Chapter 4 explores how they resolve the tension between policy control and majority control, asking when they favor the legislation of loyal members and when they help the electorally vulnerable, along with the importance of members’ committee positions, legislative entrepreneurship, and seniority. Page 70 → Table 3.5. Loyalty Correlations for Democrats 102nd 103rd 104th 105th 106th 107th

100th 101st Correlation between roll call voting and: Rule loyalty 0.65*** 0.68*** 0.19** 0.51*** Fundraising loyalty 0.14* 0.14* 0.09 0.07 0.19** 0.07 Speech loyalty 0.10 0.13* 0.13* 0.19** 0.16* Discharge petition loyalty 0.49*** в€’0.27***0.15* Correlation between rule loyalty and: Fundraising loyalty 0.16** 0.14* в€’0.14*0.20** Speech loyalty 0.12# 0.04 0.22*** Discharge petition loyalty 0.44*** Correlation between speech loyalty and: Fundraising loyalty 0.00 0.14* 0.15* 0.13# 0.12#

108th

109th

110th

111th

112th

0.10 0.18** 0.15* 0.13# 0.18** 0.21** 0.12# 0.14* 0.16* 0.14* 0.17* 0.06 0.17** 0.15* 0.60*** 0.58*** 0.40*** 0.45*** 0.52*** 0.21*** в€’0.14#

0.06

0.07

0.14#

0.07

в€’0.05 в€’0.00 в€’0.01

Discharge petition loyalty

0.15*

Correlation between discharge petition loyalty and: Fundraising loyalty 0.06 N 257 256 261 254

0.07

0.13# 0.18** 0.19** 0.11

0.21** 0.08

0.14*

в€’0.10

0.00 201

0.08 0.05 209 209

в€’0.00 0.11 202 231

0.12# 245

в€’0.02 198

0.13# 213

0.03 206

Page 71 → 100th 101st Correlation between roll call voting and: Rule loyalty Fundraising loyalty Speech loyalty

0.18* 0.11 0.19*

Table 3.6. Loyalty Correlations for Republicans 102nd 103rd 104th 105th 106th 107th 108th 0.70*** 0.01 0.13# 0.14* 0.31*** 0.33*** 0.18**

в€’0.35*** 0.09 0.14* 0.10 0.17*

Discharge petition loyalty 0.50*** в€’0.15* 0.01 Correlation between rule loyalty and: Fundraising loyalty 0.04 в€’0.14* Speech loyalty 0.15* 0.01 Discharge petition loyalty 0.12# 0.20** Correlation between speech loyalty and: Fundraising loyalty 0.35*** 0.16* 0.12 в€’0.01 в€’0.01 Discharge petition loyalty 0.35*** в€’0.22***0.01 Correlation between discharge petition loyalty and: Fundraising loyalty 0.06 0.10 0.07 N 178 177 174 182 233 227

109th

0.16* 0.18** 0.19** 0.19** 0.08 0.17** 0.14*

0.42*** 0.43*** 0.03

110th

111th

0.20** 0.15* 0.28*** 0.21**

0.29*** 0.47*** в€’0.17*

112th

0.13* 0.12# 0.21**

в€’0.02 0.20** 0.18** 0.00 0.02

в€’0.04 0.12# в€’0.01 0.01 0.12# в€’0.01 0.01 0.05 в€’0.14*0.24*** в€’0.31***в€’0.09

0.03 221

0.13# 225

0.07 229

0.06 235

0.09 204

в€’0.16* 192

0.06 243

Committee Transfers and Chairmanships Members’ main opportunities to shape legislation occur in their committees, particularly given the growth of restrictive special rules and omnibus legislation (Sinclair 2000). Committees vary greatly in importance, scope, level of activity, and jurisdiction. When filling committee vacancies, party leaders have many opportunities to exert discipline by rewarding loyalty, but they also have opportunities to help vulnerable members and prioritize legislative entrepreneurship. Leaders, in conjunction with the party Steering Committee, determine which members receive committee transfers to better committees. House rules dictate that members of Congress cannot serve on more than two standing committees, although parties may grant a waiver allowing a member to violate this rule. Democratic Caucus and Republican Conference rules provide more specific guidelines. Both parties determine which committees are “exclusive” and preclude members

from serving on any other committee if they serve on an exclusive committee. The empirical focus of chapter 5 is on leaders’ decisions to allocate transfers to improve members’ committee assignments. Chapter 5 also analyzes the selection of committee chairs. Seniority—years of service on the committee—has long been the most important, and often automatic, criterion for majority party members. Important institutional changes, however, have greatly increased the power of party leaders over committees. Reforms to the seniority system adopted by Democrats during the 1970s and augmented by Republicans in 1995 have made it clear that majority party seniority on a committee is no guarantee of a chairmanship. In 1995, Republicans adopted six-year term limits on committee chairs, and from 1995 to 2009, and then again in 2011, term limits on committee chairmanships made it clear that party leaders, not committee chairs, were in charge, further reducing the importance of seniority as a Page 73 →criterion for committee chairs. For Republicans, these term limits, coupled with new methods of selecting chairmen, provided leaders with many new opportunities to discipline their members, particularly once large numbers of chairs were vacated after the first six years of GOP control. There is perhaps no better example of party leaders’ growing power during the 12 years of Republican control between 1995 and 2006 than the decline in the importance of seniority. The fact that it took Democrats two years to repeal term limits on committee chairs after winning the majority in the 2006 elections reveals the significance of the shift in power from committee chairs to party leaders. Campaign Assistance Party leaders have amplified their opportunities to assist members with their campaigns: both leaders and congressional campaign committees play an increasingly active role in congressional campaigns (Corrado et al. 1997; Herrnson 2000; Herrnson and Wilcox 1999; Jacobson 2004; Sabato and Larson 2002; Cann 2008). Leaders allocate contributions from congressional campaign committees (the DCCC and NRCC) and their own leadership PACs. Given the nature of their mission and leadership, congressional campaign committees are very much a part of the party-in-government, despite their distinct organizational function. Unlike the national party committees, congressional campaign committees (the National Republican Congressional Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee), are chaired by members of Congress who, by virtue of this role, are in the inner circle of party leadership. Contribution decisions are therefore made in a context where party leaders possess full knowledge of a member’s record and current electoral circumstances. In most election cycles since 1994, majority control has been an open question, dependent on the outcome of the few competitive races. As a result, congressional campaign committees bolstered their efforts to “pursue majorities” (Kolodny 1998) in the mid-1990s, spending increasing amounts of money in every cycle on congressional candidates, including incumbents, open seat candidates, and, to a lesser extent, challengers. As their fundraising totals break records with every cycle (Sabato and Larson 2002), they become more important to members’ reelection efforts, particularly to those who need campaign funds. Rank-and-file members have dramatically increased their role in their colleagues’ campaigns—both through their leadership PAC contributions Page 74 →and member-to-member transfers. Party leaders and ambitious members are increasingly likely to form leadership PACs. Members with leadership PACs can contribute up to $10,000 to their colleagues ($5,000 in a primary and $5,000 in the general election), and they can also use leadership PAC money to finance their fundraising activities and travel. An increasing number of members of Congress help their fellow partisans with individual contributions from their campaigns. Members without leadership PACs are bound by the same limits as any other individual donor—$1,000 per candidate, per election, through the 2002 election cycle. After the Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act went into effect, the limits increased to $2,000 per candidate per election, indexed for inflation. With the adjustments, individual contribution limits were $2,000 in 2004, $2,100 in 2006, and $2,300 in 2008, $2,400 in 2010, and $2,500 in 2012. Party leaders encourage members to

contribute from their campaigns to their colleagues’ races, as well as to the congressional campaign committee, strengthening the relationship between the party leadership in Congress and the congressional party organization (Sabato and Larson 2002). The tension between policy control and majority control extends to the campaign trail. With the significant rise of each of these types of party money, party leaders and rank-and-file members alike have many opportunities to reward loyalty, but even with increasingly large party and candidate war chests, campaign money is limited, and leaders and members of Congress alike must make strategic decisions. Further, leaders and members alike view the campaign trail as a particularly important place to pursue electoral majorities rather than reward loyalty expressed in roll call voting or speech making on the House floor. There are other domains of resources and benefits I chose not to analyze. When describing favorable treatment by leaders in interviews, for example, many members mentioned being appointed to congressional delegations traveling to interesting or relaxing destinations to study policy issues, such as global warming, in between golf games or sightseeing tours. Others mentioned the chance to participate in meetings with international leaders. While members certainly enjoy such opportunities and other perquisites determined by their leaders, I focus on those domains that have the greatest consequences for members’ congressional careers and for policy outcomes.

Page 75 →

Four Rewarding Loyalty on the Legislative Calendar In an interview with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, he revealed that Republican leaders brought Representative Jim Nussle’s (R-IA) ethanol legislation—over opposition from Ways and Means Committee chairman Bill Archer (R-TX)—to the House floor for consideration as a reward for his party loyalty. “Jim Nussle, who had been heroic on a huge range of things for the party, had to have that opportunity” to have his ethanol legislation considered, Gingrich said. This chapter asks whether majority party leaders routinely use their control over the legislative agenda to reward loyalty, and punish disloyalty by withholding legislative opportunities. From the thousands of bills and resolutions introduced in every congress, whose bills, resolutions, and amendments make it to the House floor? The results show that leaders at times exert discipline by rewarding loyal members with legislative opportunities, but, as predicted, the value of the opportunities vary by Speaker according to the political context. The legislative calendar provides party leaders with opportunities to exert discipline. This chapter evaluates how majority party leaders allocate legislative opportunities to their rank-and-file members. The empirical focus is on how party leaders in the Congresses from 1987 to 2012 decided which members’ bills, amendments, and resolutions to bring to the House floor for consideration. I pay particular attention to the interplay between the majority party’s electoral goal of maintaining a partisan majority and its policy goal of enhancing party unity to pass legislation. Majority party leaders set the legislative agenda and fill the House calendar,1Page 76 → which has space for only a fraction of the thousands of bills and amendments introduced. Majority party leaders determine whose bills are considered on the House floor and under what conditions. Leaders generally work with committee chairs to determine which bills are reported out of committee and in what form. They may even shepherd some bills through committee from start to finish, carefully monitoring their legislative progress. In other instances, they evaluate the legislation marked up by a committee or committees and determine whether it will be considered on the House floor. Using their influence over the House Committee on Rules, leaders decide whether or which amendments are in order during the consideration of legislation, increasingly employing restrictive rules that permit the amendments of just a selected few members. Or, pursuant to the rules of the House—and in actual practice—the Speaker determines whose bills are considered under “suspension of the rules,” a procedural shortcut used to expedite noncontroversial legislation. In sum, by employing their prerogatives, leaders pick and choose among members’ requests for legislative preference. Given a massive pool of legislation (typically over 6,000 pieces) introduced by 435 members with varied expertise and institutional positions to choose from, leaders must weigh many factors when deciding whose bills, resolutions, and amendments to bring to the House floor. They have incentives to reward loyalty and recognize legislative entrepreneurship, and they also have incentives to help their electorally vulnerable members. In interviews, former leaders and former and current leadership staff explained how party leaders allocate legislative opportunities. They all stressed the complexity of the decision-making process, and they all acknowledged the importance of loyalty. Some volunteered that loyalty was important, others focused on loyalty only when they were specifically asked about it. Former Republican Speaker Newt Gingrich explained: “You start with whether they are part of the team .В .В .В . When I was Speaker, loyalty to the team was absolutely important.” A former majority and minority party Democratic leader concurred that loyal members benefit and provided more insight into the process: Yes, by and large [loyal member get more legislation on the floor], and the loyal more often got their transition rule in tax bills, line items in appropriations bills, amendments in Commerce Committee

bills, etc. It’s not easy and it’s not automatic though. A conversation with the Speaker didn’t guarantee your priority in the bill, but you always had the ability to go to the people you’d supported—thePage 77 → dean of the [state] delegation who knows how you vote—who could also intercede to remind them that you had been there. But older members didn’t see it that way because they had seniority and wanted to control things.2

According to rank-and-file members, loyalty and expertise both help members in their efforts to have their legislation considered. According to a moderate Republican serving in all of the Republican-controlled Congresses under consideration in this analysis, There is a tendency to give preference to members who are more loyal—remember, loyalty means voting for rules, giving money, and also an ambiguous credential of being conservative—a conservative ideology that flaunts the fact that you are conservative on all issues. I wonder who made up this conservative icon of Republicanism. It helps in getting your amendments or bills. Also in the mix is persistence, credibility, and a professional relationship with the leadership. Five years ago, Jim Greenwood would not have had an amendment to the cloning bill. Today, he’s credible on the issue . . . loyalty can be infused with members’ understanding about how the institution works.3 Former majority-party Democratic whip Tony Coelho (CA) echoed these responses about decision rules in the legislative process: “loyalty was used, but nothing was that simple.” This chapter seeks to disentangle the complexity of leaders’ decisions and goals in differing contexts.

Legislative Preference as a Mechanism of Discipline The legislative calendar is not an immediately obvious place to search for party discipline. Committee chairs wield considerable, albeit diminished, power to move their bills on the floor (Sinclair 2007). Some of the legislative calendar is predetermined. It contains reauthorization bills, “must-pass” legislation (including annual appropriations bills, periodic continuing resolutions necessary to keep the government operating, and occasional increases in the debt ceiling), rules and resolutions necessary for House operations and maintenance, and special rules that govern the consideration of most bills. Majority party priorities by definition have a reserved place on the congressional agenda. Significant domestic and international Page 78 →events may necessitate the consideration of legislative solutions. Leaders of the president’s party are compelled to pursue presidential priorities. Even in the management of these legislative priorities, party leaders have opportunities to delegate sponsorship to individual members or to adjudicate between members’ competing proposals. And beyond these constraints on the shape of the legislative calendar, leaders can select from among their caucus members’ legislation to fill the remaining space. Because the number of bills introduced in a given congress far exceeds the time available on the House floor, leaders must pick and choose among many requests. Majority party leaders determine the legislative calendar. In this analysis, I therefore consider majority party leaders’ allocation of legislative opportunities to their caucus or conference members, analyzing Democrats from 1987 through 1994 and 2007 through 2010 and Republicans from 1995 through 2006 and 2011 and 2012. Minority party leaders are left with limited opportunities to grant legislative preference, but they do increasingly weigh in on, or even decide, which of their members offer measures protected by procedural rules in the House, for example, through motions to recommit, minority party substitutes to major bills, and even determining the sponsors of party-supported discharge petitions.4

Leaders’ Pursuit and Prioritization of Goals As outlined in detail in chapter 2, party leaders pursue two goals that are often in tension, policy control and majority control, when they determine the legislative agenda. The policy control hypothesis expects that party leaders will reward loyal roll call voting and rule voting by providing incentives for continued or increased

loyalty. The majority control hypothesis predicts that party leaders seeking to maintain majority party control will assist electorally vulnerable members—regardless of their party loyalty—and reward members for their fundraising loyalty to the party. Additionally, party leaders may focus on institutional maintenance when crafting the legislative agenda, so I allow for the possibility that legislative entrepreneurs, committee chairs, and senior members are advantaged because of their efforts, experience, and expertise. Policy control and majority control are not mutually exclusive alternatives. In interviews, former leaders and their staff emphasized that they are well aware of members’ voting records, fundraising efforts, districts, electoral situations, and legislative activities, and they are likely to consider all of these factors. Multivariate analyses over several Congresses allow me to Page 79 →assess the use and prioritization of each consideration. I expect that leaders pursue each of these goals, but their relative priority depends on the particular electoral and institutional context in a given congress. Congressional leaders have an incentive to pursue policy control by exerting party discipline, that is, by rewarding loyal party members with legislative opportunities and punishing defectors by keeping their bills off the legislative calendar. Party discipline helps leaders cultivate something akin to responsible party government (American Political Science Association 1950) in which they can achieve their policy agenda. In Congresses with narrow majorities, majority party leaders need the votes of nearly all of their members on nearly all important issues, particularly given the increased polarization on significant roll call votes (Sinclair 2000). Using rewards to provide members with incentives for voting with the party could affect policy outcomes. Beyond attaining the 218th vote necessary to pass legislation, party leaders also strive to maximize the support of their members to present a united front to the public. Dissent from fellow partisans makes it more difficult to attract public support for the party’s position. Dissenters’ cues provide the attentive public with reasons to oppose the majority’s legislative program, reducing its ultimate chances for enactment in its House-passed form and diminishing the party’s political gain. For their part, members have incentives to obtain preferential treatment from the leadership by demonstrating their loyalty in their policy and procedural voting. Reelection and policy achievements are primary goals for members of Congress (Fenno 1973), and legislative accomplishments and the attendant publicity they receive bolster members’ chances of reelection (Wawro 2000). As new policy issues emerge and electoral dynamics change, members have reason to seek continued party support from party leaders. Differences between Members An obvious litmus test of party loyalty is consistently voting with the party majority on roll call votes on the House floor. Such loyalty is particularly valuable in an era of tight competition for party control of Congress, when the majority party wants to be able to point to a record of legislative accomplishment and every vote counts. But according to several current and former members of Congress and their senior aides, voting with the party on rules is the ultimate test of loyalty, and they remember when members vote against special rules that fail. Rules set the terms of debate on legislation, giving party leaders control over the consideration of legislation. In an era Page 80 →where members routinely vote with the party, members also express their loyalty above and beyond their voting record by using partisan rhetoric during one-minute speeches and by refraining from signing discharge petitions while in the majority. That said, majority party leaders also want to maintain and bolster their electoral majorities, and this desire can militate against an overly rigid use of party loyalty as a criterion for allocating legislative preference. Losing seats may cost leaders their jobs, and leading the majority party is an entirely different—and far superior—job than leading the minority party. The House is a majoritarian institution; majority party leaders are far better positioned to maintain and enhance their own power, and they have a much better chance of achieving their party’s policy goals. Accordingly, party leaders strive to elect as many fellow partisans as possible, regardless of their loyalty to the party’s ideological core. The need to win a majority of seats focuses attention on the party’s vulnerable incumbents, and this need can limit the selective use of legislative benefits to enhance party loyalty, particularly as partisan margins have narrowed. Given leaders’ desire to provide vulnerable

members with legislative accomplishments as an aid for reelection, they should bring their legislation to the floor for consideration regardless of their level of party loyalty. Members can demonstrate party loyalty by forming leadership PACs or making contributions from their own campaign coffers to fellow incumbents and to their party’s congressional campaign committee, thereby increasing their party’s chances of winning seats in the next election. As variance in party loyalty in roll call voting declines, large contributors distinguish themselves above and beyond consistent party line voters. Party leaders also have an incentive to reward loyal fundraisers in the legislative process as a means of encouraging other members to raise campaign funds. Party leaders have a significant interest in institutional maintenance. They need to pass annual appropriations bills and other necessary legislation to keep the Congress functioning and the government running. Party leaders therefore depend on the expertise and efforts of the senior members, committee chairmen, and legislative entrepreneurs in their caucus or conference. In the contemporary era, majority party leaders often shepherd legislation through the legislative process from the drafting stage to final passage. When determining whether or when to schedule legislation, they sometimes bypass the committee system altogether (Davidson 1999; Sinclair 2007). A surprisingly large number of bills considered in committee hearingsPage 81 → and even marked up in full committee do not reach the floor, and a surprisingly large number of bills considered on the floor were not the subject of committee hearings. Leaders should be more likely to schedule legislation introduced by committee chairmen. Committee and subcommittee chairs convene hearings and markups of legislation they have sponsored, launching a bill on the traditional path to floor consideration. When party leaders are indifferent to the policy in question, they are likely to defer to committee chairs. Further, committee chairs often work with party leaders to craft party policy on significant issues within their jurisdiction. It is not a coincidence, for example, that the tax bills considered on the House floor are usually written by the chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means. Committee chairs are thus likely to see much more of their legislation considered on the House floor. In addition, seniority may enhance a member’s ability to have his or her legislation considered. Experience enhances institutional and policy expertise, helping members to take advantage of policy gaps with their own legislation. Party leaders need their members to help develop policy proposals on a variety of complex issues of public concern—many more than party leaders could master on their own—and to pass the legislation necessary to keep the government functioning (Cox and McCubbins 1993; Sinclair 1995; Wawro 2000). Although many members may focus on their district careers rather than their legislative careers (Fenno 1973, 1978), most members are motivated to sponsor some legislation for electoral reasons. Sponsorship provides members with opportunities for position-taking and advertising (Mayhew 1974). But legislative success is necessary for creditclaiming. Members who introduce many bills without translating them into new public policy run the risk of being labeled ineffective. Further, there is a significant difference between introducing legislation for symbolic reasons and introducing legislation intended to bring about major policy change. When leaders determine whose bills to consider, they send a signal to members considering whether to engage in serious policy making. If majority party “workhorses” do not have their legislation brought to the House floor, as should naturally occur in a competitive environment, other members may be discouraged. By giving legislative entrepreneurs, senior members, and committee chairs legislative preference, party leaders provide all members with incentives to formulate and introduce good public policy. All else equal, then, members who are more legislatively active should have more of their legislation considered on the House floor. Page 82 →

Hypotheses The main hypotheses regarding the allocation of legislative benefits are: H1. Policy Control Hypothesis: Majority party leaders will, all else equal, grant legislative

preference to loyal partisans, especially those who vote with the party. Majority party members will reward their members who demonstrate loyalty with legislative benefits, bringing their bills and resolutions to the House floor and making their amendments in order under restrictive rules. Leaders will prioritize policy control when they pursue active partisan policy agendas and in Congresses with narrower margins, where they need almost every vote. H2. Majority Control Hypothesis: Party leaders, in their attempt to help bolster the campaigns of electorally vulnerable members, will prioritize the consideration of vulnerable members’ bills and amendments on the House floor, particularly in Congresses with many vulnerable members. Majority party leaders will also reward members for their fundraising efforts, including members’ leadership PAC contributions to other members, contributions from their campaigns to other members, and contributions to their party’s congressional campaign committee. Leaders will prioritize electoral goals in Congresses with relatively large numbers of electorally vulnerable members and when majority party control is in question.

Data and Measures The key party loyalty independent variables—roll call loyalty, support for failed rules, speech loyalty, and discharge petition loyalty—are described at length in chapter 3, as are the key electoral independent variables—fundraising loyalty and electoral vulnerability. I also include the number of terms served by a member as a measure of seniority and the number of bills and resolutions introduced as a measure of legislative entrepreneurship. The differences between Congresses are described at length in chapter 2. The data on bills, resolutions, and amendments come from the THOMAS website maintained by the Library of Congress. It contains information about bills and amendments, including sponsors and cosponsors;Page 83 → official, short, and popular titles; committee, floor, and executive actions; a detailed legislative history; Congressional Record page references; and bill summaries. Within this large collection of legislative data, there are many types of legislation of varying importance and content, which I have coded and analyzed separately. I examined every piece of legislation, including bills, resolutions, and amendments, considered on the House floor between 1987 and 2012. This includes legislation subject to a recorded vote and a voice vote. (Many data sets only include legislation and amendments on which there were recorded votes; relying on such data sets would miss significant, albeit less controversial, legislative action.) I began by compiling a list of every piece of legislation considered on the House floor in each congress. I then coded the legislation along many dimensions. I attributed the legislation to its sponsor according to one of the codes I developed to capture its significance, purpose, and even content. Bills and Resolutions Most legislation falls into the “majority leadership control” category. If legislation is not under “leadership control” because it gets to the floor by discharge petition or because a member may bring it up at any time because it relates to the privileges of the House, I do not include it. Little noticed by the public, there are many types of legislation. I distinguish between pieces of legislation according to whether they are bills, meaning they have an H.R. number (or an H.J.Res. number in limited cases), or they are resolutions, that is, are preceded by H.Con.Res. or H.Res. (except for special rules). Bills change laws and statutes, whereas resolutions express the sense of the Congress. When coding bills, I categorize them in several ways. Two important categories contain policy bills and district bills, respectively. District bills are operationalized by the mention of a geographic region in the member’s state in the bill description. This is not an ideal measure, but it is the best possible. District-specific and policy legislation of broad interest should be considered separately, as leadership incentives in delegating legislative preference may differ given the seemingly natural congruence between loyal members’ policy goals and party

leaders’ policy agendas. A more direct test of the effect of loyalty would be the party leaders’ response to members’ district-specific legislation, but I am forced to pool district and policy bills because there are not enough district bills for multivariate analysis. Page 84 →The appropriations bills, along with supplemental appropriations, are categorized separately because they are “must-pass” legislation bills, and they are brought up by the relevant “cardinal,” that is, the chair of the subcommittee from which they originated. Annual budget resolutions are also coded separately. Since the passage of the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974, the House of Representatives has usually considered the majority party’s budget blueprint on the floor, sponsored by the chairman of the House Budget Committee. There are different ways that legislation can be brought up for consideration on the House floor. More and more bills are passed as “suspensions,” including legislation authorizing significant programs (Wolfensberger 2002). For example, on June 29, 1999, Speaker Hastert recognized Congressman Bob Stump (R-AZ) to offer a motion to suspend the rules and pass a bill to “authorize a cost-of-living adjustment for veterans receiving disability compensation and their surviving family members; restore eligibility for certain medical care, education and housing loans to surviving spouses who have remarried; authorize a $465 million loan for the American Battle Monuments Commission to hasten construction of the WW II Memorial; and authorize $100 million for FY 2000–2004 for the Labor Department’s Homeless Veterans Reintegration Program; and direct the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to build four new national cemeteries.” It passed 424–0 (CQ Weekly, House Votes, 29 June 1999). In many cases, important programs are reauthorized under suspension. Under clause 1 of Rule XV, the Speaker may entertain motions to “suspend the rules and pass legislation,” referred to as suspensions. Suspensions require a vote of two-thirds of the members present and voting. No amendments are in order, and debate is limited to 40 minutes. Unless the rule is waived, the cost of legislation considered under suspension cannot exceed $100 million. Accordingly, suspensions are usually bipartisan and relatively noncontroversial. In recent years, however, minority party Democrats have threatened to vote against legislation considered under suspension if Democratic-sponsored legislation did not comprise around one-quarter of the suspension calendar. Needing Democratic votes to reach the two-thirds requirement for passage, Republicans conceded, although the Speaker always recognizes a majority party member to offer the legislation, even if its sponsor is a Democrat. These bills, as with all bills, however, are coded by sponsor, not by the member who offered it on the House floor. The Speaker determines which bills are called up and considered as suspensions. The majority leadership schedules the bills under suspension of Page 85 →the rules, usually on Mondays and Tuesdays, in accordance with the rules of the House. H.R. legislation considered under suspension is considered with other bills. I code resolutions passed under suspension with the other resolutions. For example, on 8 July 2002, the Speaker placed H.Res.471, a resolution to “recognize the significant contributions of Paul Ecke, Jr. to the poinsettia industry” on the suspension calendar, and it passed by a voice vote. The bill’s sponsor was conservative party loyalist Randy “Duke” Cunningham (R-CA). Many members of Congress introduce resolutions to honor their constituents’ contributions that never reach the House floor. Therefore this placement represented a leadership opportunity granted to Cunningham. Under Democratic majorities, hundreds of commemoratives were proposed every congress to name a day, a week, or even a year in honor of a person, group, or issue. Only a handful passed each year; for example, a law was passed designating 16 November 1989 as Interstitial Cystitis Awareness Day, 16 January 1993 as National Good Teen Day, and 3–9 May 1992 as Be Kind to Animals and National Pet Week. As bizarre as these and other examples seem, a number of the former Democrats that I interviewed assured me that these are important to the members who introduce them on behalf of interested constituents, and the many more members who introduce them but do not have them considered are disappointed. These are also included as resolutions. Amendments

The majority party leadership controls the structure—and often the content—of the amendment process in conjunction with the House Committee on Rules. Bills, except privileged matters and suspensions, can be brought up on the House floor only after a special rule is adopted. Rules set the time allocated for general debate and the structure of the amendment process. Rules are written and reported to the House from the Rules Committee, which acts as an arm of the majority leadership. Since 1975, the Speaker has appointed majority party Rules Committee members and the minority party leader has appointed minority party members. The majority party has a 9–4 supermajority on the Rules Committee, ensuring that it controls the process. Before the House considers a rule, the Rules Committee convenes a hearing to give members a chance to testify and to urge committee members to make their amendments in order, that is, to allow them to offer them. Page 86 →There are many types of rules that provide or deny members opportunities to offer amendments. Bach and Smith (1988) categorize rules as open, organizing, expansive, closed, restrictive, and complex. I classify all amendments in one of two ways: “leadership controlled” and open. An open rule allows any member to offer an amendment that complies with the standing rules of the House; sometimes the rule specifies that the amendments must be preprinted. As leaders have become more creative, they have used many different types of rules to deal with amendments on the House floor. The distinction I make in the analysis to follow, however, focuses only on whether or not the leadership controls a member’s ability to offer an amendment. Restrictive rules of any sort that preclude amendments other than those specified by the rule fall into the “leadership controlled” category, and open rules, of course, fall into the “open” category. Departing from some previous scholarship (e.g., Bach and Smith 1988), I consider a rule that limits amendments to those submitted in advance to the Congressional Record to be open. Although such rules are not traditionally considered to be open, any member has the opportunity to submit an amendment to the Congressional Record, thus only a lack of forethought—not the rule itself—prevents a member from offering an amendment. Categorizing complex rules is complex, as their name suggests. When a complex rule protects certain amendments from points of order, or specifies that a certain member shall offer them, those amendments are coded as leadership-controlled. The same rule, however, may open certain titles of a bill to amendment. Such amendments are then categorized as open. For the purpose of comparison, I collect data on amendments offered under open rules as well. Figure 4.1 demonstrates that most majority-party members of Congress see action on few bills and resolutions in a given Congress. The figure shows the percentage of majority party members having the 0 through 82 pieces of legislation considered on the House floor in a given Congress (rather than members’ totals during the entire time period) from 1987 to 2012. This includes legislation under “leadership control,” the bills and resolutions described above and amendments specified in special rules, but not amendments offered under open rules. Over 20 percent of majority-party members had none of their legislation considered on the House floor in a particular Congress. The plurality of majority party members, around 19 percent, had only one piece of legislation considered, and the median was 2 pieces. Having one’s legislation considered is very valuable to members, and as the figure reveals, not a frequent occurrence for most members. Fig. 4.1. Majority party members’ legislation considered on the House floor under leadership control, 1987–2012. (Data from THOMAS, calculated by author.) Page 87 →

Results Because the distribution of legislation considered on the House floor is skewed toward zero, as is often the case with count data, I employ negative binomial regression techniques to analyze legislation considered on the House floor.5 The legislation considered under leadership control includes bills, resolutions, and amendments made in order under restrictive rules. I analyze each of these dependent variables separately. I then analyze amendments offered under open rules, for example, not under leadership control, to assess any differences between the predictors of amendments under closed and open rules. I run the models separately for each congress, subdivided by party. The key independent variables under consideration are members’ party loyalty voting score in the first session, members’ support for special rules that failed, members’ partisan speeches, and fundraising loyalty—a variable capturing the sum of money a member contributes to House candidates and the party campaign committee. These variables Page 88 →are explained in detail in chapter 3. I include a dummy variable indicating whether a member is a Blue Dog Democrat in the 110th and 111th Congresses. (Blue Dogs had not yet

formed in the earlier Democratic-controlled Congresses.) I include a dummy variable for Tuesday Group members in the 104th and 105th Congresses, and a dummy variable for Tea Party members in the 112th Congress. I also include the following independent variables: a dummy variable for committee chairs; a dummy variable for a member facing a competitive race; a variable capturing a member’s legislative entrepreneurship (the number of bills and resolutions sponsored); and seniority (the number of terms served in Congress).6 The tables that follow report the coefficients and standard errors from the regressions, and the figures that follow show the substantive effects of key independent variables, holding terms and the number of bills at their means and holding unsafe seat and chair at 0. Democrats Table 4.1 reports the coefficients and standard errors from six regressions predicting the consideration of Democratic members’ bills during each Democratic-controlled Congress. Table 4.2 reports the coefficients and standard errors from six regressions predicting the consideration of Democratic members’ resolutions during each Democratic-controlled Congress using the same independent variables as described in the previous analysis of bills. Taken together, the results presented in tables 4.1 and 4.2 demonstrate that leaders pursued both policy control and majority control when deciding whose bills and resolutions to consider on the House floor, particularly when it came to bringing members’ resolutions to the floor. Party leaders rewarded their members who supported them on rules that failed by bringing their resolutions to the House floor in the 100th, 101st, and 103rd Congresses (no rules failed in the 110th and 111th Congresses). Figure 4.2 shows that, in the 100th, 101st, and 103rd Congresses, members whose support for failed rules was two standard deviations below the mean level of support (or at the minimum level of rule support) had no resolutions considered. Those who supported every rule that failed had a predicted count of approximately two resolutions on the floor, holding the other variables at their means or modes. These are meaningful differences—two resolutions provide members the opportunity to engage in position taking and credit claiming on an important policy issue and to recognize important constituency concerns or accomplishments. In the 110th Congress, Pelosi rewarded speech loyalty—those who gave more Page 89 →partisan speeches—with more resolutions. By contrast, leaders did not reward party loyalty when they determined which bills to bring to the floor. In fact, members giving partisan speeches on the floor had significantly fewer bills considered in the 101st and 102nd Congresses. Party leaders also pursued their electoral goals on the legislative calendar. Democratic leaders in every Congress except the 111th pursued an electoral strategy in the scheduling of bills or resolutions or both. In the 100th Congress and the 102nd Congress, fundraisers were rewarded by having their bills considered on the House floor. Fundraising among rank-and-file members had not yet taken off, and leaders may have been trying to send a signal to all members that fundraising would not only benefit the candidates receiving their colleagues’ money but the contributors as well. In the 100th and 110th Congress, fundraising loyalty was rewarded with resolutions. Figure 4.3 shows the substantive effect of moving from no contributions to contributing two standard deviations above the mean. In the 100th Congress, it resulted in one extra resolution, and in the 110th, an extra 0.5 resolutions. Table 4.1. Bills Considered on the House Floor, Democrats 100th 101st 102nd 103rd 110th 111th Loyalty variables Roll call voting в€’0.001 0.013 0.011 в€’0.002 в€’0.010 в€’0.009 (0.008) (0.008) (0.007) (0.009) (0.013) (0.013) Rule support 0.003 в€’0.002 в€’0.001 0.001 (0.003) (0.003) (0.001) (0.004) Fundraising 0.339# в€’0.001 0.628* 0.082 0.003 0.014

(0.196)

(0.289)

(0.314)

(0.100)

(0.014)

(0.021)

0.119 (0.191)

в€’0.069* (0.029) 0.292 (0.181)

в€’0.048# (0.027) 0.146 (0.139)

0.007 (0.011) 0.033 (0.163)

0.005 (0.006) 0.152 (0.171)

в€’0.027 (0.021) 0.223 (0.204)

0.057*** 0.064*** (0.017) (0.019) 0.256 0.362

0.071*** (0.017) 0.458#

0.084*** (0.017) 0.364

0.034** 0.016 (0.013) (0.020) 0.645*** 0.634*

(0.228) (0.250) 0.028*** 0.032*** (0.005) (0.005)

(0.234) 0.029*** (0.005)

(0.236) 0.036*** (0.005)

(0.165) (0.266) 0.027*** 0.028*** (0.004) (0.006)

Speeches

Unsafe seat Terms Committee chair # of bills introduced

в€’0.073 0.121 (0.175) (0.242) Constant в€’0.547*в€’0.589**в€’0.708***в€’0.989***0.166 в€’1.031*** (0.215) (0.219) (0.195) (0.240) (0.149) (0.216) N 247 247 249 251 229 238 Note: Standard errors in parentheses. # p < 0.1, * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001 Blue Dog membership

Page 90 →Leaders in the 102nd and 103rd Congresses helped vulnerable members with extra resolutions. In both of these Congresses, Foley was worried about the size of the Democrats’ majority, given all of the competitive races in upcoming elections. The substantive effect is stronger in the 103rd Congress, as shown in figure 4.4, with unsafe members get one extra resolution on the House floor. Party leaders, in conjunction with the Rules Committee, determine whose amendments are made in order when the committee crafts restrictive rules. Despite party leaders’ involvement, they do not reward loyalty when deciding whose amendments to make in order, as the results in table 4.3 make clear. Instead, committee chairs are often more likely to have the opportunity to bring their amendments to the floor. Legislative entrepreneurs are also more likely to have their amendments made in order. Just as they put more effort into bill sponsorships than other members, they are likely to make more of an effort to approach the committee with requests to include amendments they have crafted. Table 4.2. Resolutions Considered on the House Floor, Democrats 100th 101st 102nd 103rd 110th Loyalty variables Roll call voting Rule support Fundraising

в€’0.002 (0.022) 0.034*** (0.007) 1.117# (0.583)

Speeches Unsafe seat Terms

0.384 (0.425) 0.120*

0.011 (0.026) 0.038*** (0.007) 0.939 (0.790) в€’0.058 (0.067) 0.211 (0.465) 0.158**

0.077*** (0.022) в€’0.007 (0.005) в€’0.017 (0.952) 0.122 (0.080) 0.804# (0.439) 0.125*

0.001 (0.027) 0.046*** (0.010) 0.232 (0.264) в€’0.008 (0.032) 1.218** (0.422) 0.232***

111th

0.021 (0.027)

в€’0.010 (0.018)

0.054* (0.023) 0.018# (0.010) 0.454 (0.307) в€’0.039

0.008 (0.026) в€’0.009 (0.022) в€’0.026 (0.262) в€’0.014

Committee chair # of bills introduced Blue Dog membership Constant

(0.052)

(0.056)

(0.063)

(0.065)

(0.028)

(0.026)

0.174 (0.614) 0.003 (0.011)

в€’0.446 (0.671) в€’0.006 (0.013)

1.393# (0.792) в€’0.009 (0.014)

в€’0.203 (0.750) 0.018 (0.014)

0.249 (0.357) 0.012 (0.008)

0.348 (0.388) 0.025** (0.008)

в€’0.215 в€’0.239 (0.333) (0.307) в€’3.447***в€’4.057***в€’1.303#в€’5.613***в€’0.883**в€’0.668**

(0.574) (0.725) (0.698) N 247 247 249 Note: Standard errors in parentheses. # p < 0.1, * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001

(0.821) 251

(0.288) 229

(0.243) 238

Page 91 → Fig. 4.2. The effect of rule loyalty on Democrats’ resolutions considered on the House floor Fig. 4.3. The effect of fundraising loyalty on Democrats’ resolutions considered on the House floor Fig. 4.4. The effect of electoral vulnerability on Democrats’ resolutions considered on the House floor Page 92 →By contrast, when members all have the opportunity to offer an amendment under an open rule, there is either no difference in the number of amendments offered by committee chairs or committee chairs are less likely to offer amendments. Table 4.4 shows the results of the model predicting amendments offered under open rules, where the leadership does not play a gatekeeping role. There is no relationship between amendment activity and party loyalty, save a significant negative relationship in the 100th Congress. In the 111th Congress, vulnerable members are more likely to take advantage of the opportunity to offer amendments, and, not surprisingly, legislative entrepreneurs are significantly more likely to offer amendments in all Congresses except the 110th. Republicans Republicans pursued both policy control and electoral control in determining whose bills and resolutions were considered on the House floor. Tables 4.5 and 4.6 report the coefficients and standard errors from seven Page 93 →regressions predicting the consideration of Republican members’ bills and resolutions, respectively, during each Republican-controlled congress. Party leaders rewarded their members who stuck with them by supporting failing rules with significantly more resolutions in every Congress in which at least one rule failed: the 104th, 105th, and 107th. The substantive effects of rewarding rule loyalty were large, especially in the 104th and 105th Congresses. Holding the other variables at their means or modes, those members at the average level of rule voting loyalty had around one predicted resolution in each congress. By contrast, those who supported every failing rule had three resolutions in the 104th Congress, more than three resolutions in the 105th Congress, and two resolutions in the 107th Congress. Republican Party leaders, cognizant of the importance of fundraising in an era of toss-up politics, rewarded fundraising loyalty in every Congress except the 104th. Speaker Hastert recognized fundraisers with significantly more bills in the 108th and 109th Congresses, as did Hastert in Page 94 →the 112th Congress. Figure 4.6 shows the substantive effects: holding the other variables at their mean or mode, those making contributions two standard deviations above the mean are predicted to have 0.5 more bills in the 108th Congress and nearly one more bill than those who make no contributions in the 109th Congress—a Congress in which Republicans were particularly worried about holding on to their majority (which they subsequently lost). The substantive differences in the 112th Congress are smaller, a difference of about 0.3 bills. Fundraisers are also more likely to have their resolutions considered on the House floor in the 105th, 106th, 107th, 108th, 109th, and 112th Congresses. The substantive effects are shown in figure 4.7, showing that contributing two standard deviations above the mean amount of money to one’s party and colleagues resulted in up to 2.5 more resolutions in the 108th Congress, although the effects are smaller in other Congresses. Table 4.3. Amendments Offered under Closed Rules, Democrats

Loyalty variables Roll call voting Rule support Fundraising

100th

101st

102nd

103rd

в€’0.001 (0.010) 0.003

в€’0.009 (0.009) 0.004

0.003 (0.009) в€’0.002

в€’0.000 (0.011) в€’0.006

(0.004) 0.263 (0.314)

(0.003) 0.139 (0.353)

(0.002) 0.619 (0.418)

(0.005) 0.066 (0.162)

в€’0.041 в€’0.040 (0.029) (0.035)

0.041 (0.027)

0.031 (0.027)

0.003 (0.017)

0.007 (0.009)

в€’0.040 (0.225) 0.002 (0.024) 0.546# (0.297) 0.044*** (0.006)

в€’0.082 (0.189) -0.019 (0.026) 0.680# (0.370) 0.043*** (0.006)

0.324 (0.211) 0.028 (0.025) в€’0.011 (0.345) 0.058*** (0.007)

Speeches

110th

в€’0.032#в€’0.016 (0.019) (0.013)

в€’0.005 (0.253) Terms в€’0.019 (0.022) Committee chair 0.723* (0.310) # of bills introduced 0.028*** (0.007) Blue Dog membership в€’0.300 (0.261) Constant в€’1.001***в€’0.997***в€’0.691**в€’1.023***0.355 (0.271) (0.266) (0.251) (0.306) (0.225) N 247 247 249 251 229 Note: Standard errors in parentheses. # p < 0.1, * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001 Unsafe seat

0.288 (0.233) 0.001 (0.023) 0.303 (0.293) 0.043*** (0.006)

111th

0.002 (0.021) 0.239 (0.220) в€’0.011 (0.024) 1.434*** (0.320) 0.012# (0.007) 0.010 (0.254) в€’0.161 (0.234) 238

In more recent Congresses, Republican leaders reinforced their electoral strategy by not just rewarding loyal fundraisers but also bringing the bills of electorally vulnerable members to the House floor. In the Page 95 →108th, 109th, and 112th Congresses, those in competitive races were significantly more likely to have their bills considered on the House floor. Figure 4.8 shows the substantive effects: holding the other variables at their means or modes, moving from a safe to an unsafe seat results in one extra bill on the floor in the 108th Congress, and around 0.5 extra bills in the 109th and 112th. Table 4.4. Amendments Offered under Open Rules, Democrats 100th 101st 102nd 103rd 110th Loyalty variables Roll call voting в€’0.037# 0.008 в€’0.015 в€’0.009 в€’0.355 (0.020) (0.021) (0.013) (0.014) (0.376) Rule support 0.008 в€’0.003 в€’0.001 0.001 (0.009) (0.009) (0.003) (0.006) Fundraising в€’0.929 в€’1.355 в€’0.135 в€’0.448 в€’0.550 (1.093) (1.734) (0.764) (0.544) (0.432) Speeches 0.015 0.067# 0.003 в€’0.003 (0.069) (0.039) (0.021) (0.127) Unsafe seat в€’0.582 в€’0.607 в€’0.074 в€’0.144 в€’20.010

111th 0.068 (0.054)

в€’0.089 (0.120) в€’0.110 (0.087) 0.874#

Terms Committee chair

(0.597)

(0.612)

(0.296)

(0.296)

(1,030.484) (0.501)

0.043 (0.045) в€’1.117 (0.834)

0.030 (0.048) в€’1.975# (1.073)

0.028 (0.035) в€’1.162# (0.646)

0.033 (0.029) в€’0.856# (0.517)

в€’0.031 (0.222) 3.003 (2.908)

0.050** (0.016)

0.037*** (0.008)

0.034*** (0.007)

# of bills 0.044*** introduced (0.013) Blue Dog membership Constant

0.085 (0.079) в€’6.579 (7.062) в€’2.520***в€’2.051**в€’1.824***в€’1.515***в€’0.823 (0.654) (0.655) (0.378) (0.402) (2.503)

N 247 247 249 Note: Standard errors in parentheses. # p < 0.1, * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001

251

229

0.006 (0.057) 0.584 (0.757) 0.030# (0.017) 0.219 (0.671) в€’3.288*** (0.657) 238

Although Republican Party leaders, in cooperation with the Rules Committee, play an important role in determining whose amendments are made in order when the committee crafts restrictive rules, they do not seem to pursue their policy or electoral goals in this process. They only reward roll call voting loyalty in the 109th Congress, as shown in table 4.7. Instead, committee chairs are usually more likely to have the opportunity to bring their amendments to the floor, except in the 106th and 112th Congresses. Legislative entrepreneurs are consistently more likely to have their amendments made in order, likely reflecting their effort to craft amendments and have them approved and included. Table 4.5. Bills Considered on the House Floor, Republicans 104th 105th 106th 107th 108th 109th Loyalty variables Roll call voting Rule support Fundraising Speeches

0.025 в€’0.009 0.003 0.004 (0.021) (0.013) (0.007) (0.011) 0.039 в€’0.003 0.003 (0.035) (0.003) (0.002) в€’0.142 в€’0.032 в€’0.061 0.009 (0.095) (0.046) (0.046) (0.033) 0.003 в€’0.028*0.004 в€’0.004 (0.008) (0.014) (0.006) (0.026)

0.030 в€’0.186 (0.205) (0.185) Terms 0.074** 0.091*** (0.023) (0.022) Committee chair 0.384# 0.382# (0.223) (0.219) # of bills introduced 0.040*** 0.035*** (0.007) (0.005) Tuesday Group membership 0.213 в€’0.107 (0.226) (0.245) Tea Party membership Unsafe seat

в€’0.142 в€’0.165 (0.162) (0.158) 0.026 0.066*** (0.019) (0.020) 0.552** 0.521** (0.198) (0.196) 0.030*** 0.035*** (0.004) (0.006)

112th

0.017 (0.014)

0.003 (0.010)

0.012 (0.019)

0.052* (0.023) в€’0.000 (0.029)

0.047** (0.015) в€’0.002 (0.008)

0.012 (0.008) в€’0.022 (0.020)

0.482* (0.220) 0.036# (0.019) 0.597** (0.207) 0.031*** (0.006)

0.332* (0.131) 0.026 (0.016) 0.736*** (0.168) 0.026*** (0.004)

0.349# (0.203) 0.028 (0.019) 0.994*** (0.238) 0.026*** (0.007)

в€’0.090 (0.186)

в€’4.496 в€’0.250 0.089

Constant

в€’0.701**в€’0.314#в€’0.325*в€’0.350#

(3.452) (0.237) (0.139) N 229 224 220 Note: Standard errors in parentheses. # p < 0.1, * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001

(0.225) 223

(0.166) 227

(0.157) 234

(0.196) 228

Page 96 →Table 4.8 shows the results of the model predicting amendments offered under open rules, where the leadership does not play a gatekeeping role. When members all have the opportunity to offer an amendment, there is no relationship between amendments and party loyalty, save a positive significant relationship in the 109th Congress. Fundraisers are not more likely to offer amendments under open rules, and they are significantly less likely to do so in the 109th Congress. Vulnerable members are no more likely to take advantage of the opportunity to offer amendments. There is either no difference in the number of amendments offered by committee chairs or committee chairs are significantly less likely to offer amendments. Not surprisingly, there is a significant relationship between amendment activity and legislative entrepreneurship. Table 4.6. Resolutions Considered on the House Floor, Republicans 104th 105th 106th 107th 108th 109th Loyalty variables Roll call voting Rule support Fundraising Speeches Unsafe seat Terms Committee chair # of bills introduced

в€’0.176** (0.068) 0.362** (0.116) 0.260 (0.167) 0.055 (0.037) в€’1.579* (0.674) 0.094# (0.051) 0.236 (0.955) 0.022 (0.018)

Tuesday Group membership в€’0.796 (0.746) Tea Party membership

0.001 (0.027) 0.030*** (0.005) 0.156# (0.095) 0.011 (0.023) в€’0.455 (0.384) в€’0.018 (0.048) 0.701 (0.484) 0.030* (0.013)

0.010 (0.017)

0.015 0.047# (0.021) (0.025) 0.010* (0.004) 0.141# 0.168* 0.161** (0.073) (0.071) (0.051) в€’0.010 в€’0.033 0.021 (0.018) (0.042) (0.057) в€’0.470 в€’0.169 0.372 (0.362) (0.266) (0.445) в€’0.119*в€’0.096*0.034 (0.050) (0.041) (0.041) 1.130* 1.021** 0.488 (0.546) (0.382) (0.414) 0.027# 0.031** 0.026* (0.014) (0.011) (0.013)

0.014 0.095 (0.023) (0.097)

0.100* 0.025*** (0.048) (0.008) 0.018 в€’0.093 (0.020) (0.195) 0.274 в€’0.599 (0.290) (1.078) в€’0.0010.065 (0.033) (0.062) 0.892* 1.045 (0.423) (0.641) 0.006 0.019 (0.010) (0.022)

в€’1.050* (0.476)

в€’35.867**в€’2.319***0.611# (11.307) (0.463) (0.343) N 229 224 220 Note: Standard errors in parentheses. # p < 0.1, * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001 Constant

112th

0.195 (0.656) в€’0.647 в€’0.618#0.078 в€’3.977*** (0.419) (0.327) (0.341) (0.763) 223 227 234 228

Fig. 4.5. The effect of rule loyalty on Republicans’ resolutions considered on the House floor Page 97 → Intraparty Groups As discussed in chapter 2, intraparty groups that form for the purpose of distinguishing themselves from the

majority party on largely ideological grounds can cause problems for party leaders pursuing policy goals, and their members often assume—rightly or wrongly—that they are the targets of discipline. In the analyses of legislation presented above, I analyzed three intraparty groups in five Congresses that, at times, caused problems for party leaders because of their disagreements over the majority party’s position on important policy issues. Party leaders sometimes work with these groups to accommodate them, and at other times they try to counteract their effects. In five of the Congresses analyzed, I ask whether party leaders indeed targeted members of the Blue Dogs, Tuesday Group, or Tea Party for discipline in their allocation of legislative benefits, all else equal. In the 110th and 111th Congresses, Speaker Pelosi did not disadvantage or advantage the more conservative Blue Dog Democrats. Blue Dogs did not have any more, or any less, of their bills, resolutions, or amendments considered on the House floor. Republican leaders, however, differed in their strategy depending on the ideology of the group. Speaker Page 98 →Gingrich did in fact target moderate Tuesday Group members for discipline, all else equal. Tuesday Group members had significantly fewer resolutions considered in the 105th Congress than did other Republicans, and they had significantly fewer amendments made in order under closed rules in the 104th Congress. By contrast, conservative Tea Party Republicans had significantly more of their amendments considered under closed rules in the 112th Congress. Although these GOP groups differed in style and substance, they both caused problems for Republican Speakers leading new majorities by defecting on key votes and, at times, vocally opposing party priorities. Arguably, the Tea Party members caused more problems because of their refusal to vote with Speaker Boehner on “must pass” legislation, but Tea Party members benefitted from the support of conservative activists and donors outside the halls of Congress, whereas Tuesday Group members did not—indeed, they did not even make their list of members available to the general public for fear of exciting conservative opposition. Fig. 4.6. The effect of fundraising loyalty on Republicans’ bills considered on the House floor Fig. 4.7. The effect of fundraising loyalty on Republicans’ resolutions considered on the House floor Page 99 →

Leaders’ Goals The legislative calendar provides leaders with opportunities to exert discipline in pursuit of policy control. This chapter evaluates how majority party leaders allocate legislative opportunities to their rank-and-file members, in particular party leaders’ decisions regarding which members’ bills, resolutions, and amendments are considered on the House floor. There are many anecdotes about party leaders rewarding loyal members on the legislative calendar circulating inside the Beltway, and this chapter provides systematic evidence of party discipline. Leaders typically focus on resolutions rather than other types of legislation when they pursue their policy and electoral goals on the legislative calendar. Mainly relying on resolutions is a sensible strategy; there is more flexibility for leaders when it comes to scheduling resolutions compared to scheduling bills. Bills are more substantive than resolutions, they require more work before they reach the floor than do resolutions, and they require more coordination with committee chairs. Time for bills is often Page 100 →reserved for party priorities that build the party’s reputation, particularly in legislatively active Congresses, along with “must pass” legislation and reauthorization bills (Adler and Wilkerson 2012). Senior members and legislative entrepreneurs are more likely to have their bills considered in every Congress except the 111th, whereas there is little relationship between legislative entrepreneurship and the consideration of members’ resolutions. Fig. 4.8. The effect of electoral vulnerability on Republicans’ bills considered on the House floor Although bills are typically more important than resolutions from a policy-making perspective, resolutions provide important position taking and credit claiming (Mayhew 1974) benefits to their sponsors. Whether they focus on a specific policy or a particular constituency, members can use them in their constituencies and in their campaigns. The analysis of the interplay between the majority party’s electoral motive of maintaining a majority and the

policy motives of passing a legislative agenda illustrates that former Democratic whip Tony Coelho was correct when he explained that “loyalty was used, but nothing was that simple” in the allocation of legislative benefits. The results show that party leaders pursue both policy and electoral goals when they allocate benefits to their members, while they are also attentive to institutional concerns. The prioritization of leaders’ goals varies from Congress to Congress in Page 101 →ways that closely match my expectations based on the chamber margins, majority leaders’ partisan policy agendas, and majority leaders’ electoral concerns. Speakers who pursued an ambitious policy agenda tended to reward members’ procedural loyalty, that is, those who supported special rules, with resolutions. Without passing special rules that govern the consideration of legislation, it is impossible to pass a party program. Speaker Wright rewarded loyal rule voters in the 100th and 101st Congresses, and Speaker Gingrich did so as well in both 104th and 105th Congresses. Speaker Foley rewarded rule loyalty in the 103rd Congress, but not the 102nd, as he was concerned about garnering the necessary votes to pass the president’s agenda in the 103rd Congress. In the 111th Congress, Speaker Pelosi pursued an active partisan legislative agenda, some of which originated with party leaders and some of which came from President Obama. Yet she did not reward loyalty on the legislative calendar at all. Democrats Page 102 →offered far fewer resolutions in the 111th Congress than they had in the 110th, and the floor agenda was crowded with bills that the Speaker and the president prioritized, leaving less room for individual members’ priorities. It is worth noting, however, that Democrats reached historic levels of party unity in the 110th Congress (92 percent), so perhaps it did not seem as necessary to provide as many incentives. Table 4.7. Amendments Offered under Closed Rules, Republicans 104th 105th 106th 107th 108th 109th Loyalty variables Roll call voting Rule support Fundraising Speeches Unsafe seat Terms Committee chair

в€’0.045#в€’0.000 (0.024) (0.013) в€’0.004 0.001 (0.040) (0.003) 0.031 0.027 (0.094) (0.042) 0.000 0.008 (0.012) (0.009) в€’0.307 0.017 (0.265) (0.180) 0.003 0.003 (0.032) (0.025)

0.525# 0.463# (0.317) (0.244) # of bills introduced 0.049*** 0.036*** (0.009) (0.005) Tuesday Group membership в€’0.518#0.082 (0.285) (0.254) Tea Party membership Constant N

112th

в€’0.016 (0.023) 0.001 (0.005) 0.003 0.067 (0.052) (0.070) 0.002 0.025 (0.008) (0.048) 0.169 0.100 (0.190) (0.289) в€’0.041 в€’0.031 (0.026) (0.039)

в€’0.021 0.032# (0.020) (0.017)

0.013 (0.032)

в€’0.004 (0.040) в€’0.029 (0.050) 0.473 (0.305) в€’0.048 (0.030)

в€’0.002 (0.029) в€’0.010 (0.013) 0.024 (0.219) в€’0.032 (0.028)

в€’0.019 (0.031) 0.011 (0.027) в€’0.094 (0.322) в€’0.025 (0.034)

0.240 1.578*** (0.295) (0.393) 0.046*** 0.026* (0.006) (0.012)

1.171*** (0.299) 0.031*** (0.009)

0.788* (0.314) 0.042*** (0.007)

в€’0.049 (0.465) 0.037** (0.013)

0.004 (0.009)

0.482# (0.273) в€’0.094 в€’0.512*в€’0.104 в€’1.308**в€’0.563*в€’0.753**в€’0.729* (3.867) (0.242) (0.190) (0.426) (0.240) (0.270) (0.320) 229 224 220 223 227 234 227

Note: Standard errors in parentheses. # p < 0.1, * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001 Electoral considerations heavily influenced the legislative calendar in predictable ways. Unlike Speaker Wright, Speaker Foley had reason for concern about his many vulnerable members running for reelection in the 1992 elections, and especially in the 1994 elections. Accordingly, he mainly pursued an electoral strategy—helping the vulnerable by bringing their resolutions to the floor in the 102nd and 103rd Congresses and by rewarding party fundraisers by bringing their bills to the floor in the 102nd Congress. Speaker Gingrich did not make any effort to help vulnerable members by bringing their legislation to the House floor (in fact, vulnerablePage 103 → members were significantly less likely to have a resolution considered in the 104th Congress), and he only rewarded fundraising loyalty with resolutions in the 105th Congress. After his election as speaker following Republicans’ 1998 midterm losses, Speaker Hastert was the most aggressive about prioritizing electoral goals. He rewarded fundraising loyalty with resolutions in every Congress and with bills in the 108th and 109th Congresses, and he helped the vulnerable with bills in the 108th and 109th. He did not have an aggressive partisan agenda of his own, although he saw his role as helping President Bush achieve his agenda. By the 108th and 109th Congresses, however, President Bush’s popularity was waning and it was clear that Republicans faced electoral danger. Speaker Boehner did not pursue an active partisan policy agenda, and he too focused on helping the vulnerable in his first Congress after Republicans returned to the majority. In the 112th Congress, he gave preference to the vulnerable when it came to the consideration of bills, and he rewarded loyal fundraisers with resolutions. Table 4.8. Amendments Offered under Open Rules, Republicans 104th 105th 106th 107th 108th 109th Loyalty variables Roll call voting Rule support Fundraising Speeches Unsafe seat Terms

в€’0.012 в€’0.002 (0.022) (0.022) 0.025 в€’0.008 (0.037) (0.005) в€’0.239 в€’0.033 (0.152) (0.101) 0.003 0.016 (0.010) (0.013) 0.112 0.255 (0.219) (0.262) 0.031 в€’0.008

в€’0.001 (0.024)

0.102 (0.096) 0.042** (0.016) 0.326 (0.500) 0.013

(0.028) (0.043) (0.071) Committee chair в€’0.304 в€’1.232*0.349 (0.315) (0.559) (0.722) # of bills introduced 0.026*** 0.035*** 0.038** (0.007) (0.009) (0.014) Tuesday Group membership 0.031 0.344 (0.250) (0.395) Tea Party membership Constant N

112th

в€’0.000 0.004 (0.023) (0.033) в€’0.007# (0.004) в€’0.138 в€’0.112 (0.105) (0.079) в€’0.009 в€’0.077 (0.051) (0.079) в€’0.404 в€’0.062 (0.314) (0.508) 0.001 в€’0.042

0.037# (0.021)

0.007 (0.026)

в€’0.157* (0.062) в€’0.001 (0.012) в€’0.291 (0.273) 0.016

в€’0.059 (0.045) 0.000 (0.023) в€’0.402 (0.309) в€’0.092**

(0.042) 0.442 (0.407) 0.038*** (0.011)

(0.034) в€’1.293* (0.535) 0.053*** (0.008)

(0.033) 0.138 (0.445) 0.035** (0.012)

(0.047) 0.702 (0.492) 0.053*** (0.016)

0.241 (0.256) в€’2.721 в€’0.636#в€’3.039***в€’0.818*в€’1.129**в€’1.002**0.515# (3.543) (0.370) (0.490) (0.415) (0.418) (0.335) (0.288) 229 224 220 223 227 234 227

Note: Standard errors in parentheses. # p < 0.1, * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001 These results have implications for the legislation enacted by Congress. Leaders’ goals affect public policy when a portion of the legislative calendar is driven by rewarding members’ loyalty or leaders’ electoral concerns. Further, members’ representation of their constituents is complicated by leaders’ goals and actions as members may face competing incentives. Members from districts whose policy preferences diverge from those of the party on important issues will experience cross-pressure. To help one’s constituents with a bill, or perhaps a district-related resolution, a member may need to toe the party line. Then, he or she may be violating constituents’ wishes by doing so. This chapter is an analysis of just one domain in which party leaders allocate scarce benefits. The results provide a baseline of evidence that shows that in their pursuit of policy control, party leaders exert discipline by rewarding party loyalty when it is in their interest to do so. The powers and prerogatives that enable party discipline also enable leaders to assist vulnerable incumbents and reward fundraisers. As party leaders and members have become more involved in party fundraising during this period, leaders have increasingly rewarded fundraisers, particularly when they are concerned about vulnerable members. The next two chapters investigate and compare leaders’ allocation of resources and opportunities in the committee and fundraising domains from 1987 to 2012.

Page 104 →

Five Where You Sit (in Committee) Depends on Where You Stand In February 2001 Representative Tim Roemer (D-IN), a leader of the centrist New Democrats met with Minority Leader Richard Gephardt to express dissatisfaction that several of the group’s members were denied their top picks for committee seats (Foerstel 2001, 313). Roemer’s complaints were hardly unusual: centrist members on both sides of the aisle have often complained that they lose out to loyal partisans in the committee assignment process. Interviews with leaders confirm their belief that it is no accident. Indeed, according to a former Democratic majority party leader, when committee assignments were made “loyalty meant everything.”1 Across the Capitol in 2001, Republican leaders were hearing complaints from some of their moderates as well. Leaders had recently passed over senior committee members—and moderates—Thomas Petri (R-WI) and Marge Roukema (R-NJ) in favor of party loyalists in contests for committee chairmanships vacated by sixyear term limits on committee chairs. When filling committee vacancies, party leaders have opportunities to exert discipline by rewarding loyal members. The analyses presented in this chapter show that leaders, in conjunction with the party Steering Committee, indeed consider loyalty when determining which members receive the limited number of committee transfers to better committees, and loyalty is an important factor when leaders appoint committee chairmen. Different Speakers, however, pursue different strategies, and the institutional and electoral contexts in which they lead matter, just as they do in other domains. Page 105 →

Expectations Majority party leaders face a constant tension between their goals of policy control and electoral control, and the committee selection process gives them opportunities to pursue both goals as they pick and choose among their members. My theory of party discipline generates expectations about when leaders will reward loyalty and when they will protect the vulnerable. H1. Policy Control Hypothesis: Party leaders will exert party discipline by granting committee transfers to loyal partisans. They will reward their members who demonstrate loyalty, particularly in roll call voting, when majority leaders are pursuing an active policy agenda that depends on the support of their members. H2. Majority Control Hypothesis: Party leaders, in their attempt to bolster the campaigns of electorally vulnerable members, will prioritize vulnerable members in committee assignments and reward big contributors to the party for their fundraising loyalty, particularly when they have reason to worry about the size—or even the existence—of their majority in the next Congress.

In this chapter, I first analyze party rules that govern the committee assignment process and the selection of committee chairs. I then turn to seniority violations in committee chair selection—whereby the most senior majority party committee member is not selected. When in the majority, Democrats and Republicans prioritized party loyalty in well-publicized violations of seniority between 1987 and 2012, although majority Republican leaders were far more likely than majority Democratic leaders to violate seniority. Republicans, however, were less likely to do so in the 112th and 113th Congresses. In 1995, Republican rules changes enhanced leaders’ ability to control the selection of chairs. In the Congresses that followed, they retreated further away from the seniority norm. Seniority became but one of many factors that also included party loyalty, fundraising prowess, and sometimes legislative skill. In turn, these changes altered the behavior of Republican members with committee ambitions. I then ask how party leaders allocate committee assignments to their rank-and-file members. The empirical focus is on transfers to exclusive and nonexclusive committees. I conclude by assessing the interplay between the leaders’ electoral goals and their policy goal of enhancing party unity to pass legislation. Page 106 →As detailed in chapter 2, Cox and McCubbins (1993) support the predictions of their legislative cartel model with evidence that parties provide selective incentives to loyal party members in the form of desirable committee transfers: party loyalty is a significant factor explaining members’ transfers to exclusive committees from the 80th to the 100th Congress. They do not, however, specify the electoral and institutional conditions in which leaders are more likely to use committee assignments as incentives. I begin where their time series ends and further explore these questions. A large literature on committee composition and the committee assignment process in the House illustrates that members and leaders alike pursue their goals through committee transfers (e.g., Fenno 1973; Shepsle 1978; Cox and McCubbins 1993). While earlier studies do not establish a strong connection between party loyalty and successful committee transfers (Rohde and Shepsle 1973; Smith and Ray 1983), more recent work finds that party leaders are more likely to accommodate loyal members’ requests, particularly on exclusive committee assignments (Cox and McCubbins 1993; Maltzman 1997; Leighton and Lopez 2002). Heberlig and Larson (2012) and Cann (2008) persuasively demonstrate the increased importance of fundraising prowess for individual members pursuing both committee chairmanships and party leadership positions, particularly ideologically extreme members (Heberlig, Hetherington, and Larson 2006). Most studies do not analyze each speakership separately, taking into account differences between the institutional context and leaders’ goals.

Democratic Majority Control: Seniority Violations and the Democratic Caucus There is no more visible display of conflict between the power of party leaders and committees than in the selection of committee chairs and the rules that govern this process. As detailed in chapter 2, when the Democratic Caucus changed its rules in 1973 to subject every committee chair to an automatic secret ballot vote at the start of every Congress, committee chairmen lost some of the power and autonomy they had enjoyed for decades. Coupled with a series of institutional reforms and political changes that centralized control in the hands of Democratic leaders, Democratic committee reforms resulted in increased party loyalty and accountability among committee chairs in particular (Crook and Hibbing 1985; Rohde 1991). In 1975, three committee chairmen lost their seats at the hands of the Democratic Caucus: Texan William R. Poage (Agriculture); Louisiana’s F. Edward Hebert (Armed Page 107 →Services); and Texan Wright Patman (Banking and Currency). In 1985, Melvin Price (D-IL) lost his chairmanship of the Armed Services Committee due to his advanced age. While seniority violations in the years before this analysis begins were few, Democrats’ moves to oust conservative chairs at all sent a strong message to the Democratic Caucus. Table 5.1 documents Democrats’ willingness to violate seniority to replace committee chairs with more loyal, or more competent, members. Despite Speaker Wright’s aggressive use of his prerogatives and the control he exerted over the legislative agenda (or perhaps because of it), there were no seniority violations

during the 100th or the 101st Congresses. At the start of the 102nd Congress, the Democratic Caucus voted out two committee chairs, Public Works and Transportation Committee chairman Glenn M. Anderson (D-CA) and House Administration Committee chairman Frank Annunzio (D-IL). Both voted with their party more than the average Democrat, although neither made party campaign contributions or formed a leadership PAC. Anderson was defeated by Robert Roe (DNJ) in the Democratic Caucus by a vote of 100–152 (Hook 1990b, 4059). Anderson, 77, had been chairman since 1988 and had not shown leadership on the committee. Annunzio (D-NJ) was stripped of his chairmanship by a 125–127 vote, mainly because of his perceived ineffectiveness (Hook 1990b). The new chair, Charlie Rose (D-NC) was third in line after Joseph Gaydos (D-PA), but the Caucus supported Rose’s interest in the committee computer system (Hook 1990b). It is also worth noting that Rose voted with the party 2.5 percentage points more than the average Democrat in the preceding Congress, whereas Gaydos voted 0.5 less often. According to CQ Weekly Report’s analysis at the time, Democrats sent a message to other committee chairs: “Democrats’ ouster of Anderson and Annunzio increased pressure on the Old Guard to reform or retire” (Hook 1990b, 4059). In June 1992, Appropriations Committee chair Jamie Whitten delegated his duties to William Natcher (D-KY) because of his poor health. When Whitten sought to resume the chairmanship in the 103rd Congress, and then a subcommittee chairmanship, he was denied in both instances, and Natcher, who had been a more consistent supporter of the party in his votes in the previous Congress, remained chair. The new subcommittee chairman was Richard Durbin (D-IL), a loyal party voter who was second in seniority. In January 1993, Armed Services Committee chairman Les Aspin became Secretary of Defense. In a bid to replace him, liberal Ronald Dellums (D-CA) soundly defeated the most senior member, conservative Sonny Montgomery (D-MS), in a Caucus vote of 198–10. As seen in table Page 109 →5.1, Montgomery’s party loyalty was 20.5 points below the average Democrat’s in the previous Congress. Montgomery narrowly retained his chairmanship of the Veterans’ Affairs Committee, coming within four votes of losing it to Lane Evans (D-IL) (Masci 1994, 1226). Page 108 → Table 5.1. Seniority Violations, Majority Party Democrats, 1987–94 Congress

Party DCCC Leadership Loyalty Contributions PAC?

100th No seniority violations 101st No seniority violations 102nd Public Works and Transportation New chair Robert Roe (NJ) 8.50 $5,000 N Incumbent Glenn Anderson (CA) 9.50 0 N Background Roe defeated Chairman Anderson by a vote of 152–100 in the Democratic Caucus. Anderson, 77, had been chairman since 1988 and had not shown leadership on the committee. 102nd House Administration New chair Charlie Rose (NC) 2.50 0 N

Incumbent Frank Annunzio (IL)

7.50

0

N

Senior Joseph Gaydos (PA) −.50 Background Chairman Annunzio was deposed by a 125–127 Caucus vote. He had been perceived as an ineffective chair. Rose was junior to Gaydos, but the Caucus was swayed by Rose’s interest in the committee computer system. 102nd Appropriations /103rd New chair William Natcher (KY) 3.50 0 N Senior Jamie Whitten (MS) 1.00 $5,000 N Background In June 1992, Appropriations Chairman Whitten delegated his duties to Natcher due to poor health. The Caucus denied Whitten the chairmanship and a subcommittee chairmanship in the 103rd Congress. The new subcommittee chairman was Richard Durbin (D-IL), who was next in line. 103rd Armed Services New chair Ronald Dellums (CA) 12.5 0 N Senior Sonny Montgomery (MS) −20.50 $11,500 N Background When Chairman Aspin became secretary of defense in 1993, loyal and liberal Dellums defeated conservative Montgomery in a Caucus vote of 198–10. Montgomery narrowly retained instead his chairmanship of the Veterans’ Affairs Committee, coming within four votes of losing it to younger, more liberal Lane Evans (D-IL). 103rd Appropriations New chair David Obey (WI) 13.50 0 Y Senior Neal Smith (IA) 5.00 0 N Background In March 1994, Appropriations Committee chairman William Natcher passed away. Obey, a fiery liberal, became chair over second ranked Smith by a Caucus vote of 152–106. Note: Party loyalty is the difference between the member’s roll call voting loyalty and the average Democrat’s loyalty in the preceding Congress; the money contributed to the DCCC and leadership PAC indicator are from the previous Congress. In March 1994, Appropriations Committee chairman William Natcher died. David Obey (D-WI), a fiery liberal, became chair over the most senior member, Neal Smith (D-IA), by a Caucus vote of 152–106 (Hook 1994, 518). Obey had been a more consistent party voter, supporting the party position 8.5 percent more often than Smith, and Obey had formed a leadership PAC to distribute money to his colleagues. Democrats only occasionally deposed incumbent chairs and violated seniority when voting for new chairs from 1987 to 1994. When they did, however, it sent a signal to Democrats aspiring to become committee chairs, just as it had in the years immediately following reform (Crook and Hibbing 1985). Indeed, some Democrats aspiring to become chairmen evidently missed that signal, but among those members who were actually deposed from their chairmanships, age and competence were often key factors. Generally, if the most senior committee member was sufficiently loyal to be elevated to chair by the Caucus in the first place, he or she retained his or her post so long as he or she did not become less loyal or incompetent.

As significant as seniority reforms were for Democratic leaders to exert control over the legislative process and promote loyalty among their members—particularly among those with committee ambitions—they pale in comparison to the committee reforms and the growing leadership control over the process instituted by Republicans in 1995. Republicans in Democratic-Controlled Congresses Initially, minority Republicans lagged behind Democrats in centralizing leaders’ power over committee leaders. The highest ranking minority party members on committee have relatively little power, hence party leaders had less incentive to exert control over them. Until the 1980s, minority party House Republicans observed a strict seniority norm as the basis of selecting ranking members. In 1986, over ten years after Democrats’ retreat from strict seniority, Republicans adopted rule changes to permit the party leader to name the Republican members of the Rules Committee. As the Rules Committee became the center of many majority party abuses of the minority party, it became an important forum in Republicans’ attempts to publicize their limited rights and opportunities. In 1990 the ranking Page 110 →Republican on the House Rules Committee, James H. Quillen (R-TN), yielded his ranking position on Rules to the next most senior member, Gerald Solomon (R-NY). Analysis at the time suggested that Quillen’s resignation reflected his lack of interest in promulgating Republicans’ evolving strategy of highlighting Democrats’ “abuses.” Though he apparently relinquished the post voluntarily, there was no groundswell in the GOP Conference asking Quillen to reconsider his decision. His willingness to work with the Democrats from his senior perch often irked the more partisan younger generation of House Republicans, who favor the more aggressive and confrontational style epitomized by Minority Whip Newt Gingrich of Georgia. (Politics in America 1992, 1386)

Republicans: Party Gains, Committee Losses, and Fundraising Loyalty There is no better indicator of the growing power of party leaders after House Republicans took the majority than the decline of the seniority system from 1995 to 2006. As shown in table 5.2, term limits allowed Republicans to accelerate their move away from recognizing seniority when determining chairmanships. After Republicans gained 52 seats in the 1994 elections, giving them a majority in the House of Representatives for the first time in 40 years, they instituted significant new rules and practices regarding committee chairmanships and assignments. When Republicans took control in 1995, leaders exerted control over congressional committees: assignments, organization, and their role in the legislative process. Selecting committee chairmen himself, Speaker Gingrich violated seniority in three cases. Selecting the fifth most senior member of the Appropriations Committee, Bob Livingston (R-LA), to be its chair ensured that the leader of a key committee would be both highly competent and responsive to Gingrich’s wishes. Carlos Moorhead (R-CA) was passed over on two committees; in both cases, the second most senior member became the chair. Moorhead’s voting record was not the problem: it was his advanced age and inability to carry out an ambitious legislative agenda. Indeed, he retired at the end of the 104th Congress. The most significant rule change was a six-year term limit on committee chairmen.2 Term limits sent important signals to Republican members. They reinforced the message that leaders exerted control over committees; no committee chair would serve long enough to establish autonomy over policy or their committee members. As vacancies loomed, the leadership-controlled Steering Committee began to interview members contesting for chairs, sending a clear signal that factors other than seniority would figure in determining the new committee chairs. Republican Conference rules stated specifically that the member designated by the Steering Committee for each chair “need not be the member with the longest consecutive service on the committee” (Foerstel 2000b, 1443). These rules changes, then,

provided ambitious members with incentives to demonstrate their party loyalty, their ability to work with the leadership, and their legislative skills. Page 111 → Table 5.2. Seniority Violations, Majority Party Republicans, 1995–2006 Congress

Party Loyalty

NRCC Leadership Contributions PAC?

104th New chair

Appropriations Bob Livingston (LA)

3.0

$26,980

N

Senior 2nd 3rd

Joseph McDade (PA) John T. Myers (IN) C.W. Bill Young (FL)

в€’9.0 $67,500 в€’8.0 $7,500 3.5 $10,000

N N N

4th Background

Ralph Regula (OH) −6.5 0 N McDade had been ranking member despite indictment on federal bribery charges in May 1992. Myers was so angry that he threatened to bring the issue to the Republican Conference. Young became chair after Livingston resigned in 1999. Judiciary Henry Hyde (IL) 2.0 $10,875 N Carlos Moorhead (CA) 13.5 $27,500 N Hyde was the second most senior; Moorhead’s signs of age concerned leaders. Commerce Thomas J. Bliley (VA) 8.0 $12,500 N Carlos Moorhead (CA) 13.5 $27,500 N Bliley was the second most senior; Moorhead’s signs of age concerned leaders. Agriculture Bob Smith (OR) NA NA NA Larry Combest (TX) 7.50 $40,000 N Leaders prioritized electoral concerns. They honored a promise to Smith, who had retired in 1994, that if he ran again he would become chair. No seniority violations

104th New chair Senior Background 104th New chair Senior Background 105th New chair Senior Background 106th Page 112 →107th New chair

Budget Jim Nussle (IA)

3.0

$13,500

Yes

в€’18.5 $10,000

Senior

Chris Shays (CT)

2nd 3rd 4th Background 107th New chair

Wally Herger (CA) 9.5 $200,000 N Bob Franks (NJ) в€’12.0 0 N Nick Smith (NY) 4.5 $15,000 N Nussle had been ranked fifth. Shays angered leaders with his leadership on campaign finance reform. Smith, along with Saxby Chambliss (GA), was the other contender. Education and the Workforce John Boehner (OH) 7.00 $1,812 Yes

Senior 2nd 3rd

Tom Petri (WI) Marge Roukema (NJ) Cass Ballenger (NC)

4th Background 107th New chair Senior Background 107th New chair 2nd Background

Bill Barrett (NE) 3.0 0 N Petri and Peter Hoekstra were the main contenders. Petri sent a press release complaining it was part of a “purge of moderate Republicans.” Ways and Means Bill Thomas (CA) 3.5 $252,000 Yes Phil Crane (IL) 8 $80,196 Yes Crane had served for 25 years and there were concerns about his age and drinking. International Relations Henry Hyde (IL) 2.0 $105,000 N Jim Leach (IA) −15.5 $5,000 N Although he was fifth in line, Doug Bereuter (NE) was the main contender; he ranked immediately below Hyde, whose term as chair of Judiciary had expired (Hyde was fourth). His party loyalty score was −.55 and rule loyalty was −6.5; he raised $57,300 for the NRCC and did not have a leadership PAC. Leach knew he was unpopular after his vote against Gingrich as Speaker and for his moderate votes. Financial Services Michael Oxley (OH) 5.5 $170,700 Y Marge Roukema (NJ) −8.5 $40,000 N The new Banking Committee with additional jurisdiction from Energy and Commerce. Many moderates were angered at the rejection of Marge Roukema. Richard Baker was also a contender. Small Business Donald Manzullo (IL) 6.5 $15,000 N Joel Hefley (CO) 4.5 $15,000 N

107th New chair Senior Background 107th New chair Senior

.50 в€’8.5 8.0

0 $40,000 $65,000

N

Yes N N

Background 107th New chair Senior Background 108th New chair Senior Background

Manzullo was supported by Hastert. In the Steering Committee, Manzullo defeated fifth-ranked Sue Kelly (NY), her party loyalty score was −15 and rule loyalty −3.75; she raised $65,000 for the NRCC. House Administration Bob Ney (OH) 1.5 $12,000 N Vernon Ehlers (MI) −6.5 $24,500 N “Ney was selected because of his pledge of loyalty to party leaders, who jumped over Vern Ehlers of Michigan because they feared he would be independent of their wishes” (Almanac of American Politics 2002, Ney). Resources

Richard Pombo (CA) 5 $25,000 N James Saxton (NJ) в€’2 $65,000 N Pombo was fifth in seniority; Saxton was considered “too moderate on environmental issues by the leadership and withdrew from the race” (Jalonic 2003, 94) 108th Government Reform New chair Thomas Davis (VA) в€’1 $265,000 Y Senior Chris Shays (CT) в€’15.5 $50,000 Y Background Davis was fifth in seniority and considered moderate, but his success in expanding his party’s majority as NRCC chair was critical in the decision. 109th Appropriations New chair Jerry Lewis (CA) 5 $1,255,000 Y Senior Ralph Regula (OH) 4 $320,000 Y 3rd Harold Rogers (KY) 7 $371,500 Y Background Moderate Regula had stepped up his partisan behavior in the past year, but “the Speaker viewed Lewis as the candidate who had done the most for the party over the long haul” (Schatz 2005, 71). Page 113 → Congress Party NRCC Leadership Loyalty Contributions PAC? 109th Rules Continuingchair, David Dreier (CA) 4 $425,000 Y despiteexpired term Background “The loyalty of Californian David Dreier was sufficient that the caucus’ six-year term limit for chairman was waived so he could continue running the Rules Committee” (Oleksyn 2005, 894). 109th Veterans’ Affairs

New chair

Steve Buyer (IN)

6

$40,000

Y

Christopher H. Smith (NJ) −6 $75,000 N Smith was deposed after four years as chair after conflict with the leadership and replaced by party loyalist Buyer, despite objections from some veterans’ groups. Note: Party loyalty is the difference between the member’s roll call voting loyalty and the average Republican’s loyalty in the preceding Congress; the money contributed to the NRCC and leadership PAC indicator are from the previous Congress. Deposed chair Background

The power of House chairmen was further diminished by the elimination of proxy voting in committees and the Speaker’s additional authority to refer legislation to committees (Cohen 1996). Republicans cut committee staff positions by one-third in the House and eliminated three committees that had appealed primarily to Democratic members and Democratic constituencies: the Post Office and Civil Service Committee, the Merchant Marine and Fisheries Committee, and the District of Columbia Committee. Republicans retreated from the Democratic reforms that had empowered subcommittees and their chairmen. Republican rules gave committee chairs the power to appoint subcommittee chairs instead of relying on seniority as Democrats had, but committee chairs had to consult with the Speaker. When William Clinger (R-PA), chairman of the Government Reform and Oversight Committee, appointed subcommittee chairs, at the Page 114 →behest of Gingrich he skipped over two more senior committee members to give posts to freshmen (Aldrich and Rohde 1997–98, 552). Committee chairmen, lacking experience and independent power bases, were occasionally bypassed altogether in the legislative process, particularly during the 104th Congress (Cohen 1996; Davidson 1999; Fenno 1997). Republican leaders closely monitored committee agendas. In the few instances when committees did not forward legislation pursuant to leaders’ orders, leaders simply appointed ad hoc legislative task forces composed only of loyal Republicans to circumvent them. At the start of the 105th Congress, Gingrich prioritized electoral considerations in his selection of a new Agriculture Committee chair. Oregon congressman Bob Smith (R) had retired in 1994. His successor, Republican Wes Cooley (OR), was bad for the Republican Party’s image; reports emerged that he had fabricated a military record, benefited from his wife’s widow’s benefits from a previous marriage, and misrepresented his income on his tax returns. RNC chairman Haley Barbour succeeded in urging Cooley not to run in 1996, and Republican leaders promised Smith the chair of the Agriculture Committee to entice him to return to Congress (Barone and Ujifusa 1998, Smith). After Smith was elected, Gingrich honored his promise. Counting Smith’s prior service, Larry Combest (TX) was the only remaining committee Republican who had served longer than Smith. Combest had demonstrated strong party loyalty in his voting record and contributed $40,000 to the NRCC, but the promise to Smith trumped his qualifications. Combest, however, became chair two years later, in 1999. There were no other seniority violations in 1997. There were no seniority violations when the 106th Congress convened in 1999. Yet six committee term limits were looming for 13 committee chairs who had been in place since 1995, and ambitious members began preparing for the committee selection process ahead. During the 106th Congress, Speaker Hastert indicated that a term-limited chair could become chair of a different committee, restarting their six-year clock (Deering and Wahlbeck 2006). In the 106th Congress, many committee chair hopefuls formed leadership PACs to demonstrate their commitment to the party and to strengthen their hand going into the fight for committee chairmanships in the 107th Congress. Campaign contributions provided members with another chance to express their party loyalty above and

beyond their voting records; leadership PACs were particularly significant because they could give five times the amount of money as one’s campaign fund. Establishing a leadership PAC required a larger commitment—paperwork, staff, and overhead—than simply making contributions from a campaign fund. In 1999, two Republican Page 115 →congressmen contending for committee chairmanships in the 107th Congress, Tom Petri (WI) and James Sensenbrenner (WI), formed the Wisconsin Leadership PAC. According to its president, “the purpose of it, frankly, is to see that Wisconsin, which has an opportunity to get these two chairmanships, gets them” (Aukoffer 2000). Indeed, when I examine committee chair hopefuls—those within two seats of the committee chairmen—I find that 56 percent of Republican hopefuls made leadership PAC contributions in 2000, compared to only 17 percent of Democrats with comparable levels of seniority on committees. In the pages ahead, I analyze leadership PAC contributions among all members from 1987 to 2012 to assess the changing behavior of committee chair hopefuls across time. The 107th–109th Congresses Hastert and DeLay, along with a few other members of the Steering Committee, began conducting interviews for committee chairmanships, clarifying who was competing for the spots. In some ways, these interviews were reminiscent of the interviews conducted by Democratic freshmen in 1974, except for a key difference: party leaders, not the will of the majority of the caucus, controlled the outcome. “The two men [DeLay and Hastert], plus a few lieutenants, interviewed candidates for chairmanships and routinely questioned them about their loyalty to the вЂteam,’ according to several sources who attended the meetings” (VandeHei and Eilperin 2003). Hastert further institutionalized party control in the House with additional measures to ensure members’ party loyalty, such as making Appropriations Subcommittee chairs subject to the same interview process as full committee chairs. There were seven seniority violations when committee chairs were selected at the start of the 107th Congress. As anticipated by the members forming leadership PACs, the results of the Republican contests early in the 107th Congress show that party loyalty expressed in one’s voting record and contribution record matter in the Republican selection process (see also Deering and Wahlbeck 2006 for a more extensive analysis of the 107th Congress).3 Eight of the thirteen new Republican committee chairmen had formed leadership PACs—Bill Thomas (CA), Jim Nussle (IA), Billy Tauzin (LA), Don Young (AK), Sherwood Boehlert (NY), John Boehner (OH), Mike Oxley (OH), and James Sensenbrenner (WI). A few of the unsuccessful contenders, however, had also formed leadership PACs—Phil Crane (IL), Tom Petri (WI), and Clay Shaw (FL). When Petri, the most senior remaining member of the Education and the Workforce Committee, was denied the chairmanship, he believed he Page 116 →had been punished for his voting record, as explained in his entry in the Almanac of American Politics: He was the most senior Republican on the committee, but the Republican Steering Committee passed over him and installed the fourth most senior Republican, John Boehner. Petri’s office put out a statement saying this was part of a “purge of moderate Republicans,” and Petri’s voting record has been more liberal than it was before 2000. He was one of 13 Republicans to vote against repeal of the Clinton ergonomics rule in March 2001, one of 34 Republicans to vote against oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in August 2001 and one of four Republicans to vote against the resolution backing Israel in May 2002. He backed the Shays-Meehan campaign finance bill for some time and in July 2001 he was one of 19 Republicans to vote against the rule for debate on the bill; the rule failed, one of only two that did in the 107th Congress. He was urged by ShaysMeehan backers to sign the discharge petition to bring the bill to the floor, but hung back for several months. Then in January 2002, after the Enron bankruptcy raised serious questions for him, he was one of two Republicans who signed to provide the decisive 218th vote and brought the issue to the

floor. (Barone, Cohen, and Ujifusa 2002, Petri)

Marge Roukema (R-NJ), the most senior member on the Banking Committee, was unsuccessful in her chairmanship bid. Republicans’ six-year term limit had vacated the position, and she was next in seniority. Party leaders, however, shifted the Commerce subcommittee on securities regulation to the Banking Committee and renamed it Financial Services. This facilitated passing over Roukema altogether and giving the Financial Services chairmanship to Mike Oxley, who had seniority as a Republican on Commerce (but fewer years of committee service than Roukema) and was opposed by Billy Tauzin. Roukema had a reputation as a moderate Republican, voting with her party 8.5 percent less frequently than the average Republican, and she had not formed a leadership PAC. Speaker Dennis Hastert offered Roukema the job of Treasurer of the United States, which she declined. According to the Almanac of American Politics (Barone and Ujifusa 1998, Roukema), Roukema said she was reluctant to play “the gender card,” but added, “I do think in the background there’s a political question that will be raised by others. Do you really want to pass over a Republican woman who is clearly qualified?” Page 117 →Party defections also seemed to matter in some other chair selections at the start of the 107th Congress. When the Steering Committee met to determine the new chair of the Small Business Committee, they installed third-ranked Donald Manzullo (R-IL) over moderate Sue Kelly (R-NY), who was also competing for the position, even though she was lower in seniority than Manzullo (thus this was not a seniority violation). Kelly’s voting loyalty was 15 percentage points below the party average. When leaders selected the new chairman of the House Administration Committee, Bob Ney (R-OH) defeated senior Republican Vernon Ehlers (R-MI) “because of his pledge of loyalty to party leaders, who jumped over Vern Ehlers of Michigan because they feared he would be independent of their wishes” (Barone, Cohen, and Ujifusa 2002, Ney). Hastert’s decision to allow term-limited chairs to chair different committees gave sitting committee chairs incentives to continue to go the extra mile for the party. Eight of the 13 term-limited chairs competed to chair other committees, and five of them succeeded in chairing new committees. For example, leaders elevated fourth-ranked Henry Hyde (R-IL) to chairman of the International Relations Committee over the senior member, moderate Jim Leach (R-IA), less senior Doug Bereuter (R-NE), and other competitors after his term as chairman of the Judiciary Committee expired (see Deering and Wahlbeck 2006). Republicans’ increased willingness to select committee chairmen left some would-be-chairmen without the power they had expected years earlier when they began accruing seniority on their committees. In the 108th Congress, two relatively junior committee members were selected as committee chairs by the leadership. Tenth-ranked Richard W. Pombo (R-CA) was selected to take the helm of the Resources Committee, besting four more senior members also vying for the job. According to CQ Weekly, after serving only ten years in the House, Pombo was “a beneficiary of his staunch conservatism and his success at fundraising, two things that have made him a favorite with the new House majority leader” (Jalonick 2003, 94). The most senior member, James Saxon (R-NJ), did not even contend for the position because the leadership viewed him as too unsupportive of the party position on environmental issues (Jalonick 2003). Party leaders’ selection of Thomas Davis (R-VA) to chair the Government Reform Committee in the 108th Congress reinforced the message that leaders reward fundraising loyalty. After successfully leading the NRCC in the 2000 and 2002 election cycles (with a six-seat gain in 2002—a midterm election that would ordinarily favor Democrats), Davis became chair of the Government Reform Committee. Leaders selected Davis over Page 118 →maverick Christopher Shays (RCT) and more loyal partisan Christopher Cox (R-CA), who did receive the chairmanship of the newly created Homeland Security Committee. According to Davis, “By abandoning the seniority system, the leadership was able to ensure that it had its team on the committees. It reinforced the idea that chairmen are not autonomous. They owe their allegiance to the leadership” (VandeHei and Eilperin 2003). Shays had tried to prove his partisan credentials, increasing his party

contributions from $15,000 in the 2000 cycle to $50,000 in the 2002 cycle, but it was likely too late, and his voting record was 15.5 points below his party’s average in the previous Congress. After Shays was denied the chairmanship, he contributed a paltry $500 to the party in the 2004 cycle. In the 109th Congress, three Republicans competed for the Appropriations Committee chairmanship when Representative C. W. Bill Young (R-FL) was forced to give up his post because of term limits, senior Republican Ralph Regula (R-OH), Harold Rogers (R-KY), and Jerry Lewis (R-CA). Regula, the second most senior Republican in the entire House, knew that seniority was not enough. He formed a leadership PAC in the 108th Congress and contributed $320,000 to the NRCC, a particularly striking sum when compared to his $38,000 contribution in the 107th Congress. Yet Lewis still won out, as “the Speaker viewed Lewis as the candidate who had done the most for the party over the long haul, especially given his connections in the defense industry” (Schatz 2005, 71). Perhaps the most striking manifestation of the leadership’s willingness to punish disloyalty occurred when Christopher Smith (R-NJ) was deposed as chairman of the Veterans’ Affairs Committee. Although ideologically conservative, Smith had repeatedly clashed with leaders over veterans’ policy and often voted against the party, and in the 108th Congress he had a voting difference score of в€’6. Although his replacement, Steven Buyer (R-IN), was a loyal party voter (with a difference score of 6), he had only recently formed a leadership PAC and contributed to the NRCC, and, of greater potential concern, veterans groups expressed concerns about his chairmanship (Allen 2005, 72). Among majority party Republicans, acquiring a committee chairmanship is increasingly viewed as a reward for party loyalty in voting and in fundraising. Nonetheless, leaders’ tight grip on committees has made it clear that property norms do not apply, and Smith’s ouster sent a strong signal to members, giving them strong incentives to display their loyalty while serving as chairs. Further, Hastert’s decision to play “musical chairs” (Deering and Wahlbeck 2006) and move select term-limited chairmen to new committees in the 107th Congress provided a further incentive Page 119 →for contributing. Thus it is not surprising that new committee chairmen become increasingly loyal in their policy voting when they become chairmen. Further, they interact with the leadership on a regular basis and are expected to be team players. For example, when Bill Goodling (R-PA) became the chairman of the Economic and Educational Opportunities Committee in 1995, he abandoned his previous record of support for the Special Supplemental Food Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) and school lunches. He instead pushed the Republican plan to abolish federal food programs and send them to the states in the form of block grants through his committee (Maraniss and Weisskopf 1996).

Democrats Return to the Majority, the 110th and 111th Congresses Adjusting to the new reality of life in the minority in 1995, Democrats had little incentive to mirror Republicans’ changes and step up their control over their ranking members. In determining committee positions for the 104th Congress, however, Democratic leaders stripped Charlie Rose (D-NC) of his position as ranking minority member of the House Oversight Committee after he unsuccessfully challenged Richard Gephardt (D-MO) in the contest for minority leader. Gephardt selected Vic Fazio (D-CA) instead, although he had not previously served on the House Administration Committee (Salant 1994). In 2000, Democrats publicly stated that they would eliminate term limits if they won control of the House (Foerstel 2000a, 628). In reality, after they returned to power in 2007 it took them two more years to do so, and Democratic leaders exerted more power over committees in 2007 than they had the last time they held the majority. Yet the seniority system remained largely intact in the 110th Congress. All standing committees were chaired by their most senior Democrat, some of whom had chaired the same committee 12 years earlier. When the Steering Committee’s recommendations came before the Democratic Caucus at the beginning

of the 110th Congress, Michael Michaud (D-ME) challenged the most senior member, Bob Filner (D-CA), for chair of the Veterans’ Affairs Committee, but he was soundly defeated. Pelosi was willing to violate seniority when it came to the Intelligence Committee, as shown in table 5.3. Unlike other committees, the Speaker alone appoints the chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, and Pelosi bypassed the two most senior Democrats on the Page 120 →committee, Jane Harman (DCA) and Alcee Hastings (D-FL), respectively. An indictment in Hastings’ past did not help his case, and in passing over Harman, Pelosi chose a less experienced—but more partisan—Democrat, Silvestre Reyes of Texas. In the 110th Congress, conflict flared between Pelosi and Energy and Commerce Committee chair John Dingell (D-MI). Dingell was a living (congressional) legend. The most senior member of the House, he had been either the chairman or ranking minority member on the Energy and Commerce Committee since 1981—six years before Speaker Pelosi was elected to Congress. Yet, as a committee chair, Dingell was the gatekeeper blocking Democrats’ environmental policy, refusing to move Democrats’ energy policy proposals through his committee. He was more concerned about protecting the auto industry in his home district than passing the energy legislation that Pelosi and most Democrats prioritized. Pelosi responded to Dingell’s intransigence by creating a new Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming. Dingell dismissed the Page 121 →snub in a memo to his colleagues indicating that these “kind of committees are as useful and relevant as feathers on a fish” (Layton 2007). Yet the task force moved forward, and its legislation was taken directly to the Democratic Caucus, much to Dingell’s consternation. Table 5.3. Seniority Violations, Majority Party Democrats, 2007–10 Congress

Party DCCC Leadership Loyalty Contributions PAC?

110th Intelligence New chair Silvestre Reyes (TX) −1 $100,000 N Most senior Jane Harman (CA) 5 $190,000 Y 2nd most Alcee Hastings (FL) 8 $33,500 Y senior Background Speaker Pelosi had sole discretion over the choice of Intelligence Committee Chair, and she chose Reyes over more-senior Harman and Hastings for political reasons. Pelosi and Harman clashed on many issues, particularly those surrounding national security. Hastings had been impeached and removed as a federal judge in 1989. Harman had the support of “Blue Dog” Democrats and Hastings had the support of the Congressional Black Caucus (Starks 2006). 111th Energy and Commerce New chair Henry Waxman (CA) 7 $350,000 Y Deposed John Dingell (MI) 5 $500,000 Y chair

Background With the support of Speaker Pelosi, the Democratic Caucus voted 137–122 to depose Dingell as chair after two years back in the majority, handing the gavel to the second most senior member, Henry Waxman (Davenport 2008). Although Dingell was the longest-serving member of the House and had been chair or ranking member of the committee since 1981, his colleagues wanted a chair who would support climate-change legislation, a priority for Democrats in the 111th Congress. Note: Party loyalty is the difference between the member’s roll call voting loyalty and the average Democrat’s loyalty in the preceding Congress; the money contributed to the DCCC and leadership PAC indicator are from the previous Congress. By the 111th Congress, rank-and-file Democrats had had enough of Chairman Dingell’s refusal to move energy legislation, especially with a Democrat in the White House. In a violation of the seniority system, by a 137–122 vote House Democrats replaced him with the committee’s second most senior Democrat and Pelosi ally, Henry Waxman (CA). Not just any loyal Democrat, Waxman had played a key role in shaping and passing Democrats’ health and consumer protection agenda for decades, and he was a fierce and partisan chair of the Government Reform and Oversight Committee in the 110th Congress. Given that Dingell strongly opposed most environmental regulations and Waxman was viewed as an environmental champion, many members primarily viewed a vote for Waxman as a vote to ensure the passage of legislation with tough emissions caps to address climate change (Epstein 2008). On other issues, Dingell and Waxman largely agreed. Both were loyal partisans, supporting Democrats on roll call votes 5 and 7 percent more than the average Democrat in the previous Congress, respectively. Both had leadership PACs; in the previous cycle Waxman contributed $38,000 to newly elected members and Dingell contributed $24,000 to new members (Davenport 2008, 3148). In the same cycle, Waxman contributed $350,000 to the DCCC and Dingell contributed $500,000.

Republicans in the 112th and 113th Congress Boehner started off the 112th Congress by adhering to the party rule that limits chairs to six years, counting their time as chair and, importantly, their time as ranking member (Goldfarb 2010). Although Jerry Lewis (R-CA) and Joe Barton (R-TX) sought waivers to chair the committees on Appropriations and Energy and Commerce, respectively, their requests were denied, and the next most senior members became chair. In the two competitive races, the more senior Republican defeated his competitor: Spencer Bachus (R-AL) was chosen over Ed Royce (R-CA) to chair the Financial Services Committee, and Ralph M. Hall (R-TX) was chosen over Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) to chair the Science and Technology Committee. Boehner made a clear statement asserting his authority in the 113th Congress when he removed four members from their committees as punishmentPage 122 → for their disloyalty, as described in chapter 4. Yet there were few shakeups in the selection of committee chairs, as seen in table 5.4. The Steering Committee, under his leadership, chose eight new committee chairs. They had to pick and choose among their colleagues in a competitive race to chair the Homeland Security Committee. Leaders selected Michael McCaul (R-TX) over two other more senior members, Candice Miller (R-MI) and Mike D. Rogers (R-AL), to become chair (CQ Weekly 2012, 2428).

Leadership PAC Contributions and Committee Chair Hopefuls I analyze changes in leadership PAC contribution patterns over time to assess changes in the committee chair selection process. I employ OLS regression to predict leadership PAC contributions to other House members from the 100th to the 112th Congresses. The dependent variable is a member’s total contributions to his

or her colleagues from his or her leadership PAC (thus it does not take into account the total each member’s leadership PAC raises, as funds may be spent on other candidates and travel and entertaining expenses). Those who do not form leadership PACs are included in the analysis, coded as making zero contributions. The key independent variables are dummy variables indicating whether a member is a party leader (defined as the Speaker, majority leader, majority whip, or caucus chair), a committee chair or ranking minority member, or a committee chair hopeful, defined as the first and second most senior party member Page 123 →behind the chair or ranking member. I also include each member’s election margin vote share and roll call vote loyalty. The results are presented, by party, in tables 5.5 and 5.6. Table 5.4. Seniority Violations, Majority Party Republicans, 2011–13 Congress 112th

Party NRCC Leadership Loyalty Contributions PAC? No seniority violations

113th New chair More senior More senior Background

Homeland Security Michael McCaul (TX) 7 $185,000 Y Mike D. Rogers (AL) 1 $167,000 Y Candice S. Miller (MI) 3 $300,000 Y McCaul defeated two colleagues with more seniority, Rogers and Miller, in a very close race after several tie ballots in the Republican Steering Committee. Miller was appointed by Boehner to chair the Committee on House Administration (CQ Weekly 2012, 2428). Note: Party loyalty is the difference between the member’s roll call voting loyalty and the average Republican’s loyalty in the preceding Congress; the money contributed to the NRCC and leadership PAC indicator are from the previous Congress. Until the 104th Congress, Democratic committee chairs and party leaders contributed more money from leadership PACs than did their Republican counterparts. The analysis presented in chapter 3 indicates that in the late 1980s few members formed leadership PACs at all, and the analysis presented here suggests that those who made significant contributions were primarily Democratic Party leaders. In the 103rd Congress, committee chairs contributed more leadership PAC money than other Democrats—$26,764 more, all else equal—and in the 106th, 107th, and 112th Congresses ranking members contributed more than their colleagues as well, perhaps because they had extra incentives to help Democrats regain the majority. By the time Democrats returned to the majority in the 110th Congress, 121 Democrats formed leadership PACs, and the only factors that differentiated members’ leadership PAC contributions were their seniority and party leadership. Among Democrats, then, beginning in the 104th Congress, electoral incentives seemed to motivate Democrats to contribute more and more leadership PAC dollars, but incentives surrounding committee chairmanship selection incentives were not the primary factor (beyond wanting to chair a committee in the majority rather than one in the minority). The effect of Republicans’ committee chair selection rules is clear in the mid- to late 1990s. In the 104th Congress, Republican committee chair hopefuls (but not committee chairs) and party leaders contributed significantly more than their colleagues. Being a Republican Party leader is equated with $470,331 in leadership PAC contributions to one’s colleagues, and leaders’ contributions continue to be significantly more generous in every Congress that follows. In the 104th

Congress, Republicans were aware of the diminished value of seniority as a criterion for committee chairmanships, and committee hopefuls responded accordingly, contributing $26,159 more, all else equal. The same pattern was not true in the 105th Congress, but in the 106th Congress—the Congress preceding 13 chairmanships vacated by committee chair term limits—committee chair hopefuls contributed significantly more than their colleagues, an extra $63,907.4 Committee chair hopefuls do not contribute significantly more in the Congresses that follow. Further, the effect of being a committee chair is only significant again in the 112th Congress for Republicans. That does not mean necessarily mean, however, that committee chair hopefuls are not Page 124 →Page 125 →Page 126 →forming leadership PACs. Instead, it is likely that so many members form leadership PACs that committee chair hopefuls do not make significantly more contributions than other ambitious members who are more junior and farther from a chairmanship. Indeed, by the 112th Congress, 153 Republicans formed a leadership PAC, compared to only 62 Republicans in the 106th Congress. Leadership PAC contributions are a way for members to express party loyalty above and beyond one’s voting record—all else equal, party loyalty in roll call voting is associated with leadership PAC contributions in each Congress from the 107th to the 111th Congress. The decisions by party leaders that determine committee chairmanships affect the policy-making process. Committee chairs play a significant—albeit reduced—role in shaping the substantive content of the majority party’s agenda items. Leaders’ decisions are highly visible, sending a signal to members who have hopes of becoming a chair someday. Leaders’ committee decisions also affect rank-and-file members as they attempt to improve their committee assignments to bolster their legislative careers, and in turn their electoral success. The empirical analyses of members’ committee assignments that follow investigate the effects of a member’s demonstrated party loyalty, fundraising efforts, and seat safety on his or her likelihood of receiving a transfer, showing that leaders’ decisions affect the entire committee roster, not just the top.

Committee Assignments A member’s committee assignment(s) affects his or her legislative, fundraising, and district careers. In each of these domains, some committees provide members with more opportunities than others (Fenno 1973). Committees vary in importance and in the scope of their jurisdiction. Some jurisdictions are more significant to major donors; the same is true for constituents. Because members’ opportunities to amend legislation on the House floor are limited, members’ best chances to influence legislation occur in committee. House rules dictate that members of Congress cannot serve on more than two standing committees, although parties may grant a waiver allowing a member to violate this rule. Democratic Caucus and Republican Conference rules provide more specific guidelines. Both parties determine which committees are “exclusive” and preclude members from serving on any other committee if they serve on an exclusive committee. Exclusive committee membership provides members with more opportunities and Page 127 →benefits than other committees. Exclusive committees generally craft the most important, far-reaching legislation considered by the House, positioning members to attract attention and campaign contributions. Majority and minority party leaders negotiate each committee’s size and partisan ratio in advance of the biennial assignment process. Both Democrats and Republicans have given the committee assignment role to their respective party steering committees, which are led and heavily influenced by the elected party leaders. Speaker Hastert, for example, had five votes on the 25-member Republican Steering Committee. Some additional members from each region are elected to the Steering Committee by the party membership and some are appointed by party leaders. The most recent classes (i.e., the members elected in a

specific year) are also represented, at varying levels depending on the Congress. In recent years, Republicans have kept their Steering Committee membership a secret, despite an unsuccessful effort at the beginning of the 112th Congress by a frustrated Steve King (R-IA) to make the Steering Committee membership public. Both parties consider many factors when making decisions. The Congressional Research Service has enumerated the following considerations: seniority, previous substantive experience, background, ideology, election margin, state delegation support, leadership support, the special concerns of the member’s district, and geographic balance. The decision-making process is difficult to pin down: “None of these factors, however, is usually seen as having equal weight for each Member in each instance” (Schneider 1999). Members’ requests are also an important factor, as Frisch and Kelly’s (2006) analysis of transfer requests from the 85th to the 103rd Congress demonstrate. Yet interviews made it clear that some members knew they would not have been granted a transfer if they had made a request, so they did not want to risk embarrassment or aggravating leaders by doing so, choosing to make the best of their current committee assignments. Once a member serves on a committee, a “property norm” generally protects his or her seat in future Congresses (Schneider 1999). Indeed, during the period under consideration, the vast majority of instances in which members have lost their seats have been when the party has lost seats on the committee because the party has lost seats in the preceding election and the partisan ratio has changed. For example, after the 1994 elections Democrats lost 53 seats in the House and therefore lost many committee seats, particularly on exclusive committees where the ratios were most imbalanced in favor of the majority party. Even as the most recently appointed members on the exclusive committees were forced to Page 128 →give up their seats, they returned to their committees once Democrats had opportunities to fill them again. Generally speaking, leaders do not punish members by removing them from a committee. A notable exception is Representative James Traficant (D-OH), who was stripped of his committee assignments in 2002 by Democratic leaders after he voted to support Hastert, not Gephardt, in the contest for Speaker. In 1995 Speaker Gingrich and Appropriations Committee chairman Bob Livingston demoted freshman Republican Mark Neumann (R-WI) from the National Security Appropriations Subcommittee to the Military Construction Subcommittee as punishment for voting against an appropriations bill. The demotion was met with a storm of protest from rank-and-file members, and Gingrich was forced to add a valued seat on the Budget Committee to Neumann’s committee portfolio (Duncan 1995). When analyzing committee transfers, then, the property norm means that members only transfer to another committee because of a request to do so unless a party loses seats on a committee.

Data and Measures As described in chapter 3, I analyze members’ committee assignments in six Democratic-controlled Congresses under the leadership of three Speakers, Jim Wright, Tom Foley, and Nancy Pelosi, and seven Republican-controlled Congresses, led by Speakers Newt Gingrich, Dennis Hastert, and John Boehner. Committee data for the 103rd to 112th Congresses came from Charles Stewart III and Jonathan Woon, from Garrison Nelson for the 100th to the 102nd Congresses,5 and data for the 113th Congress were collected by the author.6 In some of the analyses that follow, I consider exclusive and nonexclusive committees separately. For Democrats, exclusive committees until 1994 were the committees on Appropriations, Rules, and Ways and Means. In 1995, Democrats added the Energy and Commerce Committee to their list of exclusive committees for new members, and in 2007 they dropped the Rules Committee for freshmen. Republicans’ exclusive committees include the Committees on Appropriations,

Rules, Ways and Means, and Energy and Commerce. Democratic Caucus and Republican Conference rules stipulate that members cannot serve on more than one exclusive committee without a waiver. The key independent variables considered in the analyses that follow are described in chapter 3. Briefly, members’ party loyalty on roll call votes Page 129 →and rules that fail, along with members’ discharge petition loyalty and speech loyalty, are the key independent variables under investigation when I test the policy control hypothesis.7 Members’ campaign contributions are an expression of loyalty above and beyond supporting the party position on the floor. When analyzing fundraising loyalty to test the majority control hypothesis, I rely on the measures described in previous chapters: the sum of contributions from incumbents to candidates running in the general election for the House of Representatives (which includes incumbents, challengers, and open seat candidates), contributions to the party’s congressional campaign committee, and members’ leadership PAC contributions to general election congressional candidates.

Results Exclusive Committees Democrats who serve on the most prestigious and powerful committees demonstrate more party loyalty than do their other colleagues. Figure 5.1 plots the average roll call voting party loyalty of Democrats on each of the four exclusive committees, on the four exclusive committees combined, and on all other committees. The thickest black line shows the average voting loyalty of members on the four exclusive committees; the dashed lines show the average voting loyalty of members on each the four exclusive committees separately; and the thin black line shows the average voting loyalty of Democrats on all other committees. Although the average party loyalty of members of the four exclusive committees varies over time, it is higher than the average party loyalty of members who are not on exclusive committees, with the exception of a slight dip in loyalty among Energy and Commerce members in the 112th Congress, Democrats’ first Congress back in the minority. From 1987 to 1999, the gap in loyalty is around 5 percentage points. The gap between exclusive committee members and other Democrats narrows considerably in the 107th and 108th Congresses, several years into Democrats’ 12 years in the minority, but it starts to widen again when Democrats regain the majority in 2007. Republicans who serve on exclusive committees, by contrast, do not differ markedly in their average party loyalty from Republicans who do not serve on one of the exclusive committees. Figure 5.2 shows the average roll call voting party loyalty of Republicans on each of the four exclusive Page 130 →committees, on the four exclusive committees combined, and on all other committees. The thickest black line illustrates the average voting loyalty of members on the four exclusive committees; the dashed lines show the four exclusive committees individually; and the thin black line illustrates the average voting loyalty of Republicans on all other committees. Fig. 5.1. Democrats’ average party loyalty: Exclusive committee members and all other Democrats Party loyalty among all Republicans rose significantly between the 100th and 112th Congresses, with averages below 80 percent in the early Congresses to above 90 percent at times during GOP majority control. Before the 104th Congress, Appropriations Republicans voted with their party less often than did members who did not serve on exclusive committees, while Energy and Commerce Republicans and Rules Republicans demonstrated more party loyalty than their colleagues.

With Republicans’ new majority party status in the 104th Congress, Republican exclusive committee members began to vote with their party more frequently than other members did, a pattern that persisted until the 109th Congress, but the differences were narrower than those among Democrats—demonstrating a ceiling effect as all Republicans were becoming significantly more loyal in the majority. In the 109th Congress, and Page 131 →especially in the 110th and 111th Congresses under Democratic control, Republicans on the Appropriations Committee returned to voting less frequently with their party than other committee members, but members on the other three exclusive committees continued to vote with their party more often than other Republicans. Fig. 5.2. Republicans’ average party loyalty: Exclusive committee members and all other Republicans Many factors may contribute to the high party loyalty demonstrated by exclusive committee members. Leaders may reward loyal members with transfers to exclusive committees, but exclusive committee members may also increase their loyalty once on an exclusive committee out of gratitude to the party for putting them there. Figures 5.3 and 5.4 show the differences in roll call voting party loyalty among exclusive committee members during the Congress that precedes their transfer and among members already sitting on exclusive committees in the corresponding Congress. The overall downward trend simply reflects the fact that the party loyalty measure captures members’ average loyalty above and beyond the party mean, and as the party mean increases with rising loyalty, the differences shrink. If the high levels of exclusive committee loyalty were simply a function of members’ gratitude to be Page 132 →there, there should not be any differences between those members who will be transferred (but do not yet know that) and those already serving. Instead, in most Congresses, those not yet on an exclusive committee, but later transferred there, vote with their party more frequently than those who already serve on an exclusive committee. Fig. 5.3. Democrats’ average party loyalty difference: Members one session before a transfer to an exclusive committee and exclusive committee members The differences among those who will be transferred and those who already serve on exclusive committees are most stark among Republicans. As shown in figure 5.4, up until Democrats return to the majority, Republican members who succeed in transferring to an exclusive committee demonstrate high levels of loyalty in the Congress before they transfer, voting with the party even more often that their colleagues who already serve on exclusive committees. The differences among Democrats, however, are limited to the Congresses in which Democrats are in the majority before the 1994 elections. When Democrats regain the majority after the 2006 elections, there is no discernable difference, although both sitting exclusive committee members and those who transfer are more loyal than the average Democrat in the Congress preceding the transfer. Typically, exclusive committees are reserved for members who have Page 133 →demonstrated their loyalty and competence. However, leaders’ strategic assignment of first-term members to exclusive committees suggest that they pursue a mixed strategy of rewarding the loyalty of current members and inculcating loyalty among new promising members by placing new members on exclusive committees at critical points. Figures 5.5 and 5.6 show the percentage of first-term members on exclusive committees, by party and Congress, along with the percentage of all first-term members. Fig. 5.4. Republicans’ average party loyalty difference: Members one session before a transfer to an exclusive committee and exclusive committee members Leaders in Congresses with large numbers of new members were more likely to put first-term members on exclusive committees—as there were more seats to spare—but even more important to leaders’ strategy was gaining majority party control, especially for Republicans. In the 104th Congress, 20 percent of Republican exclusive committee members were first-term members. In the 110th Congress, 4 percent of exclusive committee members were freshmen; in the 112th

Congress, 18 percent of exclusive committee members were in their first term. By contrast, very few—if any—new members served on exclusive committees in other Congresses, even those with many new first-term members. New majority party members were clearly grateful to the new members who had helped Page 134 →them win the majority—indeed, Pelosi dubbed the new class elected in 2006 as “majority makers”—but it also reflected a strategy of encouraging loyalty among new members from the start. Majority party leaders clearly expected loyalty from their new members, and placing them on key committees helped them to attain it. The cost, of course, was frustration among members who had hoped to transfer to an exclusive committee, and the risk was empowering members without a proven track record. Fig. 5.5. Exclusive committee composition: Democratic first-term members Committee Transfers Figures 5.7 and 5.8 illustrate the differences in party loyalty among members who transfer to a committee and those who do not. The transfer could be off of one committee and onto a new committee, or it could simply add a new committee to one’s existing portfolio. The dashed lines show the roll call voting party loyalty of members who transfer to another committee in the session before they are transferred (again, these members do not yet know that they will receive a transfer, although if they are vying for a transfer they have incentives to demonstrate loyalty). The straight lines Page 135 →show the roll call voting loyalty of members who do not transfer in the corresponding sessions. Fig. 5.6. Exclusive committee composition: Republican first-term members As shown in figure 5.7, when Democrats were in control the Democrats who received a committee transfer demonstrated higher party loyalty in the preceding Congress than their colleagues who did not receive a transfer, suggesting that leaders value loyalty when considering a committee transfer. However, when Democrats were in the minority—and had fewer committee seats to distribute and were less concerned about getting policy priorities out of committee—those who did not transfer actually voted with the party more often in the preceding Congress than those who did transfer. Among Republicans, with the exception of the 103rd and 111th Congresses, those who received a transfer to a committee were consistently more loyal than their other colleagues in the preceding Congress, as shown in figure 5.6. The differences among members are most pronounced in the early Congresses (100th–102nd), when the variation in Republicans’ voting loyalty was highest, and in the 105th and 106th Congresses, as Republicans continued to adapt to life in the majority and consolidate leadership control. Fig. 5.7. Democrats’ average party loyalty: Members one session before a committee transfer and members who did not transfer Page 136 → Logistic Regressions The data presented thus far leave unanswered questions about the extent of the differences between members serving on exclusive and nonexclusive committees. Bivariate data show that members were often more loyal to their party than their counterparts were before they were transferred to an exclusive committee, but how did loyalty factor into leaders’ overall decisions? Did leaders’ concern for members’ loyalty in the committee assignment process depend on their particular policy, electoral, and institutional goals?

I turn to logistic regression analysis to assess the effects of party loyalty expressed in roll call voting and fundraising for one’s colleagues and party in committee transfers. I analyze members’ committee transfers to exclusive committees and nonexclusive committees separately. The dependent variable in the first set of models is a dummy variable indicating whether a member received a committee transfer to an exclusive committee, and the dependent variable in the second set of models indicates whether a member received a transfer to a nonexclusive committee. The key independent variables are party loyalty in roll call voting, measured in the session before Page 137 →a transfer would, or would not have, taken place, and fundraising loyalty, equaling the total amount of contributions a member made to his or her colleagues and party committee from his or her campaign and/or leadership PAC(s), measured in the cycle that concluded shortly before the committee transfer would have occurred. Another key independent variable is seat safety, operationalized as a race that CQ Weekly considers as “safe.” I also include controls for seniority (the number of terms served) and a measure of legislative entrepreneurship (the number of bills introduced). All independent variables come from the Congress before the transfer or lack thereof, as committee transfers occur at the beginning of each Congress. Fig. 5.8. Republicans’ average party loyalty: Members one session before a committee transfer and members who did not transfer Because I am interested in differences between Speakers, and there are relatively few transfers each session, I combine all Congresses under one party’s control and construct interaction terms between the key party loyalty variables—voting loyalty and fundraising loyalty—and a dummy variable indicating who served as Speaker at the time. I only analyze Congresses in which the party is in the majority with standard errors clustered by Congresses. The interaction terms highlight differences between same-party Speakers. The results of the full model are shown in appendix 5.A1. Page 138 →Figures 5.9–5.12 display the predicted probabilities of the four models described above. The Democratic roll call voting loyalty figures show the effects of moving from two standard deviations below the mean level of loyalty to two standard deviations above the mean level of loyalty on getting a committee transfer. For Republican roll call figures, the figure displays the effect of a shift from two standard deviations below the mean on roll call voting loyalty to the maximum amount of voting loyalty. The fundraising loyalty figures show the effects of moving from making no contributions at all to making two standard deviations above the mean level of contributions on getting a committee transfer. When Democratic Speakers determine exclusive committee transfers, the main effect of roll call voting party loyalty is positive and statistically significant, although it varies by Speaker. The main effect of fundraising loyalty, however, is negative and statistically significant. As shown in figure 5.8, when Democratic leaders determine exclusive committee transfers, overall loyalty has become more important with each Speaker, even as the average Democrat has also become more loyal and thus more difficult to differentiate. Although exclusive committees were composed of more loyal roll call voters during Speaker Wright’s era (as shown in figure 5.1), it was not because he made great efforts to transfer more loyal members to exclusive committees. And in an era where Democrats thought they would be in the majority for the foreseeable future, Wright did not reward party fundraisers with exclusive committee transfers. Although the effect of fundraising loyalty is significant and negative for Speaker Wright, the substantive effect is minimal at best. Speaker Foley did not consider fundraising, either, but he did reward loyal roll call voters with exclusive committee transfers: moving from two standard deviations below the mean to two standard deviations above the mean increased a member’s probability of moving to an exclusive committee by around 5.75 percentage points. Under Pelosi’s leadership, roll call voting loyalty was also statistically significant, but the substantive effect was smaller; it only increased a member’s probability of obtaining a transfer by slightly less than 3 percentage points. Moving from making no financial contributions to making contributions at levels two standard deviations above the mean, however, increased one’s chances by approximately the same amount as

being a loyal roll call voter (around 2.2 percentage points). Although the error bands are quite large around the predicted probabilities, the linear combination of the main effect and interaction term with Speaker Pelosi is positive and statistically significant at the p < 0.001 level. A winning strategy for members in the Pelosi era, Page 141 →then, was to best one’s colleagues in both voting with the party and contributing money. Page 139 → Fig. 5.9. Predicted probabilities: Democrats’ exclusive-committee transfers Fig. 5.10. Predicted probabilities: Democrats’ Non-Exclusivecommittee transfers Page 140 → Fig. 5.11. Predicted probabilities: Republicans’ exclusive-committee transfers Fig. 5.12. Predicted probabilities: Republicans’ Non-Exclusive-committee transfers Turning to nonexclusive committee transfers during Democratic majorities, the main effect of party voting is also statistically significant. The effect during Wright’s speakership is positive: moving from two standard deviations below the mean to two standard deviations above the mean increases one’s chance of a nonexclusive committee transfer by over 12 percentage points. Speakers Foley and Pelosi, by contrast, are not significantly more likely to grant committee transfers to loyal voters. The effect of fundraising loyalty is negative and significant for Speaker Wright and Speaker Pelosi. Examining the substantive effects of majority party Republican leaders on exclusive committee transfers displayed in figure 5.11, it is clear that Boehner’s strategy marked a departure from his predecessors’. For exclusive committee transfers, the main effect of party loyalty in voting is positive and significant. For both Gingrich and Hastert, moving from two standard deviations below the mean to maximum roll call loyalty increased a member’s chance of getting transferred to an exclusive committee to above 0.02. The interaction term for Boehner is negative and significant, and Boehner was 0.24 more likely to transfer a member whose voting loyalty was two standard deviations below the mean than a member who voted with the conference 100 percent of the time. Hastert, unlike Gingrich and Boehner, valued fundraising loyalty in the Congress preceding a transfer. A member contributing two standard deviations above the mean increased his or her chances of transferring to an exclusive committee by around 2.5 percentage points compared to a conference member who contributed no money from his or her candidate or leadership PACs. Boehner and Hastert alike were significantly more likely to transfer loyal party line voters to nonexclusive committees than they were to transfer other members. Under the leadership of both Speakers, the most loyal members increased their chance of a committee transfer by around 14 percentage points. Fundraising does not have a statistically significant effect on members’ chances of a nonexclusive committee transfer.

Conclusion Members who serve on the four most powerful and most sought-after committees—Appropriations, Energy and Commerce, Rules, and Ways and Means—are typically more loyal to their party than members who do Page 142 →not serve on these committees. The differences are greater among Democrats, mainly because Republicans on the Appropriations Committee vote with their party less frequently than their colleagues on other exclusive committees. Members are usually transferred to these committees after having the opportunity to demonstrate their credentials, and bivariate and multivariate results suggest that, in most Congresses, party loyalty is an important factor in determining who transfers to an exclusive committee. Not all Speakers prioritized party loyalty expressed through roll call votes, however, and each Speaker’s choices reflect his or her prioritization of electoral and policy goals in a given institutional and electoral context. Among Democratic Speakers, Speaker Wright was actively involved in the legislative process, and he prioritized passing a Democratic policy agenda and challenging President Reagan’s agenda. My theory of party discipline predicts that Wright would use

committee transfers as a means of discipline to help him pursue policy control. He did—and more aggressively than his successors—when it came to rewarding members for their loyalty in his decisions about who to transfer to new, nonexclusive committees. Yet Wright was less likely than Foley or Pelosi to prioritize roll call voting loyalty when making decisions about exclusive committee transfers. While the theory of party discipline suggests that he should have done so in both cases, it is worth noting that when Wright was Speaker in the 100th Congress, exclusive committee members were already voting with the party around 5 percent more often than nonexclusive committee members, and Wright himself left fewer decisions to committee chairs than this predecessors had, taking greater control of the legislative floor agenda. Speaker Foley did not actively pursue a partisan agenda, so I did not expect that he would be as active as Wright or Pelosi in pursuing party discipline by rewarding voting loyalty in the transfer process. Yet Foley was significantly more likely to transfer loyal voters to exclusive committees (but not to nonexclusive committees). While Foley was not pursuing an aggressive agenda of his own, at the beginning of the 103rd Congress he had strong incentives to help newly elected President Clinton pass his legislative agenda, much of which would be considered in exclusive committees, particularly Ways and Means and Rules. Further, unlike his predecessor or successors, Foley left legislative work to the committees with jurisdiction over them, and he was less involved in crafting or overseeing the agenda. Indeed, several years after he was Speaker, he reflected to an audience at a public speech at UC Berkeley that he wished that he had convened a task force to consider President Clinton’s health care reform rather than leaving it to the committees, from which it never emerged. Page 143 →As predicted by the theory of party discipline, Speaker Pelosi rewarded both voting loyalty and fundraising loyalty when it came to making decisions about exclusive committee transfers, as she was actively pursuing both policy and majority control. Leading the 110th and 111th Congresses in an era of toss-up politics, Pelosi had incentives to show appreciation for members’ fundraising efforts—and encourage others to follow suit. With the exception of Pelosi’s rewarding fundraising loyalty with exclusive transfers, electoral goals did not enter the committee assignment calculus of Democratic Speakers. Neither Wright nor Foley took fundraising loyalty into account. Electorally vulnerable members did not receive extra help when it came to the committee assignment process. Although Foley certainly had reason to worry about many of his members, Democrats’ electoral peril was less clear at the beginning of the 103rd Congress, when transfers were made, than it was the following year. Pursuing policy control, Republican Speakers took greater steps than did Democrats to consolidate their control over committees through rules changes giving them more power over the process and through their selection of loyal members and fundraisers in the chairman selection process. Yet Republican Speakers were less aggressive than Democrats when it came to rewarding loyalty in the committee assignment process. Among Republican Speakers, Gingrich and Hastert both rewarded loyalty in exclusive committee transfers, but Boehner was significantly less likely to do so. Boehner, on the other hand, struggling to inculcate new members with some loyalty to him as their leader, stacked exclusive committees with a disproportionate number of first-term members (including those identifying with the Tea Party), choosing to cultivate gratitude among new members instead. Boehner instead rewarded loyalty by transferring party voters to nonexclusive committees, as did Hastert. A nonexclusive committee transfer is still an advantage for these members, just not as prestigious as a transfer to an exclusive committee. In an era of toss-up politics, my theory expects all of these Speakers to reward loyal fundraisers. Yet Republican Speakers do not do so, nor do they help vulnerable members with committee transfers of any sort, even in Congresses with many vulnerable members signaling particular reason to be concerned. Leaders’ use of party discipline in the committee chair selection process and the transfer process sends a strong signal to other members—even when leaders do not use it at every opportunity. Even in Congresses when leaders do not transfer members on the basis of their loyalty, the fact that they are often willing to do

so—and the best committees are composed of Page 144 →party loyalists—is still evident to members. Thus, even without new transfers based on loyalty at the start of every Congress, exclusive committee membership reveals to other members an obvious incentive for loyalty. This chapter is an analysis of just one domain in which party leaders have tools available to exert party discipline by rewarding loyalty. The results reveal that members are rewarded for their loyalty with committee transfers and chairmanships in many of the Congresses from 1987 to 2012, and leaders’ decisions in one Congress affect committee composition and members’ careers for the many years, if not decades, that follow. While leaders do not pursue electoral goals by helping vulnerable members in the committee selection process, leaders and members alike increasingly devote themselves to doing so in the allocation of campaign assistance, analyzed in the next chapter. Appendix Page 145 → Table 5.A1. Majority Party Committee Transfers Democratic Speakers Republican Speakers Exclusive Committee Transfers Non-Exclusive Committee Transfers Exclusive Committee Transfers Non-Exclusive Committee Transfers Loyalty variables Roll call voting 0.033*** (0.005) Fundraising в€’12.440*** (2.421) Speaker Foley Speaker Pelosi

0.459 (0.935) 1.117# (0.580)

0.036*** (0.002) в€’0.198*** (0.052)

Speaker Boehner 0.071** (0.022) 0.021

в€’0.014 (0.015) в€’0.093 (0.158)

в€’0.490 (0.651) 1.753** (0.564)

в€’0.285# (0.164) в€’0.612*** (0.181)

0.301 (0.227) 0.719 (0.517)

Speaker Hastert

Speaker Foley Г— roll call Speaker Pelosi

0.050# (0.030) в€’0.549 (0.829)

в€’0.025* (0.012) в€’0.037**

Г— roll call

(0.016)

(0.013)

Speaker Foley Г— fundraising Speaker Pelosi Г— fundraising

10.758** (4.172) 12.530*** (2.420)

0.416 (0.492) 0.146** (0.055)

Speaker Hastert Г— roll call Speaker Boehner

0.031 (0.043) в€’0.185***

0.052* (0.021) 0.066***

Г— roll call Speaker Hastert

(0.031) 0.731

(0.016) 0.136

Г— fundraising Speaker Boehner Г— fundraising

(0.815) 0.551 (0.804)

(0.178) 0.107 (0.157)

Safe seat Terms # of bills introduced

0.325 (0.405) в€’0.494*** (0.061) в€’0.008

0.090 (0.385) в€’0.193*** (0.022) 0.008#

0.345 (0.530) в€’0.626** (0.211) в€’0.003

в€’0.158 (0.211) в€’0.152** (0.053) 0.005

(0.023)

(0.004)

(0.011)

(0.004)

в€’1.172*** (0.305) 1,055

в€’1.509* (0.640) 1,277

в€’0.573# (0.335) 1,277

в€’2.285*** (0.446) N 1,055 Note: Standard errors in parentheses. # p < 0.1, * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001 Constant

Page 146 →

Six Building and Protecting a Majority with Contributions to Incumbents In an era of intense competition for majority party control of the House, congressional party leaders prioritize electoral goals when they allocate campaign funds to their rank-and-file members. Leaders and members alike channel most of their resources toward their few colleagues in competitive reelection races, and even frequent party defectors in tight races receive assistance from party leaders. Moving beyond the most competitive elections, however, party leaders and members themselves at times exert party discipline by rewarding loyal partisans, but in limited ways. In this chapter I evaluate leaders’ use of financial resources to assist members seeking reelection. I track and explain the allocation of “Congress-based” campaign resources, defined as money contributed to incumbents from their party’s congressional campaign committee, other House members’ leadership PACs, and individual House members’ campaign coffers. Beginning in the mid-1990s, party leaders have played an increasingly active role in financing the campaigns of their congressional colleagues. Their role as campaign financiers provides them with the opportunity to exert party discipline by rewarding loyal partisans with campaign money. Yet there is an underlying tension between policy control and electoral control. To attain or maintain majority status (and thereby also maintain or enhance their own position), party leaders strive to elect as many fellow partisans as possible. As the analysis that follows shows, this electoral Page 147 →motive pushes leaders to discount the voting record of their party’s candidates, since targeting resources to members who need them most is the most efficient use of campaign dollars and perhaps the clearest way to bolster their electoral goals. When pursuing policy control, however, leaders need consistent supporters. Leaders have an incentive to ensure the reelection of their consistent supporters. And since reelection is a primary goal for all members, they have an incentive to obtain such assistance. Roll call voting is an obvious means of exchange; loyalty to the party shows that one is worthy of financial support. So a natural expectation is that, other things being equal, leaders will reward members who vote with the party majority and punish unreliable colleagues, if only by omission when it comes to distributing campaign resources. While leaders consistently prioritize the reelection of their most vulnerable, the electoral and institutional contexts determine how much effort they will exert in fundraising. Particularly as party control has been in question, leaders should raise more money, and the electoral vulnerability of members seeking reelection should influence leaders’ allocation of campaign resources. Indeed, this factor may override the desire to use fiscal incentives selectively to reward loyalists and enhance party discipline. This analysis therefore compares the influences of a member’s electoral safety, party loyalty, and existing resources on the allocation of campaign funds by congressional leaders and by their House colleagues. As I have shown in previous chapters, rank-and-file members have stepped up their role in financing their congressional colleagues’ campaigns, and at times have been rewarded for doing so. As members are more likely to vote with the party and leaders have more power over members’ institutional roles, raising money provides ambitious members additional ways to express party loyalty to gain favor with leaders.

Party Discipline on the Campaign Trail? Party leaders have more power and more tools at their disposal in the postreform era. In previous chapters, I have analyzed leaders’ use of two potential mechanisms of discipline—legislative opportunities and committee positions—to reward loyalty and, by omission, punish defection. The campaign trail, where “all politics is local” and seemingly far from Washington’s reach, may not

seem the right place to search for the imposition of party discipline. Self-selected candidates compete for voters in Page 148 →party primaries and build their own election constituencies and power bases, which may or may not be linked to local, state, and national parties. Congressional candidates raise most of their money from individual contributions and political action committees (Jacobson 2004). Members of Congress can only be removed by their constituents, not by party leaders. Yet, party leaders, rank-and-file members, and congressional campaign committees all raise more money for their colleagues’ campaigns with every cycle. Congressional Campaign Committees Congressional campaign committees are very much a part of the party-in-government. The congressional campaign committees, the National Republican Congressional Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, are chaired by members of Congress appointed by party leaders and who, by virtue of this role, are in the inner circle of party leadership and decision making. Contribution decisions are therefore made in a context where party leaders possess full knowledge of both the past party loyalty and the current electoral circumstances of individual members. In every election cycle since 1994, majority control has been dependent on the outcome of the relatively few competitive races. Congressional campaign committees are devoted to “pursuing majorities” (Kolodny 1998). Congressional campaign committees spend their money on congressional races, and, as they continue to raise more and more money for congressional candidates with every cycle, they become more important to members’ reelection efforts, particularly those who need campaign resources. In the 1992 cycle, the DCCC raised $12.8 million in hard money and $4.3 million in soft money for congressional candidates, and the NRCC raised $35.2 million and $6.1 million, respectively (Sabato and Larson 2002, 75). According to data from the Center for Responsive Politics, the congressional party committees continued to increase their spending with nearly every cycle. In the 2000 cycle, the DCCC raised $48.4 million in hard money and $56.7 million in soft money, and the NRCC raised $97.3 million in hard money and $47.3 million in soft money. In the 2004 cycle, the DCCC spent $92,749,192 and the NRCC spent $185,803,816. In the 2008 cycle, the DCCC spent $176,518,249 on congressional races, and the NRCC spent $118,226,373. In 2012, the DCCC spent $183,160,443 and the NRCC spent $156,728,305.1 Congressional campaign committees contribute money to candidates Page 149 →in the form of direct contributions and coordinated expenditures. They may also make independent expenditures on behalf of candidates provided these are not coordinated with the candidates (these totals are not included). Congressional campaign committees also provide a variety of resources to help candidates, include staff, recruitment, research, polling, communications, fundraising assistance, and grassroots activities. Such activities are reported to the FEC as in-kind contributions. Until the enactment of the Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act, congressional campaign committees used soft money to run party issue-advocacy ads until November 2002, but these are outside the scope of this study (and of FEC reporting requirements). Leadership PACs Members of Congress and other elected officials began to form leadership PACs in the 1980s (Baker 1989; Corrado 1997), although members were already contributing to fellow partisans. Leadership PACs are unique because members of Congress and other elected officials—not outside groups such as unions, trade associations, or ideological interest groups—form them to contribute up to $10,000 per cycle ($5,000 in the primary and $5,000 in the general) to their colleagues and would-be colleagues. Initially, the scope and magnitude of leadership PACs were minimal, but with every new cycle more members form them, as detailed in chapter 3. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, 38 members of Congress had leadership PACs in 1994. During the 1997–98 cycle, elected officials operated 116 leadership PACs, including 51 by House members, with Democratic House candidates receiving $2,600,000 and Republican House candidates $5,996,000 from this source (Herrnson 2000). Just two years later, in the 106th Congress, the total number of leadership PACs had grown to 141, 71 of which were formed by House members. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, during the 2000 election cycle the total contribution level from leadership PACs reached $15,657,988, compared to

$10,853,360 in the previous cycle, although not all of this leadership PAC money originated from or went to House members. During the 2002 cycle, 228 leadership PACs contributed, including $10,282,686 to Democrats and $14,822,116 to Republicans. Ten years later, leadership PAC activity had nearly doubled. In 2012, 456 leadership PACs contributed $17,713,353 to Democratic House candidates and $28,638,901 to Republican House candidates. House members may use their leadership PACs to hire staff, travel, or Page 150 →entertain—the limits are not strict. As a result, I consider only the leadership PAC contributions members make to incumbents, not the total amount that leadership PACs raise. The increased involvement of members in their colleagues’ campaigns has coincided with greater party unity in roll call votes and the eclipse in the seniority system for selecting committee chairmen among Republicans. Forming a leadership PAC and contributing to fellow members allow members additional ways to express their party loyalty in a competitive environment, distinguishing prolific fundraisers from other members who may also vote consistently along party lines. Member-to-Member Contributions An increasing number of members of Congress, particularly those from safe seats, help fellow members with contributions of up to $1,000 per election (including primaries) from their campaigns until 2002, and then with contributions of $2,000 per election, indexed for inflation with every cycle. Although members without leadership PACs are limited in their contributions like any other individual donor, they are spared the administrative requirements of running a PAC. Party leaders encourage members to contribute from their campaigns to their colleagues’ races, as well as to the congressional campaign committee.

Hypotheses I test the following hypotheses: H1. When it comes to allocating campaign resources, leaders and members will prioritize their goal of majority control. Therefore, the electoral vulnerability of candidates will dictate leaders’ allocation of resources. Leaders and other members will prioritize majority control and assist all members facing competitive races—whatever their loyalty. H2. Policy control will be a distant secondary goal. All else equal, loyal partisans will receive more money from their fellow partisans, especially in Congresses with narrow chamber margins. H3. As competition for control of the House of Representatives increased after the 1994 cycle, party leaders and members will Page 151 →increase their level of contributions and be more likely to prioritize electoral goals from the 1996 cycle on.

Data and Methods Data for this analysis span from 1989 to 2012. The Center for Responsive Politics generated the data for this analysis. The contextual and individual-level independent variables I employ in my analyses of members of Congress as campaign contributors and recipients are the same as in previous chapters. Using the Center for Responsive Politics data, I create four dependent variables measuring contributions that incumbents receive from their party and colleagues. One variable measures each member’s contributions from his or her party’s congressional campaign committee. The second measures all of the contributions a member receives from other incumbent members of Congress. A third includes the total contributions a member receives from colleagues’ leadership PACs (but not other elected officials’ leadership PACs). Finally, a fourth variable totals all of the contributions received by each member. I employ OLS regression analysis to analyze these data.

Results

Members of Congress in both parties receive significantly more money from their leaders and colleagues than they did prior to the Republican takeover of Congress in 1994. Figures 6.1 and 6.2 show the total amount of money contributed to incumbents from the party campaign committees, other incumbents, and leadership PACs from 1990 to 2012, or the cycles corresponding with the end of the 101st to the end of the 112th Congress. A comparison of the figures clearly shows that Republicans outspend their Democratic colleagues. Not surprisingly, the party committee totals are relatively flat throughout this time period. More and more money from individual members of Congress, however, is flowing to members of Congress to help with their reelection. Page 152 → Fig. 6.1. Total contributions received by Democratic incumbents from colleagues and the DCCC, by Congress Fig. 6.2. Total contributions received by Republican incumbents from colleagues and the NRCC, by Congress Page 154 → Fig. 6.3. Average contributions to safe and vulnerable incumbents, by Congress and party Fig. 6.4. Contributions from colleagues and party as a percentage of incumbents’ total receipts There is also variation from Congress to Congress that reflects partisan tides and partisan concerns. Democrats, for example, gave more money from leadership PACs and campaign coffers to their colleagues in 2010—a devastating year for Democrats—than they do in any other cycle. In the same cycle, Republicans gave slightly more money to their colleagues than Democrats—but much less than they gave to their colleagues in previous Page 153 →and subsequent cycles, likely because more of their money was flowing to challengers and open seat candidates in 2010. After 1994, members facing competitive reelection races receive, on average, considerably more money than their safe-seat colleagues, as shown in figure 6.3. Up until the 1996 cycle, there were not large differences between the receipts of safe and vulnerable members because the average member simply didn’t get much money from his or her colleagues or party. By the 104th Congress, a large gap between contributions to safe and vulnerable incumbents opened up that continued to widen. In the 108th Congress, for example, vulnerable Republicans averaged $200,000 from their party and colleagues, compared to just $50,000 in receipts for the average safe member. In the same cycle, the average vulnerable Democrat received just under $150,000, and the average safe Democrat received around $10,000. Since the 1996 cycle, the average vulnerable Republican has received more money from her colleagues than the average vulnerable Democrat in every cycle except for the 2008 cycle. Of course, in all of these cycles except for 2008 and 2010, there were more Republicans in the House to make contributions (and the number of vulnerable incumbents varied), but the differences were nonetheless striking; as shown in chapter 3, the average Republican member typically contributes more than the average Democrat. In the 2008 cycle, when Democrats received more money from their colleagues and party, Republicans were back in the minority, meaning that there were fewer members to make contributions to vulnerable members and likely a focus on open seats and challengers. Multivariate Analyses Tables 6.1 and 6.2 report the results of the multivariate OLS analyses. Because the results are consistent in every individual analysis, I only present the results of the model predicting members’ total contributions from party leaders, members’ campaigns, and members’ leadership PACs. I included four measures of party loyalty in the models: roll call voting loyalty (the percentage of support above the party average in the first session of that Congress; rule support (support for failed rules); speech loyalty; and discharge petition loyalty. I also include a dummy variable indicating whether CQ Weekly indicated that the incumbent member’s seat is safe, the incumbent party’s district presidential vote, and the number of terms served. The key variables of interest are the party loyalty measures and the seat safety and presidential vote measures. Page 155 →Page 156 →Page 157 →The multivariate results make clear that the potent motive of maintaining seats in the House primarily directs money from leaders and members to the electorally vulnerable in every election cycle, no matter what the circumstances. Probing deeper, the results also reveal that party loyalty is a factor in the contribution decisions of leaders and rank-and-file members in some Congresses, particularly before

the era of toss-up politics. From 1990 to 2012, vulnerable incumbents received far more money from their party leaders and colleagues than their safe-seat colleagues did, all else equal. The contributions to vulnerable incumbents increased massively over time. Running in a competitive race garnered Democrats an extra $9,982 in 1990. By 1996, vulnerable incumbents received $18,146 more, a difference that rose to $152,157 in 2012, the highest amount in the time series. By comparison, vulnerable Republicans received an extra $6,681 in 1990, $41,992 in 1996, and $134,965 in 2012. Republicans were most generous to their vulnerable colleagues in 2006, contributing $198,843 more. Seniority never helped members attract money from the party, and it actually significantly decreased contributions to Democrats in four cycles and to Republicans in seven cycles, all else equal. The perception that junior members need more help, controlling for actual electoral safety, was a factor. Even taking members’ electoral situation into account, members representing districts with fewer partisans also typically received more money in about half of the election cycles under consideration. Party loyalty in roll call voting above and beyond the party average was worth extra money to Democrats in the 101st, 103rd, and 104th Congresses, and rule support helped Democrats in the 101st Congress. After just two years in the minority, Democrat’s mind-set had shifted. Money flowed to vulnerable members in increasingly large amounts, and almost no other factors mattered. Roll call voting loyalty only helped Republicans—and it was only worth an extra $63—in the 102nd Congress. Interestingly, speech loyalty significantly helped Republican incumbents in the 104th Congress—perhaps those who frequently gave one-minutes were more visible to their colleagues, whereas it had the opposite effect for Democrats in the 104th Congress. Clearly, majority control determines the allocation of resources to incumbents. Sometimes, however, statistical analyses obscure important signals from leaders. Leaders’ infrequent decisions to exert discipline on the campaign trail by rewarding loyalty appear in some Congresses, but in others it may wash away in statistical analyses. Nonetheless, even a few instances of leadershipPage 158 → withholding campaign benefits may send a strong signal to their members. Interviews and news reports suggest that in very limited circumstances, leaders are willing to exert discipline when it comes to campaign assistance. Indeed, in January 1996 Speaker Gingrich cancelled fundraising visits to the districts of four GOP freshmen as punishment for their votes against legislation to end a partial shutdown of the federal government (Cohen 1996). The overall trends, however, are clear. From 1990 to 2012, Republican and Democratic leaders and rank-and-file members directed Congress-based resources to those who needed them most: their members facing the most competitive reelection races, as hypothesized. Despite the theoretical availability of Congress-based resources for leaders to use as disciplinary carrots and sticks, constraints on their use are powerful. Leaders use other mechanisms of discipline, such as the consideration of a member’s legislation or a favorable committee transfer, but the electoral consequences of losing a few members—even disloyal ones—was not something leaders were willing to consider to exert discipline. Maintaining or attaining a majority is their responsibility, and it also increases their job security. A more nuanced examination of the important of party loyalty in the 106th Congress reveals that it did play a limited role in the allocation of Congress-based resources. Among members representing safe seats, loyal partisans, on average, received more money from their party’s congressional campaign committee and from rank-and-file members. This helps them to strengthen their war chests and thus continue to scare off challengers. Although Congress-based contributions make up a smaller percentage of the total campaign coffers of safe members, preference based on loyalty sends a powerful signal. This analysis covers an era during which campaign resources have become much more important. Leaders and colleagues became more involved in their colleagues’ races with every cycle, with leaders demanding dues from their members and using fundraising as a criterion in the allocation of legislative and committee benefits. By the 1992 election, the new era had already begun.

A former DCCC chairman reflected: In the earlier days, help from the DCCC went to more loyal members. Everyone who needed it got it, yes, but in the early years, if you didn’t do a lot [for the party] and if you got help, it was unique. [Phil] Burton would promise to get southerners labor money if they would help him on votes. The leadership fostered money arrangements; it Page 159 →was easier to sway a member to vote with a financial response [back then]. There were threats sometimes to take people out in primaries, but they never materialized. They were only employed by leadership when the possibility of disaster arose. Another former DCCC chairman reflected on how times were different with large Democratic margins: I had a confessional in my office. Members would come there and tell me their problems—financial, sexual, electoral. I’d help them with campaign contributions and get them opportunities for honoraria. If I took care of them, I expected help back. It was understood [not stated]. Republicans came too.В .В .В . When I was DCCC chair, I dealt with the GOP. If we were targeting someone they wanted to retain, we’d trade a target for target. For example, Tommy Loeffler (R-TX), Cheney’s deputy whip, was upset that we were targeting Carroll A. Campbell (R-SC). I said fine, you stop targeting Robin Tallon (D-SC). Lift for lift, we both won.В .В .В . Today, it’s a close divide, both parties need every vote. You can’t lose—you can’t cut off your nose to spite your face. In today’s environment, be protective of everyone. When I was DCCC chair, if someone was totally disloyal, I’d pull money. The Maryland 8th district congressional race in 2002 illustrates just how much times have changed. Moderate Republican Connie Morella was facing the toughest election of her sixteen-year career. She had been targeted by the Democratic-controlled state legislature in the 2000 redistricting cycle, and her new district was filled with many Democratic voters who did not know her voting record, which contained more votes against her party than any other Republican at that time. Morella had always taken her reelection races seriously, and, as FEC data reveal, had never received (or wanted) much help from her party or her colleagues. The 2002 cycle was different—she was in real trouble—and the NRCC for the first time made a contribution to her campaign. It totaled $8,500. Their contributions funded a brochure that read: “Connie doesn’t represent a party, she represents us” (Balz and Becker 2002). On the FEC report, the NCRCC contributions were listed only a few lines below a $7,000 contribution from NARAL Pro-Choice America PAC—not a typical supporter of GOP candidates. When I interviewed former Speaker Gingrich in Washington, DC, in 2002, Morella was defending her seat in a tough reelection bid only a few Page 160 →miles away. I asked Gingrich about his former colleague. He said complimentary things about Morella, and he indicated that he thought it was appropriate that the NRCC, along with Laura Bush, was helping her raise money. I then asked him why she didn’t have better committee assignments or more of her legislation considered than her legislative entrepreneurship or years of service might predict. He responded: “Oh no, we couldn’t have done that. There are limits on what you can do for someone like that.” Clearly, leaders view campaign contributions differently than they view legislative and committee preference. Party leaders are likely to continue to prioritize electoral concerns. At least for now, as narrow margins dictate that the fight for party control will continue and leaders play an expanded role as financiers of their colleagues’ campaigns, it is likely that leaders will continue to pursue a strategy concentrated on attaining or maintaining majority status by contributing to their most vulnerable members rather than using campaign resources as a primary means of discipline. Party loyalty, however, is likely to continue to affect the campaign trail in other ways. The two preceding chapters have shown that members who express loyalty above and beyond their voting record are increasingly likely to contribute to their colleagues, and leaders indeed reward this electoral loyalty. And, as rank-and-file members increase their involvement in their colleagues’ campaigns—particularly in the context of the continued eclipse of the seniority system—party discipline exerted by rank-and-file members may increase, even if only to send a signal.

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Seven Conclusion The Implications of Party Discipline Party leaders exert discipline by rewarding members who consistently vote with the party under certain circumstances. The analyses of the rewards and punishments at leaders’ disposal, and the variation in their allocation across Congresses, show that discipline indeed occurs, but that it takes on several forms and needs to be understood as a multidimensional concept. The analyses also demonstrate the tension between leaders’ policy goals and electoral goals, and leaders’ struggle to prioritize these goals. In this chapter, I draw together my central findings, comparing leaders’ allocation of scarce resources in each of the three domains in the varied electoral and institutional circumstances from 1987 to 2012. I summarize leaders’ efforts, or lack thereof, to target intraparty factions. I then briefly assess efforts of rank-and-file members to impose, or support, party discipline. I next turn to an analysis of differences between the House and the Senate. Party leaders in the Senate lack most of the instruments of discipline possessed by House leaders. Finally, I close with a discussion of the implications of leaders’ decisions for policy making, representation, and governance, with predictions for the future. Leaders pursue two goals when they allocate benefits: policy control and majority control, but their relative priority depends on the electoral and institutional context of a particular Congress and the leadership of particular Speakers. The former leaders and their staff whom I interviewed said that party leaders rewarded loyal members, but they also mentioned Page 162 →electoral considerations and issues of competency. As one mentioned, “loyalty was used, but nothing was that simple.” Leaders must balance policy control and majority control, while ensuring institutional maintenance. In interviews, former leaders insisted that votes on special rules were their ultimate litmus test for loyalty, and indeed my empirical analyses demonstrate that this was the case in Congresses where special rules failed. In these Congresses (the 100th–105th and the 107th), no matter which party was in the majority, loyal rule supporters were more likely to have their resolutions considered on the House floor, all else equal. When it came to committee transfers, leaders were more likely to reward roll call voting loyalty, especially when they had incentives to demonstrate strong leadership over their caucus or conference. Leaders pursuing a partisan legislative program, particularly in Congresses with narrow margins where they need most every vote, were more likely to exert discipline in the legislative domain and committee domain. New leaders making committee assignments for the first time are likely to use this as a way to exert discipline as well. Most leaders indicated that electoral vulnerability was a factor in their decisions in each of the domains. Indeed, leaders focused on majority control—attaining or bolstering a majority—when they allocate resources and opportunities. When it came to campaign assistance, vulnerable members received the most resources, regardless of their party loyalty, in every Congress. In other domains, however, leaders tended to give preference to electorally vulnerable members only when they were worried about an unusually large number of vulnerable members. Leaders were more likely to give committee and legislative preference to members who express their loyalty through campaign contributions to their colleagues than they were to give preference to vulnerable members, particularly once party control was at stake. Leaders are concerned with institutional maintenance. Party leaders rely on their members to draft must-pass legislation such as the annual appropriations bills, reauthorization bills, and bills dealing with a whole host of mundane issues of concern to the executive branch, regulators, and interest groups. In most Congresses, legislative entrepreneurs, committee chairs, and senior members are more likely to see their efforts, experience, and expertise pay off. It is surprising, however, that these members did not always see their efforts pay off, particularly in the

Republican-controlled Congresses. In my statistical analyses, these variables served as controls: all else equal, I expected that such members would see their positions, efforts, and expertise pay off, but that was not always the case, particularly as leaders centralized power. Page 163 →Table 7.1 links the theoretical expectations of my theory of party discipline to the findings presented in this book. As predicted, leaders pursuing policy control—those pursuing an active party agenda and who need almost every majority party vote to support it—are more likely to exert party discipline by rewarding members’ past loyalty in order to provide incentives for future loyalty, not just of the members who are rewarded, but among all members. In Congresses where leaders are particularly concerned about the reelection of vulnerable members, they increase their efforts to pursue electoral goals. As detailed in chapter 2, Speaker Wright assumed the gavel in 1987 with a partisan legislative agenda, and he was very involved in the process of bringing it to fruition. By comparison to the very slim margins after 1995, Wright’s chamber margins can hardly be considered narrow, but Democrats’ margins had shrunk considerably from where they had been. Speaker Wright was concerned about getting enough of his members’ votes, particularly as Republicans were less and less likely to provide compensatory support when Democrats defected. Wright, in his attempts to pass an ambitious Democratic program and present a strong counterpoint to President Reagan’s agenda, thus exerted discipline by rewarding roll call voting loyalty and rule loyalty in the 100th and 101st Congresses, especially where it counted most, giving party supporters more resolutions on the House floor and more transfers to both exclusive and nonexclusive committees. Wright did not pursue electoral goals to the same extent as policy control, although he did reward fundraising loyalty with bills and resolutions, and, as all leaders did, he helped the vulnerable with campaign funds. Speaker Foley began the 102nd Congress without a strong policy agenda, relying instead on committee chairs to craft the agenda. During the 103rd Congress, however, loyal roll call voters were more likely than other Democratic members to be transferred to exclusive and nonexclusive committees. An important shift had occurred between the 102nd Congress and the 103rd Congress: Foley felt pressure to pass newly elected President Clinton’s legislative agenda. By rewarding loyalty, leaders provided incentives to less loyal members to support the party. In addition, they added reliable Democratic votes to the committees that they anticipated would draft much of the president’s policy agenda. Foley had good reasons to focus on electoral goals as well: the many vulnerable Democratic incumbents going into the 1992 and 1994 elections. He rewarded loyal fundraisers with more bills in the 102nd Congress and with exclusive committee transfers in the 103rd Congress, and he was one of the few Speakers to help vulnerable members, providing them with more resolutions in the 102nd and 103rd Congress. Page 164 →Page 165 →In the 104th Congress, Speaker Gingrich set out to deliver on the promises that he had made in the “Contract with America,” a rare congressional party platform used during the 1994 congressional campaigns. With a narrow margin, Gingrich needed the support of most of his members to pass the ten agenda items in the Contract and the controversial spending bills containing many cuts and policy riders that followed. He rewarded loyal rule voters with resolutions in both the 104th and 105th Congress, but his clearest signals about the importance of party loyalty were the selection of party loyalists to chair committees in the 104th Congress, particularly the Appropriations Committee, and the changes in the rules empowering leaders in the selection of committee chairs. Although Gingrich prioritized policy control over majority control, in an era of toss-up politics and looking to the 1998 elections, he rewarded loyal fundraisers with more resolutions in the 105th Congress, in addition to providing consistent campaign support to vulnerable members. Speaker Hastert pursued a balanced strategy of majority control and policy control. In an era of toss-up politics, he had reason to be concerned with every election—especially the 2006 elections. Yet he led with narrow margins, needing almost all of his members’ votes, and although he did not have an ambitious partisan policy agenda, he viewed it as his job to pass President Bush’s agenda. He increased the value of the rewards for fundraising loyalty, providing the party’s loyal fundraisers with more resolutions in the 106th and 107th Congresses and

more bills in the 108th and 109th Congresses, and he rewarded voting loyalty with amendments in the 106th Congress. At the same time, Hastert rewarded loyal voters with nonexclusive committee transfers and, in the 107th and 108th Congresses, with resolutions, and, in the 109th Congress, with amendments. Hastert also led the Steering Committee process that made several key committee chair selections in which both roll call voting loyalty and fundraising loyalty were important factors. In the four years she served as Speaker, Pelosi actively pursued a partisan policy agenda. In the 110th Congress, she ensured that Democrats’ policy priorities passed on the floor, and she led the opposition to President Bush’s policies. In the 111th Congress, she partnered with President Obama to ensure that Democrats’ major agenda items, especially health care reform, were enacted. She could not spare many votes, but she only infrequently rewarded roll call loyalty. She was more likely to bring loyal roll call voters’ resolutions to the House floor, but she otherwise focused on rewarding loyal fundraisers with resolutions and exclusive committee transfers. Page 166 →Speaker Boehner did not pursue an ambitious party policy agenda. His focus, driven in part by his conference, was to criticize President Obama’s major legislative enactments without offering alternatives. House Republicans, in fact, voted 54 times to repeal part or all of “Obamacare” between 2011 and March 2014 (O’Keefe 2014). Speaker Boehner also spent a lot of time negotiating with Democrats and his own members to pass a budget and raise the debt ceiling. Accordingly, he rewarded roll call voting loyalty only when making nonexclusive committee transfers in the 112th Congress. Boehner did pursue an electoral strategy, rewarding loyal fundraisers with resolutions and helping vulnerable members by bringing their bills to the floor and providing campaign funds. It is striking, though, that Boehner’s willingness to reward loyalty—and punish disloyalty—grew as his frustration with his unruly conference grew. At the start of the 113th Congress, Boehner removed 4 Republicans who had been disloyal to the party at key moments from influential committees. After 25 Republicans failed to support Boehner’s bid for Speaker at the opening of the 114th Congress, Boehner removed key insurgents Daniel Webster (R-FL) and Richard Nugent (R-FL) from the Committee on Rules as punishment (Sherman and Bresnahan 2015). The theory of party discipline is about rewarding loyalty. Leaders reward loyalty to provide incentives for other members to demonstrate such loyalty. Yet a lingering question is whether party discipline also induces additional loyalty among the members who are rewarded, or among members who receive committee and legislative benefits for other reasons. To address this, I analyze whether members increase their party loyalty in the Congress after leaders provide a committee or a legislative benefit. I regress members’ change in party loyalty from the second session of a Congress to the first session of the following Congress. The key independent variables are a count of the number of bills and resolutions a member has considered on the House floor when the member’s party is in the majority and an exclusive committee transfer at the beginning of later Congress. I also control for a change in seat safety and seniority. To provide an example, the analysis asks whether having one’s bills and resolutions considered in the 100th Congress (among Democrats), or an exclusive committee transfer at the beginning of the 101st Congress, leads to greater roll call voting support in the 101st Congress. The results, OLS regression coefficients and standard errors, are presented in tables 7.2 and 7.3. Among Democrats, having one’s bills and resolutions considered in one Congress does not increase loyalty in the next Congress. In most Congresses, an exclusive committee transfer has no effect, either. An exclusivePage 169 →Page 167 →Page 168 → committee transfer during Pelosi’s speakership, however, does lead to increased party loyalty in the Congress that follows. Democrats who receive a committee transfer at the beginning of the 111th Congress increase their loyalty significantly more than other Democrats, an effect of 1.43 percent. Among Republicans, the only predictor of increased party loyalty is having bills and resolutions considered in the 104th Congress. In general, then, rewarding loyalty does not result in additional loyalty, but the theoretical expectation was that it would serve as an example for other members.

Intraparty Factions Even with the expansion of the Democratic Caucus in 2006 and 2008, the internal homogeneity of both parties increased from 1987 on. The Democratic Caucus became more liberal, the Republican Conference became more conservative, and the ideological overlap of their memberships disappeared. DW-NOMINATE scores of members’ ideology (Hare, Poole, and Rosenthal 2014) make that clear. Indeed, with every election after 1994, political observers bemoaned the lack of moderates and the disappearing center. Yet, as detailed in chapter 2, moderates in both parties began to organize in the 104th Congress, and at times cause headaches for party leaders. On the Democratic side, a group of moderate to conservative Democrats formed the Blue Dog Coalition in a highly publicized rollout, sending a signal to their leaders and constituents alike that they had no intention of simply toeing the party line, even as Democrats were in the minority at the time of the coalition’s formation. When Democrats took majority party control in the 110th Congress, Blue Dog Democrats continued to stake out more moderate positions, yet Democratic leaders made a concerted effort to accommodate their interests as much as possible, both because they needed their votes and because they didn’t want them to lose in the next election. Republican moderate members formed the Tuesday Group. As Speaker Gingrich forwarded the policy agenda articulated in the “Contract with America,” followed up by efforts to reduce spending during the appropriations process, Tuesday Group members lobbied leaders for incremental changes in Republican policies, particularly environmental and social policy issues, behind the scenes. Republican leaders had their roster, but Tuesday Group leaders kept their membership list private to avoid generating the ire of conservative interest groups. Page 170 →Whereas Blue Dog Democrats and Tuesday Group Republicans aimed to pull their party’s policies toward the ideological center, Tea Party Republicans typically found allies among other conservative Republican members and interest groups concerned about repealing “Obamacare” and cutting federal spending. Whereas Tea Party Republicans were natural allies of conservative Speaker Boehner on some issues, they caused innumerable headaches—and public relations disasters—for him in the 112th Congress, calling his leadership into question. Conflict between Boehner and Tea Party members flared when Boehner tried to negotiate with the Democratic-controlled Senate and President Obama on “must pass” legislation, such as raising the debt limit and passing continuing appropriations to avert a government shutdown. Tea Party Republicans were much more steadfast, and vocal, in their opposition to any compromise forged by Boehner. When it comes to exclusive committee membership, intraparty factions do not appear to be targets of discipline. In the 112th Congress, Tea Party members comprised just over a quarter of the Republican Conference and a quarter of exclusive committee positions. In the 110th and 111th Congresses, Blue Dogs comprised 20 percent and 18 percent of the Democratic Caucus, respectively, and their composition of exclusive committee positions was not significantly different—19 percent in the 110th Congress and 20 percent in the 111th Congress. In the 104th Congress, Tuesday Group members were 17 percent of exclusive committees and 18 percent of the Republican Conference, and they were 16 percent of each in the 105th Congress. When intraparty group dummy variables are included in models predicting committee transfers and campaign contributions, they are not significant. The legislative calendar tells a different story. Speaker Pelosi did not target Blue Dog Democrats. Leaders did not bring any more, or any less, of their bills, resolutions, or amendments to the House floor. Republican leaders, however, were willing to discipline the ideological moderates in the Tuesday Group that caused them problems, but they rewarded recalcitrant Tea Party members. Tuesday Group members had significantly fewer resolutions considered on the floor in the 105th Congress than did other Republicans, all else equal, and leaders made significantly fewer amendments authored by Tuesday Group members in order under closed rules in the 104th Congress. By contrast, conservative Tea Party Republicans had significantly more of their amendments considered under closed rules in the 112th Congress, all else equal. Although these analyses occur in different Congresses, and these GOP groups differed in style and substance, Page 171 →both groups caused problems for Republican speakers leading new majorities by defecting on key votes and, at times, vocally opposing party priorities. Tea Party members were bolstered by the support of Tea Party activists outside the halls of Congress,

whereas Tuesday Group members did not have such support, and rank-and-file members were seemingly more sympathetic to groups closer to the party base.

Rank-and-File Support for Party Discipline As detailed in the preceding chapters, party leaders acquired more and more instruments of discipline during the postreform era. Yet leaders could not have expanded their power without the support of their members, as conditional party government theory predicts (Rohde 1991; Aldrich and Rohde 2000). As each party’s internal homogeneity increased and the parties became more distinct, members have supported leaders’ continued increase in power. Further, members have pressured leaders to discipline their colleagues. High profile, cohesive intraparty coalitions have the potential to limit party leaders’ ability to discipline their members by making demands on leaders for resources and opportunities. At the same time, intraparty groups can make demands on party leaders to enforce party discipline. Intraparty groups have tried to do both, with varying results, and intraparty groups within the Democratic Caucus seem to be better able to limit leaders’ abilities to exert party discipline than they are in the Republican Conference. Republicans While in the minority, rank-and-file Republicans were not unified in support of a partisan strategy (Connelly and Pitney 1994). While the Republican leader, Bob Michel, was willing to fight Democrats on key issues, he generally favored a conciliatory strategy aimed at affecting legislation at the margins. Republican whip Newt Gingrich led the attack against majority party Democrats. He had risen to his leadership post with the backing of an increasing number of Republicans who supported his confrontational “bomb throwing” tactics designed to highlight the putative abuses of the majority party, its leaders in particular. Winning majority control settled this dispute, and, with Michel’s retirement, rank-and-file Republicans elected a team of conservative partisans as their leaders, headed by Gingrich. Gingrich, however, found governing to be more Page 172 →challenging than bomb throwing; he was forced to compromise with a Democratic president in the process of pursuing institutional maintenance, but not without resistance from his own ranks. A group of conservative Republicans attempted an unsuccessful “coup” to oust him from the speakership in 1997 because he was too pragmatic in his dealings with President Clinton (Solomon 1998). At critical junctures, rank-and-file Republicans in the majority expressed their support for party discipline. In June 1998, Congressman Robert Ehrlich (R-MD), a conservative first elected in 1994, initiated a letter from a group of Republican members to Republican Party leaders urging them to punish Republicans for deviating from the party on key votes and issues. More than half of Republican members eventually signed Ehrlich’s letter, which was in part aimed at his Maryland neighbor, moderate Republican Wayne Gilchrest (Almanac of American Politics 1998, Ehrlich). The letter was widely viewed as an attack on moderates. Ehrlich, however, claimed that his letter had signatures from “all philosophical wings of the conference and the entire GOP elected leadership” (CongressDaily 1998b). In response, several moderates, led by Gilchrest and Michael Castle (R-DE), signed onto a letter of protest to Speaker Gingrich: We would like toВ .В .В . express our deep concern over recent reports of efforts to revert to a system of punishment and retribution against members who express views in opposition of leadership positions. The quality of the debate in the House has improved because members now have to bring knowledge and information to the table instead of seniority or political punishmentsВ .В .В . As you often pointed out yourself while we were in the minority, the Democrats often used political persuasion instead of intellectual argument and the country suffered for it.1 Press accounts quoted moderate Republican Rick Lazio (R-NY): “A lot of moderates feel concerned about creating discipline through punitive action and how such a system would be applied.В .В .В . It’s better to reward loyalty” (CongressDaily 1998a). Majority Whip Tom DeLay, on the other hand, publicly expressed

sympathy for Ehrlich’s efforts. Representative Ehrlich, along with most of the Republican Conference, made a point. My analyses, however, suggest that adding explicit rules about punishment was not necessary. Interviews with Republican members of Congress serving at that time also make it clear that the dissenters already knew that their leadership was unhappy with their voting record, Page 173 →and, more significantly, that some believed they were already paying a price by being sidelined in the legislative process. Further, Ehrlich’s effort contributed to growing unease among moderates in the Republican Conference. The Republican Conference would typically meet each Wednesday morning. Depending on the week’s topic, the meetings could be awkward for dissenters. Attendance reflected this, and eventually, the Conference announced to members that “attendance would be taken.” Indeed, “If you weren’t part of the team, it could be unpleasant,” explained one aide to a moderate Republican. Another former staff member to a moderate Republican explained how her boss dreaded going to some Republican Conference meetings because some members seemed “almost hostile.” One moderate Republican congressman complained about the tendency of the leadership to reward the “ambiguous credential of being conservative—a conservative ideology that flaunts the fact that you are conservative on all issues. I wonder who made up this conservative icon of Republicanism.” It seems that life was more uncomfortable in the Republican Conference, then, for moderate dissenters rather than conservative dissenters. Rank-and-file members have expressed more willingness to discipline moderates. Yet the very members expressing the most enthusiasm for Ehrlich’s letter were members who themselves were at times at odds with the leadership over important votes because the bills were not conservative enough. Democrats After a disappointing legislative record in the 102nd Congress, it seemed that the election of President Clinton might provide the jolt that Democratic leaders needed to carry out a party program in a new era of unified party government. Indeed, shortly after the election, conservative Democrat Charles Stenholm (D-TX), chairman of the Conservative Democratic Forum, remarked: “Let us be a part of defining the agenda. And if we are, we will (support it)” (Taylor 1992, 3845). Yet Democratic leaders working with President Clinton in 1993 and 1994 failed to bring a significant Democratic Party program to the House floor. President Clinton’s health care plan dominated the policy agenda, but Democrats failed to even consider a bill on the House floor. President Clinton’s welfare reform plan was put on the back burner until Republicans controlled Congress. Democrats in the House and Senate passed President Clinton’s 1993 budget by a single vote in each chamber with no Republican support. Democratic leaders often Page 174 →failed to rally their troops in support of the party agenda in the same way that Republicans rallied theirs in opposition. Reflecting on the disappointments of the 103rd Congress, a former Democratic Party leader noted that “the seeds of demise were sown because there were so many Democrats that we could pass almost anything in the late 1980s.” He bitterly recalled the votes of retiring committee chairmen against Clinton’s budget, suggesting that that would not happen today. Notwithstanding the disappointments of the 103rd Congress, the Democratic Caucus continued to liberalize. In the majority until 1994, however, Democrats had stopped short of granting their leaders the tools that the Republicans did after them. When Republicans won the majority, leaders quickly and easily expanded their power; none of their members had their own power bases accrued from committee chairmanships, they were just grateful to be in the majority. Among Democrats from 1987 to 1994, members’ willingness to cede power to their leaders had occurred more gradually as new members replaced members who were accustomed to their autonomy in a system marked by strong committee chairmen and large majorities. Minority party status did not shock Democrats into unity immediately in 1995, nor did they respond with new leaders and a new strategy. Indeed, Democrats reelected many of the same leaders who had lost them the majority, including Richard Gephardt (D-MO), David Bonior (D-MI), and Vic Fazio (D-CA). When it became clear that Republican control was not a one-term aberration, however, Democrats slowly changed tactics, evidenced by the

election of liberal partisan Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) as minority whip in 2001 and Democratic leader in 2003. While the Democratic Caucus had become increasingly unified under Gephardt’s leadership, the caucus was upset over his support of the resolution authorizing the Iraq war in 2002. Among the more liberal members of the Democratic Caucus, Pelosi pursued a strategy of attacking Republicans for their partisan tactics and ethical lapses. Indeed, the tactics of Democratic leaders and members resemble those of minority party Republican bomb throwers during the 1980s and early 1990s. As minority leader, Pelosi was clear about the importance of loyalty: when nine Democrats voted with Republicans to pass the Medicare prescription drug bill in 2003, Pelosi rebuked them during a Democratic Caucus meeting. She urged rank-and-file members to maintain party discipline on future votes: “I don’t want that to happen again.В .В .В . This can never happen again” (CongressDaily 2003). Speaker Pelosi was as—or more—powerful than her immediate RepublicanPage 175 → predecessors and much more powerful than her Democratic predecessor, Speaker Foley. Twelve years in the minority put important distance between Speaker Pelosi and Speaker Foley, enabling Pelosi to capitalize on Republican innovations. Yet this analysis reveals that the possibility for party discipline on the part of Democratic leaders was greatly strengthened by Speaker Wright’s willingness to reward loyalty from 1987 to 1989. With the return to, and then expansion of, the majority in the 2006 and 2008 elections respectively, the Democratic Caucus became more ideologically heterogeneous than it had been in the preceding Congresses. With more vulnerable seats to defend, it could have been more difficult for Pelosi to exert discipline and attain the high levels of party unity that she had early on as whip. Yet, Democrat’s CQ Weekly party unity average reached a record high of 92 percent under Pelosi’s speakership in the 110th Congress. And in the 111th Congress, with an expanded majority that included more members from swing districts, unity averaged 91 percent. Most striking was Pelosi’s ability to keep the many groups that comprise the Democratic Caucus together, even when working to pass the more controversial elements of President Obama’s agenda. Indeed, even the Blue Dogs voted with the party at an average rate of 85 percent in 2009. The freshmen Democrats voted together an average of 89 percent and the Democrats from districts won by McCain voted together an average of 86 percent. The reliable bases of the Democratic Caucus had remarkably high levels of unity: women, African Americans, and Hispanics voted with the party at an average rate of 97 percent, 97 percent, and 95 percent, respectively. Just as Republican members pressured their leaders to rein in members when they are disloyal, many Democratic members objected to Democratic defections on Republican motions to recommit. In a “Dear Colleague” letter sent in May 2008, Maxine Waters (D-CA) objected to Democratic leaders “giving Democrats a pass” to vote with Republicans in support of motions to recommit. In an interview she said: “My concern is the members of my Caucus are siding with the Republicans far too often on policies which are designed to divide our Caucus and undermine our work” (Whittington and Dennis 2008).

Mechanisms of Discipline in the Senate In the wake of the defection of Senator James Jeffords (VT) from the Republican Party in 2001, party discipline in the Senate received much more media attention than it typically does in the House. Party leaders’ Page 176 →power to make decisions affecting their members’ careers and opportunities, however, is much more limited in the Senate than in the House. Despite their narrow chamber margin of 221–210 at the time of Jeffords’s defection, House Republican leaders did not react with the concern observers expected—and moderates hoped for—stating that they did not intend to make changes within their own chamber (CongressDaily 2001). Majority Whip Tom DeLay told reporters that he did not plan to change how Republicans ran the House and that party loyalty should always trump disagreements within the party. “It’s disappointing that Senator Jeffords doesn’t understand what it means to be a member of the party. You work within a structure and you get things done” (CongressDaily 2001). Moderate Connie Morella, however, was quoted in the same article saying that Jeffords’s switch should serve as a “reminder of the need of being sensitive to all members” and that

moderates were hoping for more (CongressDaily 2001). Senate leaders lack many of the tools of discipline at House leaders’ disposal. The potential mechanisms of discipline under consideration in this analysis are derived from institutional features and rules particular to the House of Representatives, such as the Rules Committee, limited debate, and a stronger committee system. The most basic difference between the two chambers is that individual senators have many more rights than House members do. In the legislative domain, consistent with Senate rules, senators can offer amendments to any bill. Except for the Byrd Rule as it pertains to budgeting, there are no germaneness rules when the Senate considers legislation. During floor debate, a Senator can offer his or her legislation as an amendment to a bill, even if the underlying issue is unrelated. There is no equivalent of the Rules Committee; bills are not preceded by rules that structure debate and limit members’ opportunities to amend legislation. An individual senator can delay business in the Senate with a filibuster or a hold, and 41 senators can kill a bill with a filibuster. To impose some order and efficiency in the legislative process, Senate party leaders will often negotiate a Complex Unanimous Consent Agreement (CUCA). CUCAs set the terms of debate for a bill to impose some order and efficiency in the process; they may set a time for a final vote. The critical difference between a rule in the House and a CUCA in the Senate is that any single senator can object. CUCAs, then, accommodate senators’ specific interests and have the support of all of both party’s members. If a senator demands a vote on her amendment as a condition of supporting the CUCA, leaders will generally agree. Page 177 →Committee membership matters less in the Senate than it does in the House. In the House, committees structure members’ main opportunities to affect legislation. Senators, on the other hand, can easily amend legislation that comes out of committees on which they do not serve. Senate leaders, then, have less leverage over their members when they allocate committee assignments. Seniority dictates much of the process, and with more positions to go around, the competition for committee positions is much less fierce. Senate rules prohibit members from serving on more than two major committees. Republican Conference rules bar senators from serving on more than one of four “A” committees—Appropriations, Armed Services, Finance, and Foreign Relations—but many senators have received waivers to circumvent these limits. Republican rules stipulate that seniority dictates membership on “A” panels. The list of committee vacancies circulates from senator to senator, in descending order of seniority, until all seats are filled (Pierce 2002). In determining seniority, in addition to Senate service, a senator’s time in the House or as governor is considered. No other government experience matters. If two senators have equal experience, their names are drawn from a hat (Pierce 2002). Two years after House Republicans adopted six-year term limits for committee chairmen, Republican senators followed suit. Under a conference rules change in 2002, chairmen who were demoted to ranking member when Jeffords switched did not have any of their service in the 107th Congress count against their six-year limit. Democrats score seniority according to time spent in Congress, the vice presidency, in the Cabinet, or as a governor. Otherwise, senators are ranked according to the population of their state (Pierce 2002). In assigning seats on “A” committees, Democratic leaders also factor in how long a senator has waited for a seat on a particular panel and the regional and ideological balance of panel Democrats (Pierce 2002). When it comes to chairmanship, the seniority story in the Senate is simple. In the contemporary era, there has been no deviation from it. There have been cases where chairmen have been in peril because of votes or actions that deviated from their party’s position, but typically it’s the party membership—not leaders—that have led unsuccessful efforts to depose committee chairmen. In 1995, Senator Mark Hatfield (R-OR) broke with his party over the balanced-budget amendment, casting a decisive vote against it. Hatfield frequently voted against his colleagues, and this was the last straw. His vote compelled newer, conservative Republicans, including former House members Rick Santorum (R-PA) and Connie Mack (R-FL) to try to strip him of the Appropriations Committee chairmanship. RepublicanPage 178 → leaders opposed this move, and, after a meeting where the Conference discussed it, leaders did not bring it to a vote (Cassata 1995). In 2004, seniority dictated that the Judiciary Committee chairmanship would go to Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA) in the 109th Congress. Yet the morning after the 2004 election, Senator Specter suggested that the Senate would

probably not confirm an antiabortion nominee to the Supreme Court: “when you talk about judges who would change the right of a woman to choose, overturn Roe v. Wade, I think that is unlikely” (Perine 2005, 58). Activists from the religious Right quickly mobilized against Specter, casting serious doubts about whether he would become chairman. Other outside conservative groups jumped into the fray, including the National Taxpayers Union. Yet in another win for the seniority system, Specter ultimately became chairman. Individual senators’ right to unlimited debate shapes the context in which majority party leaders in the Senate pursue their goals. Party leaders in the House exert party discipline when they need nearly every vote to pass a partisan policy agenda. While party leaders benefit from the favorable brand name that party unity may engender—one of the reasons they were so angry at Hatfield for casting the lone Republican vote against the balanced budget amendment—a partisan strategy does not suffice when it comes to passing legislation in the Senate. Sixty votes are necessary to invoke cloture and end a filibuster. During this period, the majority party in the Senate never came close to having sixty votes. Pursuing a “Republicans only” or a “Democrats only” strategy to do anything would not be successful in passing legislation, unless one party has sixty votes, as Democrats did for part of the first session of the 111th Congress. Majority party leaders need unity when it comes to attaining the 51 votes necessary to pass budget resolutions and reconciliation bills, and minority party leaders need unity to successfully filibuster legislation they oppose. When it comes to raising money, incumbents in the Senate have little difficulty. Senators only run every six years, and their races generate more attention—and more money. To the extent that party leaders and individual senators have taken a more active role in their colleagues’ campaigns, anecdotal evidence suggests that the imperatives are the same: when it comes to campaign assistance, leaders pursue electoral advantage. On balance, institutional differences between the chambers translate into weaker leaders in the Senate than in the House. Partisanship in the Senate has risen significantly as well, as is pressure among rank-and-file senators to vote with the party, but deeply embedded individualism combined with institutional factors in the Senate protect its members from most attempts on the part of leaders to exert party discipline. Page 179 →

Implications Party discipline in the House of Representatives has implications that extend well beyond the fulfillment of party leaders’ goals. The ways in which leaders balance policy and majority control influence individual members’ careers, because leaders’ decisions shape members’ opportunities. In certain cases, members’ hard work pays off, but it is no guarantee of favorable treatment by party leaders. Legislative entrepreneurship is recognized in the legislative domain in some—but not all—Congresses, but it is not recognized in the committee assignment process. Legislative accomplishments, committee power, and the attendant publicity help members with reelection. Just as disloyal Democrats were more likely to win reelection—and accrue power in the House—when the South was dominated by Democrats, loyal partisans today are more likely to achieve their institutional goals and thus may be more likely to win, even accounting for constituency differences, with more accomplishments to campaign on. The use of discipline influences the content of the policies passed by the House. With limited time on the House floor, leaders’ decisions about whose legislation to consider matter. Party discipline may come at the expense of policies not considered when leaders prioritize a loyal, or vulnerable, member’s bill or resolution, which means another member’s bill isn’t considered. Further, if leaders are more likely to bring loyal fundraisers’ bills to the House floor and promote them in committee, this suggests a bias in policy outcomes previously overlooked by scholars concerned with the influence of money in the political process. Campaign contributions may not buy votes in a world where party identification is a strong predictor of members’ votes, but money raised by members for the majority party may buy floor time and committee power (for analysis of the relationship between lobbyists’ money and committee agendas, see Hall and Wayman 1990; Hall and Deardorff 2006).

A member’s ability to represent her constituents is affected by leaders’ goals. Members from districts whose policy preferences diverge from the party’s on important issues will experience cross-pressure. To help one’s constituents with major legislation, or even a district-related suspension or resolution, or with service on a particular committee, a member needs to demonstrate support for the party, either with a loyal voting record or by devoting time to raising money. She may be violating her constituents’ wishes in her support for the party on roll call votes, or she may be neglecting constituent services in attempts to raise enough money to be rewarded for it. Leaders’ willingness to exert party discipline from 1987 to 2012 suggests that in the search for party effects in Congress, scholars have missed Page 180 →some of the less visible means of congressional party discipline. Scholars have identified party effects in members’ roll call votes (Ansolabehere, Snyder, and Stewart 2001b; Binder, Lawrence, and Maltzman 1999; Snyder and Groseclose 2000; McCarty, Poole, and Rosenthal 2001; Cox and Poole 2002). Indeed, they find that members cast votes contrary to their own preferences in support of their party, yet they do not specify how leaders attain such loyalty. I have identified a baseline of empirical evidence that shows that leaders use—and have expanded—the mechanisms of discipline at their disposal under certain conditions. Throughout this time period, majority parties have continued to institutionalize additional mechanisms of party discipline for their leaders, giving leaders more opportunities to reward members’ loyalty. Further, as members’ loyalty has increased, members have gone out of their way to show their loyalty above and beyond their voting records, particularly when it comes to fundraising for the party, but also in giving partisan speeches. Patterns of leaders’ and members’ behavior during the nearly quarter century time span of this analysis inform future expectations of congressional parties. Majority party leaders’ policy agenda, the electoral context, and the margin between the parties matter in fairly predictable ways. Narrow margins and fierce partisan competition are likely to persist well into the future, suggesting that leaders of both parties will continue to reward both policy and fundraising loyalty as they pursue policy control and majority control, creating a recipe for continued partisan polarization in the House of Representatives. While the context is seemingly ripe for the persistence of party discipline, members’ constituency-based incentives may mitigate leaders’ willingness, or even ability, to exert party discipline. Members may grow wary of pressure from their leaders. Past Speakers who have pushed their prerogatives too far have faced retribution from their own caucus. Speaker Joe Cannon (R-IL)—referred to as Czar Cannon—was stripped of his power by a group of progressive Republicans and minority party Democrats in 1910 after he amassed too much power and overreached in rewarding and punishing members (Jones 1968; Rohde 1991; Schickler 2001). The willingness of Speakers Wright, Gingrich, and Pelosi to prioritize policy control over majority control cost them support among some of their members and, arguably, among the electorate. After losing majority control of the House, Nancy Pelosi, for example, lost 19 Democratic votes in her bid for Speaker on January 5—which is 10 more same-party defections than Newt Gingrich suffered in his 1997 reelection bid for Speaker, the previous high watermark in the contemporary era. Gingrich’s and Pelosi’sPage 181 → willingness to discipline their members was certainly not the only factor, but it contributed to members’ dissatisfaction with their leaders. The distribution of factions within the party, however, also matters. Speaker Boehner started the 114th Congress with the embarrassing loss of support of 25 of his most conservative members who voted for other Republicans for Speaker because he was too accommodating of Democrats. Members may also push back against a system of rewards and punishment that has the potential to jeopardize their reelection. Some members may be frustrated that they can’t compete with their more loyal colleagues to have their legislation considered or a committee transfer that best serves their constituents. Other members who do regularly toe the party line may find that it negatively affects their electoral margin in the general election. Carson et al. (2010) demonstrate that members’ party loyalty, but not ideology, costs them votes at home. Analyzing congressional election returns from 1954 to 2004, they find that an increase in party loyalty decreases a member’s vote share, taking into account the typical predictors of vote share. Finally, the attentive public may grow wary of leaders who exert party discipline and the members who support such leaders. Harsh examples of party discipline that reach the public—such as deposing a committee chair or a

committee member as a form of punishment—can be costly for the majority party’s reputation and the public’s already low opinion of Congress.

Page 183 → Page 182 →

Notes Chapter 1 1.Morella became a member of the Government Reform and Oversight Committee in 1995 when it subsumed the Post Office and Civil Service Committee. 2.Over the course of the 100th to the 107th Congress, Morella’s CQ party unity scores ranged from a low of 19 percent in 1989 to a high of 65 percent in 1995. 3. Webster’s New Universal Unabridged Dictionary (Barnes & Noble, 1996). 4.Webster’s definition of discipline also includes training. Such training is similar to a member’s initial socialization to a norm of loyalty or lack thereof. The “training” members receive from party leaders today emphasizes party loyalty much more than it did a few decades ago. 5.In an interview with the author in Washington, DC, October 2003. 6.Party leaders occasionally discourage members from running or support their primary opponents, but this is rare. 7.Just because they are members of the party caucus, however, does not mean they are well received by other party members. Interviews reveal that party leaders and loyal rank-and-file members make members uncomfortable when they defect from the party on important votes. 8.Newt Gingrich began a trend in ethics investigations of party leaders when he called for the investigation of Speaker Jim Wright. The ensuing ethics investigation led to the revelation of Wright’s illegal book deal, ultimately leading to his resignation. Gingrich himself was admonished by the House Ethics Committee in 1997 after Democratic criticism of his own book deal in 1995 led to an investigation. Page 184 →

Chapter 2 1.In an interview, a former Republican member of Congress who served from 1970 to 1990 commented that a study on party discipline in Congress by Republican leaders when he served would be a short study. 2.Interview by author, March 2003. 3.In 1992, conservative Republican Richard Armey (R-TX) defeated sitting Conference Chair Jerry Lewis by four votes. 4.Term limits on Speakers were set at eight years. The limit on the speakership was repealed as part of the Republicans’ rules package (H.Res.5) that was adopted on January 7, 2003, although committee chairs’ term limits remained intact, demonstrating the increased power of party leaders relative to that of committee chairs. 5.Interview with the author, August 2003. 6.Interview with the author, May 2008. 7.Margolies-Mezvinsky was indeed defeated, but given the GOP tide in the 1994 elections, she would have been quite vulnerable in any case. 8.Seats are calculated following each election. Special elections change the counts in some congresses. 9.See, for example, an op-ed about the 109th Congress by Mann and Ornstein, http://articles.latimes.com /2006/sep/27/opinion/oe-mann27. 10. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEZB4taSEoA.

Chapter 3 1.Interview by the author with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, October 2003. 2.Interview by the author with a former Democratic Party leader, July 2003. 3.Interview by the author with a former Democratic whip, December 2002. 4.There are notable exceptions. Many appropriations bills are considered without rules, and more nonmajor

legislation is considered under “suspension of the rules.” 5.See the Rules Committee Surveys of Activities for more information: http://rules.house.gov/resources. These totals do not include special rules reported by the Rules Committee that were tabled or never brought up on the House floor. 6.Discharge petitions from 1987 to 1992 are unavailable because they were not public when members signed them. Petitions will be made available at the National Archives thirty years after the end of the Congress in which they were filed. 7. http://clerk.house.gov/art_history/house_history/index.html. 8.For an example, see http://gopleader.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=67402. 9.These terms included Republican, Republicans, GOP, minority, majority, aisle, Democrat, Democrats, Democratic, and party. 10.However, his contributions were well below $50,000, and he remained a subcommittee chair. 11.Interview by author, July 2003. 12.In 1978, Congressman Henry Waxman (D-CA) contributed to many fellow Page 185 →Commerce Committee Democrats and unseated a senior colleague as chairman of the Health and Environment subcommittee.

Chapter 4 1.Members have some limited checks on majority party leaders’ authority in the form of both negative and positive agenda control. A majority of members can prevent legislation from being considered, as bills need a rule to pass with a majority of votes before being considered. Legislation opposed by party leaders can be considered on the House floor if 218 members sign a discharge petition. I do not consider those bills brought to the floor with a discharge petition in my analysis. 2.Interview by author, July 2003. 3.Interview by author, February 2003. 4.Ascertained in an interview with a senior staff member to several Democratic leaders, August 2003. 5.Poisson regressions are not appropriate here because the data violate the assumed equality of the conditional mean and variance functions (see Greene 2000, 886–87). 6.When discharge petition loyalty was also included, it was never significant and did not change the models, so it is not included in these models.

Chapter 5 1.Interview by author, December 2002. 2.Republicans also instituted eight-year term limits on the Speaker that they later repealed. 3.It also appears to matter in the leadership selection process; the only unsuccessful contender in a House Republican leadership race in the 107th Congress, Judy Biggert (IL), had not formed a leadership PAC and demonstrated lower loyalty in her voting record than Barbara Cubin (WY), who defeated her 123–76 for the post previously held by Deborah Pryce (OH). 4.Analysis not shown here also shows that committee chair hopefuls are more likely than their colleagues to form a leadership PAC. 5.Committee data come from political scientists Garrison Nelson, Charles Stewart III, and Jonathan Woon. Garrison Nelson, Committees in the U.S. Congress, 1947–1992 [House/100th–102nd Congress]; Charles Stewart III and Jonathan Woon, Congressional Committee Assignments, 103rd to 112th Congresses, 1993–2011: [House]. See http://web.mit.edu/17.251/www/data_page.html. 6.Data were collected from the committee websites found at www.house.gov. 7.The results presented only include roll-call voting loyalty and fundraising loyalty. The other measures of party loyalty were rarely significant, and when they were, they did not change the other results presented.

Chapter 6 1. http://www.opensecrets.org/parties/. Page 186 →

Chapter 7 1.Letter from moderate Republicans signed by Representatives Wayne Gilchrest, Mike Castle, Fred Upton, and others to Speaker Newt Gingrich, June 23, 1998.

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Index Agriculture Committee, 111 (table), 114 Amash, Justin, 1 Anderson, Glenn M., 107, 108 (table) Annunzio, Frank, 107, 108 (table) Anthony, Beryl, 65 Appropriations Committee as an exclusive committee, 128 party loyalty and, 130–31, 130 (fig.), 131 (fig.), 141–42, 165, 177–78 seniority violations and, 107, 108 (table), 109, 110, 111–12 (table), 118, 121 Archer, Bill, 75 Armey, Richard, 27, 184n3 Aspin, Les, 107, 108 (table) Bachmann, Michele, 51, 52 Bachus, Spencer, 121 Baker, Richard, 112 (table) Ballenger, Cass, 111 (table) Barbour, Haley, 114 Barrett, Bill, 111 (table) Barton, Joe, 49, 121 Bereuter, Doug, 112 (table), 117 Biggert, Judy, 185n3 Blackburn, Marsha, 62 Blue Dog Coalition Democratic Caucus and, 49–50, 169–70, 175 influence of, 50–51 legislative preference and, 88, 89 (table), 90 (table), 93 (table), 94 (table) Nancy Pelosi and, 32, 50–51, 97, 170, 175

partisanship and, 29–30, 40–41, 49–50 and party unity, 38, 50, 175 Bliley, Thomas J., 111 (table) Boehlert, Sherwood, 115 Boehner, John and campaign assistance to electorally vulnerable, 166 committee chairmanships and, 121–22 committee positions and, 1, 16–17, 128, 141, 143, 145 (table), 166 as Education and the Workforce chair, 33–34, 111 (table), 115–16 and fundraising loyalty, 103, 164 (table), 166 leadership power of, 33–36 and legislative preference, 103, 166 and majority party discipline expectations, 163, 164 (table) and party policy agenda, 166 speech loyalty and, 61 Tea Party and, 1, 17, 34–36, 47, 51–52, 98, 143, 170 Page 200 →Bolling, Richard, 20 “bomb throwers,” Republican, 26, 28, 171–72, 174 Bonior, David, 27, 174 Budget Committee, 84, 111 (table), 128 Bush, George W., 29, 32, 35, 36, 103, 165 Buyer, Steven, 1, 113 (table), 118 campaign assistance analysis of, 151–60 and committee chairmanships, 114, 121 and congressional campaign committees, 17, 64–65, 73–74, 80, 82, 146, 147, 148–49, 150, 151, 152 (figs.), 153, 154 (fig.), 155 (table), 156 (table), 157 and electoral vulnerability, 147, 150, 153, 154 (figs.), 157, 158, 160, 162 fundraising loyalty and, 64–68, 67 (table), 68 (table) and leadership goals, 4, 12, 17, 146–47, 150–51, 160

and leadership PACs, 9–10, 12, 17, 65–66, 73–74, 80, 82, 146, 149–50, 151, 152 (fig.), 153 and majority control hypothesis, 150, 158 and member-to-member contributions, 66–68, 73–74, 82, 146, 147, 150 as party discipline mechanism, 17, 73–74, 146, 147–48, 157–58, 160, 179 and party loyalty, 17, 64, 80, 82, 147, 150, 153, 155 (table), 156 (table), 157–58, 160 and policy control hypothesis, 150 campaign committees. See Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC); National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) campaign finance legislation, 58, 74, 116, 149 Campbell, Carroll A., 159 Cannon, Joe, 22–23, 180 Center for Responsive Politics, 66, 148, 149, 151 chamber margins and campaign contributions to incumbents, 150 and leadership goals, 100–101 as party discipline incentive, 14, 37, 39–41, 46, 46 (table), 163, 164 (table) Chambliss, Saxby, 111 (table) Chapman, Jim, 2 Clinger, William, 27, 113 Clinton, William Jefferson, 25, 28, 29, 36, 39, 44, 142, 163, 172, 173–74 Coelho, Tony, 13, 23, 77, 100 Combest, Larry, 111 (table), 114 committee assignments analysis of, 128–29 and electoral vulnerability, 126 and exclusive committees, 129–34, 130 (fig.), 131 (fig.), 132 (fig.), 133 (fig.), 134 (fig.), 135 (fig.), 141–42 and fundraising loyalty, 126, 158 and leadership goals, 105–6 and majority control hypothesis, 105, 129 and party discipline, 2, 6–7, 9, 16–17, 72–73, 104

and party loyalty, 106, 121–22, 126, 129–33, 130 (fig.), 131 (fig.), 132 (fig.), 133 (fig.) and policy control hypothesis, 105, 128–29 property norm in, 118, 127–28 and Republican rule changes, 109–10 seniority and, 127, 137, 177 See also committee chairmanships; committee transfers committee chairmanships and campaign contributions, 114, 121 and Democratic reforms, 21–23, 106–7, 113 and fundraising loyalty, 106, 117–18 and leadership PACs, 114–15, 116, 118, 120 (table), 121, 122–23, 124 (table), 125 (table), 126, 185n4 and legislative preference, 90, 90 (table), 92, 93 (table), 94 (table), 95 (table), 96 (table), 101 (table), 102 (table), 162 and party loyalty, 22, 105, 111–13 Page 201 →(table), 117, 118–19 and Republican rule changes, 105, 110, 113 seniority and, 16, 72–73, 105, 117, 119–20, 123, 150, 177–78 and seniority violations, 105, 106–7, 108 (table), 109–10, 111–13 (table), 113–18, 119–21, 120 (table), 122 (table) and term limits, 72–73, 110, 113, 114, 119, 121, 177 committee transfers and electoral vulnerability, 105, 126 and fundraising loyalty, 126, 143, 145 (table) and intraparty groups, 170 and majority control hypothesis, 105 and party loyalty, 2, 104, 105–6, 126, 134–35, 135 (fig.), 136–38, 136 (fig.), 137 (fig.), 139–40 (figs.), 141–44, 145 (table), 166, 167 (table), 168 (table), 169 and policy control hypothesis, 105 property norm and, 127–28 and roll call voting loyalty, 142, 145 (table), 162, 163, 165, 166 Complex Unanimous Consent Agreement (CUCA), 176 conditional party government theory (CPG), 5–6, 7, 10, 171

congressional campaign committees and contributions to incumbents, 73, 146, 148–49, 150, 151, 152 (figs.), 153, 154 (fig.), 155 (table), 156 (table), 157, 159–60 and fundraising loyalty, 64–65, 66–68, 68 (table) and leadership goals, 73, 74, 82 and party discipline, 9–10, 146 and party loyalty, 80, 158–59 See also Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC); National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) Conservative Democratic Forum, 173 Conservative Opportunity Society (COS), 26 Contract with America, 27, 38, 165, 169 Cox, Christopher, 117–18 Cox, Gary, 6–7 CPG. See conditional party government theory (CPG) Crane, Phil, 111 (table), 115 credit claiming, 81, 88, 100 Cubin, Barbara, 185n3 Cunningham, Randy “Duke,” 85 Davis, Thomas, 112 (table), 117–18 DCCC. See Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) Deal, Nathan, 49 DeLauro, Rosa, 27 DeLay, Tom, 27, 29, 33–34, 115, 172, 176 Dellums, Ronald, 107, 108 (table) Democratic Caucus Blue Dogs and, 49–50, 169–70, 175 and committee assignment rules, 16, 72, 106–7, 126, 128 and institutional reforms, 20, 21–25, 31–32 leadership structure of, 13

membership of, 9, 12 Nancy Pelosi and, 12, 31–33, 174–75 and party unity, 23, 25, 38, 50, 54–55, 169, 171, 174, 175 seniority violations and, 106–9, 108 (table), 119–21, 120 (table) Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) and campaign assistance, 9–10, 17, 64–65, 66–67, 73, 152 (fig.), 155 (table) committee chairmanships and contributions to, 108 (table), 120 (table), 121 and party loyalty, 158–59 Democratic Message Group, 61 Democratic Study Group (DSG), 20–22, 23, 47, 48 Dingell, John, 120–21, 120 (table) discharge petition loyalty and campaign contributions to incumbents, 153, 155 (table), 156 (table) and committee assignments, 128–29 and legislative preference, 80, 82 majority party leadership and, 57–60 Page 202 →discharge petition loyalty (continued) as party loyalty measure, 53, 70 (table), 71 (table) and signatures by party and Congress, 58–60, 59 (table) Dreier, David, 113 (table) Durbin, Richard, 107, 108 (table) Ecke, Paul Jr., 85 Education and the Workforce Committee, 33–34, 111 (table), 115–16 Ehlers, Vernon, 112 (table), 117 Ehrlich, Robert, 172–73 electoral concerns, majority party, 4, 6, 37, 42–44, 43 (table), 46, 46 (table), 100–101, 103, 111 (table), 160 electoral vulnerability and campaign assistance, 147, 150, 153, 154 (figs.), 157, 158, 160, 162 and committee assignments, 105, 126

and leadership goals, 19, 42–44, 43 (table), 82 and legislative preference, 72, 78, 80, 82, 90 (table), 92 (fig.), 93 (table), 94–95, 94 (table), 95 (table), 96 (table), 100 (fig.), 101 (table), 102, 102 (table), 103, 162 Energy and Commerce Committee as an exclusive committee, 28, 128 and party loyalty, 129–30, 130 (fig.), 141–42 and seniority violations, 111–12 (table), 116, 120, 120 (table), 121 Evans, C. Lawrence, 8 Evans, Lane, 108 (table), 109 exclusive committees. See Appropriations Committee; Energy and Commerce Committee; Rules Committee; Ways and Means Committee Fazio, Vic, 65, 119, 174 Federal Election Commission, 65, 66 Filner, Bob, 119 Financial Services Committee, 112 (table), 116, 121 floor speeches. See one-minute speeches; speech loyalty Foley, Thomas and campaign assistance to electorally vulnerable, 163 and committee transfers, 138, 139 (figs.), 141, 142, 143, 163, 145 (table) and fundraising loyalty, 163 leadership power of, 23, 24–25, 36, 174–75 and legislative preference, 90, 101, 102 and majority party discipline expectations, 163, 164 (table) party policy agenda of, 45, 163 party unity under, 54 Ford, Harold Jr., 31 Franks, Bob, 111 (table) Frost, Martin, 65 fundraising loyalty campaign assistance and, 64–68, 67 (table), 68 (table)

and committee assignments, 105, 110, 111–13 (table), 126, 129, 136–37, 138, 141, 143, 145 (table), 158, 164 (table), 165 and committee chairmanships, 106, 117–18 and legislative preference, 78, 87–88, 89, 89 (table), 90 (table), 91 (fig.), 93–94, 93 (table), 94 (table), 95 (table), 96 (table), 98 (fig.), 99 (fig.), 102–3, 102 (table), 162, 163 as party loyalty measure, 14, 53, 64, 70 (table), 71 (table), 180, 185n7 Gaydos, Joseph, 107, 108 (table) Gephart, Richard, 27, 104, 119, 128, 174 Gilchrest, Wayne, 172 Gingrich, Newt campaign assistance and, 158, 159–60 and “Contract with America,” 38, 165, 169 and Democratic compromise, 171–72 ethics investigation of, 183n8 intraparty groups and, 51–52 leadership power of, 24, 26, 27–28, 29, 30, 33, 36, 180–81 and legislative preference, 75, 76, 97–98, 101, 102–3 and majority party discipline expectations, 163, 164 (table) Page 203 →partisan policy agenda of, 36, 44–45 and party loyalty, 55–56, 165 and policy control over majority control, 47, 165, 181 and Republican “bomb throwers,” 26, 28, 171–72 seniority violations by, 110, 113–14 Goodling, Bill, 119 Government Reform and Oversight Committee, 27, 112 (table), 113, 117–18, 121, 183n1 Hall, Ralph M., 121 Harman, Jane, 119–20, 120 (table) Hastert, Dennis “Denny” and balanced strategy of majority and policy control, 165 and committee chairmanships, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118–19, 165

and committee transfers, 127, 128, 140, 141 (figs.), 143, 145 (table), 165 and fundraising loyalty, 93–94, 103, 165 and “Hastert rule,” 30, 35 intraparty conflict and, 51–52 leadership power of, 25, 29–30, 34, 36 and legislative preference, 84, 103, 165 and majority party discipline expectations, 163, 164 (table) partisan policy agenda of, 36, 45, 45 (table), 165 Hastings, Alcee, 119–20, 120 (table) Hatfield, Mark, 177–78 Hebert, F. Edward, 22, 106–7 Hefley, Joel, 112 (table) Herger, Wally, 111 (table) Hoekstra, Peter, 111 (table) House Administration Committee, 107, 108 (table), 112, 117, 119, 122 (table) Hoyer, Steny, 12, 30–31, 50 Huelskamp, Tim, 1 “hundred hours agenda,” Democrats’, 31 Hyde, Henry, 111–12 (table), 117 Inhofe, James, 58 International Relations Committee, 112 (table), 117 intraparty groups, 47–52, 97–98, 161, 169–71. See also Blue Dog Coalition; Tea Party Republicans; Tuesday Group Jamieson, Kathleen Hall, 61 Jeffords, James, 17, 175–76, 177 Jones, Walter, 1 Judiciary Committee, 27, 111–12 (table), 117, 178 Kelly, Sue, 112 (table), 117 Kennedy, Edward, 34 King, Steve, 127

Krehbiel, Keith, 7 Lazio, Rick, 172 Leach, Jim, 112 (table), 117 leadership PACs and campaign assistance, 9–10, 12, 17, 65–66, 73–74, 80 and campaign contributions to incumbents, 80, 146, 149–50, 151, 152 (fig.), 153 committee chairmanships and, 107, 108 (table), 109, 111–13 (table), 114–15, 116, 118, 120 (table), 121, 122–23, 122 (table), 124 (table), 125 (table), 126, 185n4 and committee transfers, 136–37, 141 fundraising loyalty and, 12, 65–66, 67 (table), 68, 68 (table), 80, 82, 129, 137 Lee, Frances, 55 legislative preference amendments and, 85–86, 90, 92 analysis of, 82–87 bills and resolutions and, 83–85, 86–90, 87 (fig.), 90 (table), 99–100 in Democratic-controlled Congresses, 88–92, 89 (table), 90 (table), 91 (figs.), 92 (fig.), 93 (table), 94 (table), 97 and institutional maintenance, 77–78, 80, 81, 162 and leadership goals, 11, 37, 47, 72, 75–76, 78–79, 81, 88, 89, 97, 99–103 as party discipline mechanism, 9, 10, 16, 69, 75, 76–78, 147 Page 204 →legislative preference (continued) party loyalty and, 72, 76–77, 78–80, 82, 90, 99 policy implications of, 103 in Republican-controlled Congresses, 92–97, 95 (table), 96 (table), 97 (fig.), 97–98, 98 (fig.), 99 (fig.), 100 (fig.), 101 (table), 102 (table) seniority and, 80, 81, 88, 100, 162 suspensions and, 16, 69, 76, 84–85, 179, 184n4 legislative service organizations (LSOs), 48 Lewinsky, Monica, 29 Lewis, Jerry, 26, 112 (table), 118, 121, 184n3 Livingston, Robert, 13, 27, 28, 29, 110, 111 (table), 128

Loeffler, Tommy, 159 Mack, Connie, 177 Madigan, Edward, 26 majority control v. policy control, leadership goals and, 3–4, 6, 10–11, 19, 36–37, 74, 78–79, 82, 146–47, 161–62, 180 Manzullo, Donald, 112 (table), 117 Margolies-Mezvinsky, Marjorie, 39–40, 184n7 Mayhew, David, 5 McCain, John, 58, 175 McCaul, Michael, 122, 122 (table) McCubbins, Mathew, 6–7 McDade, Joseph, 111 (table) member-to-member campaign contributions, 66–68, 67 (table), 68 (table), 146, 147, 150 Mica, John, 28 Michaud, Michael, 119 Michel, Robert (Bob), 26, 27, 171 Miller, Candace, 122, 122 (table) Montgomery, Sonny, 107, 108 (table), 109 Moorhead, Carlos, 27, 110, 111 (table) Morella, Constance (Connie), 2, 159–60, 176, 183nn1–2 Myers, John T., 111 (table) Natcher, William, 107, 108 (table), 109 National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) and campaign assistance, 73, 148, 152 (fig.), 156 (table), 159–60 and fundraising loyalty, 64–65, 66, 67–68, 117–18 and party discipline, 9–10 seniority violations and contributions to, 111–13 (table), 114, 122 (table) Neumann, Mark, 128 New Democrats, 104 Ney, Bob, 112 (table), 117

the ’92 Group, 26 NRCC. See National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) Nugent, Richard, 166 Nussle, Jim, 75, 111 (table), 115 O’Neill, Tip, 23, 24 Obama, Barack, 1, 33, 34, 51–52, 101, 165, 166, 170, 175 Obey, David, 48, 108 (table), 109 one-minute speeches, 53, 60–62, 80, 157. See also speech loyalty Oxley, Michael, 112 (table), 115, 116 PACs. See leadership PACs party cartel theory, 5, 6–7, 10, 106 party discipline analysis of, 13–14 identifying, 4–10 mechanisms of, 69–74 policy-making implications of, 15–16, 18, 161–81 in the Senate, 17–18, 175–78 theoretical expectations of, 163, 164 (table) See also campaign assistance; committee assignments; committee chairmanships; committee transfers; legislative preference party voting loyalty, predicting change in, 166, 167–68 (tables), 169 party unity, 3, 32, 38, 50, 54–55, 55 (fig.), 75, 102, 105, 150, 175, 178 Patman, Wright, 22, 106–7 Pelosi, Nancy Blue Dogs and, 32, 50–51, 97, 170, 175 Page 205 →and committee chairmanships, 16, 34, 119–21, 120 (table) and committee transfers, 133–34, 138, 139 (figs.), 142, 143, 145 (table), 165, 166, 169 Democratic Caucus and, 12, 31–33, 174–75 and fundraising loyalty, 30–31, 141, 143, 165 leadership power of, 30–33, 35, 36, 174–75, 180–81

and legislative preference, 88–89, 101–2 and majority party discipline expectations, 163, 164 (table) and party loyalty, 134, 174 partisan policy agenda of, 36, 44–45, 163, 165, 175 party unity under, 32, 175 and policy control over majority control, 180 and roll call loyalty, 54, 138, 141, 142, 143, 165 seniority violations by, 119–21, 120 (table) Petri, Thomas, 104, 111 (table), 114–16 Poage, William Robert, 22, 106–7 policy control v. majority control, leadership goals and, 3–4, 6, 10–11, 19, 36–37, 74, 78–79, 82, 146–47, 161–62, 180 political action committees (PACs). See leadership PACs Pombo, Richard, 112 (table), 117 Price, Melvin, 107 Price, Tom, 35, 107 Progressive Caucus, 31, 32 Pryce, Deborah, 185n3 Quillen, James H., 109–10 Reagan, Ronald, 2, 6, 23–24, 142, 163 Regula, Ralph, 111–12 (table), 118 Republican Conference committee assignment rules and, 16, 72–73, 126–27 internal homogeneity of, 5–6, 55, 169 intraparty factions and, 169–71, 171–73, 177–78, 184n3 and leadership power, 26, 28–29, 38 leadership structure of, 12–13 membership in, 9 Republican Theme Team, 61 Resources Committee, 112 (table), 117

Reyes, Silvestre, 120, 120 (table) rhetorical party loyalty. See speech loyalty Rodgers, Cathy McMorris, 35 Roe, Robert, 107, 108 (table) Roemer, Tim, 104 Rogers, Harold, 112 (table), 118 Rogers, Mike D., 122, 122 (table) Rohde, David, 5–6 Rohrabacher, Dana, 121 Roll Call, 35 roll call voting loyalty and campaign assistance, 147, 150, 153, 155 (table), 156 (table), 157 and committee assignments and transfers, 122–23, 128–32, 130 (fig.), 131 (fig.), 132 (fig.), 134–35, 135 (fig.), 136–38, 136 (fig.), 137 (fig.), 139–40 (figs.), 141–43, 145 (table), 162, 163, 165, 166 and committee chairmanships, 121 and leadership goals, 10, 69, 105 and leadership PACs, 124 (table), 125 (table), 126 and legislative preference, 78, 80, 82, 89 (table), 90 (table), 93 (table), 94 (table), 95, 95 (table), 96 (table), 97 (table), 102 (table) and party discipline, 7–8 as party loyalty measure, 10, 53, 54–55, 55 (fig.), 69, 70 (table), 71 (table), 79, 105, 179–80 Rose, Charlie, 107, 108 (table), 119 Roukema, Marge, 104, 111–12 (table), 116 Royce, Ed, 121 rule loyalty and campaign assistance, 153, 155 (table), 156 (table) and legislative preference, 79–80, 87–88, 89 (table), 90 (table), 91 (figs.), 93, 93 (table), 94 (table), 95 (table), 96 (table), 97 (fig.), 101, 101 (table), 102 (table) Page 206 →rule loyalty (continued) as party loyalty measure, 53, 55–57, 64, 69, 70 (table), 71 (table), 162, 163 Rules Committee

and Democratic reforms, 23, 31–32 as exclusive committee, 128 and legislative procedure, 56–57, 85–86, 90, 95 and party discipline, 17–18 and Republican rule changes, 109–10 rules suspension, legislation and, 16, 69, 76, 84–85, 179, 184n4 Santelli, Rick, 51 Santorum, Rick, 177 Saxton, James, 112 (table), 117 Schuler, Heath, 33 Schweikert, David, 1 the Senate, party discipline in, 17–18, 175–78 seniority system and campaign contributions, 157 committee assignments and, 127, 137, 177 committee chairmanships and, 72–73, 105, 117, 119–20, 123, 150, 177–78 decline of, 16, 110, 160 and legislative preference, 80, 81, 88, 100, 162 reforms to, 20–23, 27–28, 72–73, 109–10, 113 in the Senate, 177–78 See also seniority violations seniority violations in committee chair selections, 105, 106–7, 108 (table), 109, 110, 111–13 (table), 113–14, 115–18, 119–20, 121 among Democrats, 105, 106–9, 108 (table), 119–21, 120 (table) among Republicans, 105, 109–10, 111–13 (table), 113–14, 115–18, 122 (table) Sensenbrenner, James, 114–15 Shaw, Clay, 115 Shays, Chris, 58, 111–12 (table), 116, 117–18 Small Business Committee, 112 (table), 117

Smith, Bob, 111 (table), 114 Smith, Christopher H., 1, 113 (table), 118 Smith, Neal, 108 (table), 109 Smith, Nick, 111 (table) Smith, Steven, 10 Snowe, Olympia, 26 Solomon, Gerald, 26, 110 Specter, Arlen, 17, 178 speech loyalty campaign assistance and, 153, 155 (table), 156 (table), 157 committee assignments and, 128–29 and legislative preference, 80, 82, 88–89, 89 (table) as party loyalty measure, 53, 60–63, 63 (table), 69, 70 (table), 71 (table) steering committees, 9, 23, 27, 29, 35, 72, 104, 113, 115, 116, 119, 122, 127, 165 Stenholm, Charles, 50, 173 Stump, Bob, 84 Tallon, Robin, 159 Tauke, Tom, 26 Tauzin, Billy, 115, 116 Tea Party Republicans, 1, 16–17, 34–36, 47, 51–52, 98, 143, 170–71 Thomas, Bill, 111 (table), 115 “toss-up” politics, 43, 43 (table), 46, 46 (table), 93, 143, 157, 165 Traficant, James, 9, 128 Tuesday Group and legislative preference, 88, 95 (table), 96 (table), 97–98, 101 (table), 102 (table), 170–71 Republican leadership and, 48–49, 51 as Republican moderates, 48, 51, 169–70 Veterans’ Affairs Committee, 1, 108 (table), 109, 113 (table), 118, 119 voting loyalty. See roll call voting loyalty; rules loyalty

Walker, Bob, 26 Waters, Maxine, 175 Watts, J. C., 33 Page 207 →Waxman, Henry, 120 (table), 121, 184–85n12 Ways and Means Committee, 21, 23, 28, 75, 81, 111 (table), 128, 141–42 Webster, Daniel, 166 West, Allen, 52 Whitten, Jamie, 107, 108 (table) Wright, Jim and committee transfers, 2, 138, 139 (figs.), 141, 142, 143 ethics investigation of, 13, 24, 183n8 leadership power of, 19, 23–24, 26, 36 and legislative preference, 101–2, 107 and majority party discipline expectations, 163, 164 (table) partisan policy agenda of, 24, 26, 36, 44–45, 180 and party loyalty, 175 Young, C. W. Bill, 111 (table), 118 Young, Don, 115