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Balancing the Legislative Agenda: Scheduling in the United States House of Representatives

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Balancing the Legislative Agenda: Scheduling in the United States House of Representatives BALANCING THE LEGISLATIVE AGENDA: SCHEDULING IN THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Edward Brooke Hasecke, M.A. ***** The Ohio State University 2002 Dissertation Committee: Approved by Professor John Wright, Adviser Professor Herbert Weisberg Adviser Professor Jan Box-Steffensmeier Department of Political Science UMI Number: 3081924 UMI UMI Microform 3081924 Copyright 2003 by ProQuest information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest Information and Learning Company 300 North Zeeb Road P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 ABSTRACT The Speaker of the House has tremendous procedural authority over the legislative schedule. He is able to defme which bills will be considered and when they will be considered. This gives him an effective veto over the schedule and allows him to define the legislative agenda. The concentration of agenda control in the hands of the Speaker and the increased partisanship in the House has led scholars to argue that the Speaker uses his scheduling authority to create a legislative agenda that is biased towards the majority party’s interests. In this dissertation, I challenge this portrait of the Speaker. I argue that the Speaker is an agent of the chamber and the majority party and to satisfy these competing principals, he must balance the chamber’s institutional demand for fairness and the majority party’s demand for partisan benefits. The partisan theory of scheduling and my balancing theory lead to different expectations about scheduling, which are the basis for the empirical analysis. First, partisan theories argue that the Speaker will frequently change the regular order of business to optimize a bill’s partisan benefits. I expect, however, that the Speaker will rarely deviate from the calendar order. Using data from the 100**’ and 105**’ Congresses, I compare the actual schedule for each legislative day to the calendar schedule. I frnd that the Speaker rarely deviates from the regular order of business. ii Second, partisan theories argue that committees will anticipate the Speaker’s partisan preferences and show a strong partisan bias when reporting bills. I, on the other hand, argue that committees are designed to provide different benefits and that partisan benefits will not always be dominant. Using original data on all bills and resolutions sent to committee, I find that in the 100**’ Congress committees were biased towards securing gains-tfom-exchange. In the 105**’ Congress, committees were biased towards partisan benefits. Third, partisan theories argue that the Speaker will use his scheduling authority to advance partisan goals. I argue that the Speaker will first facilitate the committee agenda (whatever the legislative bias) and second schedule unreported bills that provide benefits undersupplied by the committee system so as to balance the schedule and satisfy institutional and partisan demands. I find that Speaker Wright in the 100**’ Congress showed the same gains-ffom-exchange bias of the committee system when scheduling reported bills and brought balance to the agenda by scheduling partisan bills that were not reported. In the 105**’ Congress, Speaker Gingrich facilitated the partisan bias of the committee system when scheduling reported bills, but balanced the schedule by providing gains-ffom-exchange benefits in the unreported bills he scheduled. Ill TO CATHY AND EMILY IV ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Over the eourse of this projeet, I have benefited tfom the intelleetual support, eneouragement, and eonstruetive eritieism of many people. Yet no single person has pushed me more than my advisor, Jaek Wright. I am indebted to his investment of time, his stylistie and seientifie adviee, and his willingness to ask the “tough” questions. He has ehallenged my thinking in ways that have both benefited this projeet and helped me grow as a seholar. I would like to thank Herb Weisberg for taking me under his wing early in my graduate eareer. He has frequently asked questions that ehallenge my assumptions and push me to think out of the box. He also has provided emotional support during the ups and downs of graduate life. I am grateful to Jan Box-Steffensmeier for her substantive and methodologieal help. She read the first paper I wrote on agenda setting proeedures and helped me see the larger pieture. In addition, her methodologieal help erystallized my way of thinking about seheduling and informs both my eurrent and future work in this area. I am indebted to Jim Eudwig for writing the eomputer program that turned thousands of HTME pages from THOMAS into text data that I eould use. He saved me hundreds of hours of work. I also want to thank Paul Beek, Dean Eaey, Rieh Timpone, and participants in the Research in American Politics group at Ohio State for their comments and suggestions. Financial support for this research came tfom The Ohio State University through the Presidential Fellowship and tfom the Department of Political Science through the PEGS Dissertation Grant. This project would not he where it is without the consistent tfiendship of my graduate colleagues Scott Meinke, William Anderson, and J. Tobin Grant. They not only read numerous drafts, hut also consumed more cotfee than is healthy as we discussed politics, research questions, statistical models, and life in general. I will always be grateful to them for making graduate school fun and challenging. Finally, my greatest debt is to my wife Cathy. The importance of her love and support cannot be expressed in words. She has listened endlessly to my struggles and helped me work through the conceptual and organizational work of writing. No one gives me greater confidence and provides a safer place to fall than she. This project would not have been possible without her constant love and reassuring words. VI VITA November 25, 1974 ........................... Born - Pittsburgh, PA 1997 .....................................................B.A. - Politieal Seienee, Wittenberg University. 1997 -2000 .......................................... Graduate Teaebing Assistant and Researeb Assistant, The Ohio State University 2000 .....................................................M.A. - Politieal Seienee, The Ohio State University 2000 - present......................................Graduate Teaehing, The Ohio State University PUBLICATIONS 1. Meinke, Seott R. and Edward B. Haseeke. “Professionalization, Term Limits, and Partisan Control in U.S. State Legislatures.”Journal o f Politics, fortheoming. LIELDS OP STUDY Major Pield: Politieal Seienee Coneentration: Ameriean Polities Politieal Eeonomy VII TABLE OF CONTENTS Page A bstract.............................................................................................................................. ii Dedication.......................................................................................................................... iv Acknowledgments............................................................................................................ v V ita ..................................................................................................................................... vii Eist of Figures.................................................................................................................. x Chapters: 1. Introduction............................................................................................................. 1 1.1 The Scheduling Decision and Agenda Control.................................... 3 1.2 D a ta ............................................................................................................. 9 1.3 Outline of Dissertation............................................................................ 12 2. The Scheduling D ecision..................................................................................... 16 2.1 The Partisan Speaker............................................................................... 17 2.2 An Alternative View: The Balancing Speaker..................................... 26 2.2.1 Competing Principals................................................................ 27 2.2.2 Agenda-Setting.......................................................................... 32 2.2.3 Influencing the Committee Agenda........................................ 36 2.3 Empirical Predictions.............................................................................. 38 2.4 Conclusion................................................................................................ 41 3. Following the Calendar......................................................................................... 42 3.1 The Scheduling Process: Rules and Procedures................................... 43 3.1.1 Circumventing the Regular Order of Business...................... 49 3.2 Comparing the Actual Schedule and Calendar Order......................... 53 3.2.1 D a ta .............................................................................................. 57 viii 3.3 R esults......................................................................................................... 59 3.4 Scheduling with Bypass Procedures....................................................... 61 3.5 Conclusion................................................................................................
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