Formal Models of Parties and Committees

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This award supports research on the role that congressional committees play in determining the outcome of legislation on the floor of Congress. Legislative scholars have long been aware that the decisions made by congressional committees are rarely overturned on the floor of the Congress. However, some committees are accorded much greater deference than others. A number of explanations have been advanced to explain this pattern, though most of these are somewhat speculative and ad hoc. This innovative research attempts to build upon existing explanations of committee floor success by developing a formal theory based on the assumption that legislators are rational actors concerned with maximizing individual interest but guided by a central agent, in this case by party leaders. The theory will be tested using detailed legislative histories of all bills reported by standing committees in the 84th, 86th, 88th, 90th, 92nd, 94th 96th 98th and 100th Congresses. When completed this project will help us better understand the dynamics of the legislative process that influence individuals to cooperate for collective benefits. Such an understanding of how collective goods are produced in the highly decentralized environment which is Congress is essential for developing better legislative strategies to cope with other collective goods problems such as deficit reduction and campaign finance reform.