Studying Changes in the Rules of the U.S. House of Representatives: Electorial Forces and Majority Control

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This project investigates the relationship between changes in the rules of legislative procedure of the U.S. House of Representatives and the electoral environment. The genesis of rules changes in the Congress is of significant theoretical interest. Many studies of Congress have chronicled the occurrence of historic rules changes in the House while others have created theoretical models of why institutional rules have an independent effect on the determination of policy outcomes within the chamber. In addition, students of American political parties, at the congressional level, have argued that party change was responsive to changes in the American agenda. This project explores and tests the degree to which the changes in the electorate also caused changes in the rules of the House as a response to changing electoral demands. Specifically, the project tests the following relationship between electoral influences and institutional change: major rules changes will not occur directly after rapid and major alterations take place in the coalitions that make up the two major political parties and in the issues that divide them and dominate politics. Testing this hypothesis requires the creation of a database on proposed rules changes in the U.S. House. A major product of the project will be the creation of a database concerning proposed changes of the rules in the House from the First through the One Hundredth Congress. Data will not be collected on the size and cohesion of the political parties in the House since that is available elsewhere. The primary data source is the Journal of the House of Representatives for each session of Congress. The Journals for the Sixteenth through the Hundredth Congress are available at the host institution of the Principal Investigator. The data collected will be archived with the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research at the University of Michigan. This database should enable further research which will enhance substantially our understanding of the topic.