A Cross-state Analysis of Legislative Committee Request Success Rates
Ronald D. Hedlund, Northeastern University
Claudia Larson, Northeastern University
Rob A. DeLeo, Bentley University
David P. Hedlund, Florida State University
A Paper Presented at the 12th Annual State Politics and Policy Conference,
Rice University, Houston TX
February 16-19, 2012
Not for quotation without the authors permission
A Cross-state Analysis of Legislative Committee Request Success Rates
Abstract
The committee request/assignment process and the behavior of legislators associated with it has long been a topic of interest for political scientists. Previous state-level research (Hedlund 1989, 1992, and Hedlund and Patterson 1992) has demonstrated that variation exists in the degree to which members acquire the requests they make. More recent findings (Hedlund, DeLeo and Hedlund 2011and Hedlund, DeLeo, Hedlund and Larson 2011) using longitudinal data from one state, indicate that contextual/organizational/session factors (such as party stasis in chamber control and proportion of first-time party members) affect committee request success, but in nuanced and complex ways. More importantly, previous research also shows that personal behavior related to “risk-taking” surrounding the requests made (proximate factors) has greater impact on the legislators’ success at gaining membership to committees they requested than contextual/ organizational/session elements. In addition, the research evinces that the effects of risk-taking and contextual factors impact new legislators differently than experienced legislators, with risk-taking being especially important in experienced legislators’ committee request/assignment success.
Our previous research—state committee request/assignment data for 12 sessions of Democratic members from the Iowa House—provides the base for a new, four state, cross time analysis. Our interest here is in assessing how these contextual/organizational/session traits, as well as personal, factors affect request/assignment success; but, we add an additional level of predictor variables associated with different political settings—state-based characteristics. Do the prior conclusions apply when performing similar analyses on data from multiple legislative sessions for the Iowa, Maine, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin legislatures; and do state-based characteristics impact committee assignment success. We examine whether or not the different political conditions associated with states impact the effects of these other predictor variables on committee request success. To do so, we explore the interactive effects of individuals’ personal, risk-taking, contextual/organizational/ session variables and states’ political setting on committee request outcomes using 3-Level Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM).
A Cross-state Analysis of Legislative Committee Request Success Rates [1]
Fenno’s conclusion that “[C]ommittees matter.” has become the assumption guiding much subsequent research on legislative institutions in the U.S. (Fenno 1973, xiii). In this work it is widely recognized that committees have become essential to legislative operations at all levels of the U.S. government in policy formulation, revision and adoption. By enabling a division of labor, issue specialization and expertise development in legislatures, committees foster a process that makes possible effectual policymaking (Davidson and Oleszek 2004; Deering and Smith 1997; Francis 1989; Shepsle and Weingast 1987; Francis and Riddlesperger 1982; Rosenthal 1981; Rosenthal 1974; Fenno 1973; Sokolow & Brandsma 1971). Committees have also been found to affect the careers of individual legislators by allowing members to develop policy skill and knowledge, satisfy the policy expectations of their constituencies and strengthen their internal reputation, position and influence. Serving on the most advantageous committees also has been connected to positioning one’s self in the party, acquiring leadership positions and facilitating a member’s post-legislative career (e.g. lobbying) (Freeman 1995; Shepsle and Weingast 1987; Francis 1985; Forina 1977; Shepsle 1975; Clapp 1963). For all of these reasons, political scientists have built an extensive body of literature and theory about virtually all aspects of legislative committee organization.
One set of concerns in prior political science research addresses how committees are established and formed. Hence, the process through which legislators request and are subsequently assigned to committees has been an ongoing topic of research interest. Inquiry about the committee request and assignment process seeks to understand the relative success legislators experience in receiving appointment to requested committees. To this end, scholars have posited a number of explanations, including leaders’ desire to accommodate members’ requests (Hedlund 1989; Bullock 1985; Smith and Ray 1983; Shepsle 1978; Gertzog 1976; Westefield 1974), members’ reelection concerns (Masters 1961) and even the organizations’/institutions’ rules, norms and practices (Bullock 1985, 789; Hinckley 1978; Shepsle 1978; Asher 1974; Swanson 1969; Masters 1961).
More recent research views the committee request and assignment process as an individualistic, strategic task for the member making committee requests. A complex interrelationship of individual goals, organizational and environmental constraints and perceptions about the strategic positions of other members (who are also competing for coveted committee positions) are assumed to influence legislators' requests (Lee 2008; Amegashie 2003). By and large, this literature applies game theoretic models and implicitly views the committee request/assignment process as a form of risk taking: individuals expending varying degrees of personal energy and “political capital” to best position themselves to obtain assignment to their requested committees through a process in which they are competing with others for scarce political resources—assignment to the “right” legislative committees. (Lee 2008).
Although risk taking is inherent to game theoretic models of committee requests/assignments, research has yet to test for the impact of member risk taking behavior on the committee assignment process. This paper seeks explicitly to begin filling the gap left by the absence of such work by examining the relative effect of risk taking behavior on legislator success during the committee request/assignment process. Here, we define risk as “the product of the likelihood of some event and the impact, value or utility of its outcome” (Maule 2004, 19). As such, risk becomes the level of “chance, uncertainty or jeopardy” a person is willing to assume when initiating some action for which the outcome is in doubt. In our case the “outcome” is a member’s success in receiving their desired committees and the “value” or “utility is the members’ subsequent individual legislative standing and policy effectiveness in the legislative process. Because risk taking is presumed to be affected by the decision making environment surrounding this action, this study also examines a number of contextual/institutional/ organizational or “session level” traits. These variables seek to account for a number of “setting” influences that are unique to and highly pertinent to the legislative milieu: variation in party control, leadership changes, the number of new members, etc. In other words, we assume that a legislator’s request making for committee assignments, as well as the risk taking a member decides to use, takes place within a specific organizational and political context. We believe that the organizational/situational/contextual changes from session to session affect members differently and also influence the member’s request-making behavior and, in turn, their success in obtaining desired committee appointments. In addition, this research recognizes that legislator behavior takes place within larger political systems that vary with regard to the political and environmental circumstances associated with each state in which also affects committee request behavior. Thus, our research question asks about the degree to which personal attributes as well as risk taking behavior, contextual/institutional/organizational traits and state environmental characteristics affect a legislator’s success in obtaining requested committee assignments.
This study analyzes longitudinal data (from 3 to 12 sessions) collected for Democratic members in the lower chamber (House or Assembly) of four states (Iowa, Maine, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin). No claim is made that these constitute a random sample of sessions or states, but the data do reflect diversity across a wide range of contextual/organizational/session traits. Since the multi-level data to be used are hierarchical and nested (individual legislators within legislative sessions within states), and because we wish to analyze the impact of all three levels of variables on member committee request outcomes, we use Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) as our primary data analysis strategy. HLM analyzes such ordered data by separating the analysis by “Levels” and treating individual-level variables (Level 1) and group-level variables (Level 2 and perhaps Level 3) as distinct yet interconnected factors affecting outcome variables.
Prior Research
A very useful array of explanatory frameworks and theories has appeared in political science for understanding the committee request/assignment process. While much of both the theoretical and empirical development of this literature is based on Congress, it has provided a foundation for research at a variety of levels. In one of the most influential early frameworks, Shepsle proposed an interest-advocacy-accommodation syndrome wherein individual members publicize their committee preferences in order to inform party leaders (the decision makers) of their desired committee appointment(s) (Shepsle 1978). To foster and advance party loyalty and harmony, leaders endeavor to accommodate member requests (Hedlund 1989, 597; Bullock 1985, 789; Smith and Ray 1983, 219; Shepsle 1978; Gertzog 1976, 693; Shepsle 1975; Westefield 1974, 1503). Taking a different approach, Frisch and Kelly (2006) presented a committee assignment politics (CAP) framework in which members pursue a complex political calculus when requesting committees. According to this framework, member requests are “conditioned by” their perceptions of the accessibility for membership on various committees, the role of party leaders in the assignment process and the process of committee selection itself (Frisch and Kelly 2006).
A number of more explicit explanatory theories fit within the above frameworks for understanding committee requests/assignments. For example, the Masters-Clapp model sees committee assignment as a means for leadership to maximize the reelection prospects of individual members (Masters 1961, 354). A second theory holds that legislatures are marked by various norms, rules and practices that impact and stipulate the request and assignment process, thereby structuring individual behavior. Examples of such structuring elements include rules governing the selection process, norms of conformity and norms of seniority (Bullock 1985, 789; Hinckley 1978; Shepsle 1978; Asher 1974; Swanson 1969, 740; Masters 1961, 345).
Rational choice models of committee organization offer yet another, differing theoretical perspective on the committee request/assignment process. Three models of committee organization have dominated rational choice approaches: distributive, informational and partisan. The distributive model holds that committees consist of members who are willing to relinquish “control” over issues of less importance to their constituents in return for control over issues that are more important to them (Shepsle and Weingast 1981, 503; Shepsle 1979, 27). Members do this because special interests among the committee members’ constituencies exchange electoral support for members in return for favorable policy accomplishments by committee members in areas of high constituency interest. In this model, the appointment process reflects leaders’ calculus regarding what appointments maximize constituency interests because, by helping their members gain electoral support, leaders generate continued support for their own partisan influence. Another rational choice variant, the informational model, holds that committees serve the median policy interest of the controlling party in the chamber by providing quality knowledge pertaining to policy issues (Krehbiel 1990, 149). Hence, in the assignment process, members seek assignments and leaders appoint members to committees based on members’ information/expertise in specific policy areas. Finally, the partisan model holds that party leaders seek to appoint committees compatible with their party’s position on issues, expressed as the median policy position of the party caucus (Cox and McCubbins 1993). Loyal party members provide the party with procedural control of the legislature. With this procedural control, legislators use committee positions to secure policy benefits for constituents, with these benefiting constituents then providing the members, through their parties, with electoral support.
More recent research has proposed an “all-pay auction” theory for explaining committee requests/ assignments. This game theoretic approach has also been employed to explain other political and economic phenomena (Amegashie 2003, 79). One of this theory’s key elements is the existence of both sincere and revealed preferences of assignments among persons involved in this “auction” of committee appointments. Lee (2008) illustrated the relationship between sincere and revealed preferences, demonstrating “how a strong revealed preference does not necessary mean that the legislator sincerely values that assignment highly, and vice versa” (Lee 2008, 251). Instead, legislators, when pursuing committee requests, engage in a strategic calculus regarding tactics and likely outcomes and exert varying degrees of effort to achieve their desired outcome thereby reflecting their “political capital” and their perceptions regarding the strategic positions of other members “competing” in the assignment process. Thus, in his analysis, Lee accounts for a number of situational or temporal characteristics (seniority, party loyalty, committee transfers, effort constraints), as well as the interaction effect of “each competing member’s actions on the final probability of winning the assignment” (Lee 2008, 238). Earlier decision theoretic models, most notably Shepsle’s (1978), only account for situational factors.
Despite the appearance of game theoretic models and the proposed all-pay auction approach, most contemporary committee request/assignment research has not explicitly examined the impact of risk taking on committee assignment outcomes. Further, existing research is largely devoid of empirical measures of risk taking behavior. It is within this context that the present research includes member risk taking as a predictor of committee assignment success. Risk taking is a prospective exercise, in that the individual risk taker knowingly forgoes an immediate level of “safety” or personal stasis and takes some level of chance in order to achieve a desired committee appointment (Jia, Dyer, and Butler, 1999). Regarding the committee request process, legislators demonstrate higher levels of risk anytime they request a committee for which (a) there is substantial competition among members for a limited number of committee appointments, or (b) when they seek appointment to different committees than they have held in the past. To this end, we operationalize two measures of risk taking below.
We also assume that risk taking is affected by the organizational context in which the behavior occurs—the level of risk taking is, in part, conditioned by the nature of the legislative organizational setting (largely political) in which the decision maker is acting (Lee 2008). This is consistent with other studies of risk taking which recognize the influence of environmental factors, such as organizational and institutional opportunities and constraints, on individual decision making regarding risk. Thus, this research includes a number of exogenous traits that account for the specific institutional and political setting within which requests are being made. All of these variables account for differences that occur across legislative sessions, such as variation in party leadership, changes in party control, the number of new party members and the length of time a legislative leader has occupied his/her position.