Positive Agenda Control and the House

Majority Party: Policy Bargaining over

Structured Rule Choice
Michael S. Lynch
Assistant Professor
University of Kansas
mlynch@ku.edu
Anthony J. Madonna
Assistant Professor
University of Georgia
ajmadonn@uga.edu
Jason M. Roberts
Associate Professor
University of North Carolina
jroberts@unc.edu
July 11, 2012
1
1
An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2010 Annual Meeting of the Southern
Political Science Association. The authors would like to thank Mike Crespin, Jamie Carson,
C. Lawrence Evans, Chuck Finocchiaro, Greg Koger, Nate Monroe, John Owens, Robi Ragan,
Steven S. Smith, Paul Sniderman and seminar participants at College of William and Mary,
the University of South Carolina, and Oklahoma State University for helpful comments, and
Nick Howard for research assistance.
Abstract
All major legislation in the House necessitates a special rule from the Rules Committee
before it can be brought to the chamber oor. These rules often specify when a bill will
be considered, the length of the debate and what, if any, amendments will be in order.
Increasingly, these special rules have either strictly limited or completely forbidden oor
amendments to bills considered by the House. In fact, scholars of congressional par-
ties have argued that the majority partys ability to control this process represents its
strongest source of inuence in the chamber. While a great deal of research has focused
on special rules, it has largely been conned to the macro-level question of whether or
not the Rules Committee produces non-centrist policy outcomes with its choice of rules.
In this paper, we use a newly collected data set to analyze the micro-level process that
determines the content of special rules by utilizing a new dataset of all proposed amend-
ments considered before the creation of a special rule in the 109th and 110th Congresses
(2005-2008). Doing so provides us substantial leverage in demonstrating how the content
of special rules enhances the partisan divisions in the chamber and hence increases the
level of polarization in the House chamber.
Introduction
Despite Congress having a reputation as an institution beset by partisan gridlock, the
modern day U.S. House of Representatives is a quite ecient legislative machine. In
contrast to the more deliberate Senate, cohesive House majorities can and do process
legislation through the House chamber while using a precious little plenary time. The
primary procedural tool that allows this kind of legislative eciency is the special rule.
Special rules are simple, yet exible, resolutions from the House Committee on Rules
that allow the chamber to take bills o of a legislative calendar out of order and establish
the terms and length of debate on a particular bill. The primary ways that special rules
increase eciency are through their limits on the time allowed for debate and the number
and content of amendments allowed. The permissiveness of rules can range from those
that allow all germane amendments (i.e. open rules) to those that allow a limited set of
amendments (i.e. structured rules) to those that bar amendment completely (i.e. closed
rules).
Under the widest level of permissivenessthe open rulethe median voter theo-
rem is applicable and policy output has the potential to converge to the preferences of
the oor median (Black 1948; Downs 1957). On the opposite side of the spectrum, under
a purely closed rule, membersincluding the oor medianare given an up or down
choice between the adoption of the bill and preserving the status quo. Partisan theories
of the U.S. House have argued the majority partys ability to use the Rules Committee
to structure special rules in this manner allows them to bias policy output towards the
1
majority party median and away from the chamber median (Aldrich and Rohde 2000;
Cox and McCubbins 2005).
Theoretical work on partisan inuence in the House has posited that the primary
benets of this kind of agenda control for centrists are electoral. Specically, restrictive
and complex special rules provide political cover for moderate members. As Monroe
and Robinson (2008, 214) note, Instead of requiring majority party members to make
dicult choices on highly visible substantive nal passage votes, restrictive rules allow
for less costly acts of loyalty by voting with the party on much less visibly (and less
widely understood) procedural votes. In exchange for supporting the less visible vote
on the special rule, majority party moderates are then paid o for this support through
side payments. These include favorable oce assignments (Cox and McCubbins 1993,
2005), disproportionately high compensation to congressional campaigns (Jenkins and
Monroe 2012a,b), and collective benets accrued through the maintenance of a favorable
partisan brand name (Cox and McCubbins 1993; Monroe and Robinson 2008).
The policy consequences of this agenda control can be substantial though. Ma-
jority party centrists (and by extension, their supporters in the electorate) can incur
substantial policy loss under this arrangement (Cox and McCubbins 2005; Jenkins and
Monroe 2012a,b; Monroe and Robinson 2008; Young and Wilkins 2007). The key ques-
tion for scholars of legislative politics is what benets do centrists accrue in exchange
for this policy loss? This question attains even greater signicance when one considers
how the restrictiveness of special rules has increased sharply. Oleszek (2011) reports
2
that the proportions of open and restrictive rules have reversed only 15% of special
rules were restrictive during the 95th Congress (1977-1978) compared to 85% during the
110th Congress (2007-2008).
The large proportion of restrictive rules that we see in the U.S. House today is the
end result of a decades long procedural arms race between Democrats and Republicans
in the chamber. As Roberts and Smith (2003) recount, in the early 1970s the twin
developments of electronic voting and a rules change allowing recorded votes on amend-
ment oered in the Committee of the Whole produced a sharp spike in the number of
amendments receiving a recorded vote. Minority party Republicans availed themselves
of these new procedural rights and forced Democrats into politically dicult votes on
amendments (Smith 1989).
Democrats responded to the new Republican strategy by urging their leaders to
more aggressively employ procedural tactics to help enact the Democratic agenda and
ght back against the Republican tactics. One of the new Democratic strategies was
to allow the Speaker to appoint members of the Rules Committee (Rohde 1991).
1
The
combination of newly empowered leaders, increasing homogeneity in the Democratic
party, and unrelenting guerrilla tactics by the minority party Republicans produced a
surge in the number of restrictive rules in the House (Marshall 2002, 2005). In recent
years, both Democrats and Republican leaders have pledged to scale back the use of
restrictive rules upon taking control of the chamber, only to retreat once the reality
1
The committee membership ratio was set at nine majority members and four minority members.
The nine to four ratio has remained unchanged since that time.
3
of governing set in as minority caucuses have had no incentive to retreat from their
attempts to score political points through the use of amendments.
Why should we care about the proportion of restrictive rules enacted? First,
restrictive rules facilitate the majoritys ability to enact non-median policies causing
chamber centrists and their supporters in the electorate to incur policy loss (Cox and
McCubbins 2005; Jenkins and Monroe 2012a,b; Monroe and Robinson 2008; Young and
Wilkins 2007). Second, restrictive rules play a signicant rule in increasing observed
levels of political polarization in the U.S. House (Roberts 2010). There is a strong
correlation between the restrictiveness of the rule used for a bill and the amount of
party division on its nal passage vote. For the two congresses we study here (109th and
110th), bills considered under a open rule had an average party dierencedened as the
absolute dierence in proportion of each party voting ayeof 29.29, for structured rules
it was 49.15, for fully closed rules it was 65.33. To be sure, the type of rule adopted
is not completely independent of the issue under consideration. Measures that have
broad support or do not raise controversial issues may be considered under more open
procedures. However, the decreasing opportunities to oer amendments has produced
a situation where minority party members end up voting in opposition to the majority
party more often both on procedural and substantive votes (Rohde 1991; Finocchiaro
and Rohde 2008). Open amending processes tend to moderate bills and can help attract
broad support on nal passage.
We believe the existing work on special rule choice is limited by its treatment
4
of structured rules as either open or restrictive. Depending on what amendments are
allowed, a structured rule could have the exact same eect as an open rule in terms
of pulling a policy to the chamber median. Conversely, it could operate exactly as a
closed rule, and force voters on the oor to choose either the bill as reported or the
existing status quo. We argue that while party leaders and their allies on the House
Rules Committee can and use their control over special rules to alter the policy content
of legislation; there are limits on their ability to do so. Special rules require a majority
vote in the chamber, not just the assent of party leaders. Party leaders face a delicate
balance as they try to enact policies consistent with party goals, while at the same time
accommodating moderates within the majority party and limiting the opportunities for
the minority party to force the minority into embarrassing votes. As a result, centrists
are aorded substantial leverage in negotiating for concessions on policy substance, and
not just electoral benets.
To examine our argument, we take a two-pronged approach that utilizes a newly
collected data set that includes all amendments considered by the Rules Committee
during the construction of a structured rule. The rst step involves examining which
proposed amendments are allowed to be voted on under the restrictive rule. Second, we
look at the success of these proposed amendments. We use these new data to analyze the
spatial and partisan dynamics of amendments oered, allowed, and passed. Consistent
with our theoretical discussion, we nd that centrists are more successful at getting their
amendments included in structured rules.
5
The Role of Special Rules
Special rules allow bills to bypass other measures that may be ahead of it on House cal-
endars, block amendments from consideration and dictate the length of time a measure
is debated under (Tiefer 1989; Oleszek 2004).
2
Scholars have argued restrictive rules
allow majority party leaders to bias policy outcomes away from the chamber median
in several ways (Monroe and Robinson 2008). First, the Rules Committee can use its
scheduling power to provide restrictive special rules to proposals that shift existing sta-
tus quo points the majority party opposes and deny rules for proposals that shift status
quo points away from the majority party. Second, through its control over the Rules
Committee, the majority party can construct restrictive rules that bar amendments that
would allow proposals to collapse to the policy preferences of the oor median. As such,
scholars have argued that the majority party possesses the tools necessary to tilt policy
outcomes away from the chamber median if it so desires (Rohde 1991; Binder 1997;
Maltzman 1997; Aldrich and Rohde 2000).
Consistent with this, most analyses of special rules have found that restrictive
rules are used primarily to advance bills that favor the majority party.
3
Sinclair (1994)
2
The House has several legislative calendars. Without a special rule, most major bills would end up
on either the House Calendar or the Union Calendar, if it involved revenue (Oleszek 2004).
3
Not all scholars agree with the argument that the Rules Committee operates as an arm of the
majority party leadership, however. Krehbiel (1991) and Gilligan and Krehbiel (1987) argue that there
exists no direct evidence that special rules facilitate non-centrist policy outcomes. Instead, the authors
stress the informational benets of restrictive chamber rules. Specically, they argue that restricting
oor amendments ensures parent committees that their policy recommendations will not be altered
by less knowledgeable members on the oor. As such, the Rules Committee can induce committees to
gather more information by specializing. They argue that this specialization benets both the committee
and full chamber. Further, Krehbiel (1991) notes that special rules are subjected to simple majority
6
demonstrated that major legislation was more likely to be considered under restrictive
rules when the oor vote was partisan. In later work, she also reported that partisan
committee behavior was likely to lead to the issuing of a restrictive special rule. Further,
the predictive power of a partisan model substantially outperformed an information-
based model in her tests. Similarly, Dion and Huber (1996, 1997) found that restrictive
rules were more likely to be issued when the Rules Committee median was ideologically
closer to the median of the parent committee than the oor median.
4
Marshall (2002,
2005) reported similar results, nding that when the ideological distance between the
party median and parent committee increased, that committee was less likely to receive
a restrictive rule. These ndings were bolstered by analyses that found signicant party
inuence on rules or procedural votes (Snyder and Groseclose 2000; Cox and Poole 2002;
Roberts 2005).
Scholars have since turned their focus towards the more specic question of how
the majority party uses the Rules Committee to control the agenda and alter policy
proposals. Cox and McCubbins (2005) argues that evidence demonstrating restrictive
rules are more likely to be issued to bills favoring the majority party is consistent with
their argument that the majority partys power is derived from its ability to exercise
negative agenda control. Specically, the Rules Committee is biasing outcomes towards
oor votes, and as such, the oor median can reject non-centrist outcomes. Krehbiel (1991) employs a
dataset of rules issued over two Congresses, reporting that, consistent with his expectations, committees
with medians close to the oor median are likely to receive restrictive rules.
4
While Dion and Huber (1996; 1997) note that the Rules Committee typically operates as an agent
of the majority party, they opt to treat it like an independent actor in their model. This makes the
implications of their ndings somewhat less clear (see Evans (1999) on this point).
7
the majority party by only providing restrictive rules for proposals that move status quo
points the majority party opposes.
They bolster this claim with data on partisan roll rates. They report that the
roll rates of the majority party were far smaller than their minority party counterparts.
In fact, the modal number of times the majority party was rolled on nal passage
per Congress (from 1877 to 1987) was zero. This nding is even more pronounced on
special rules. Even before the 1970s reforms, during the era of Conservative Coalition
dominance (1937-1960), the authors report that the Rules Committee seldom reported
special rules that rolled the majority party (Cox and McCubbins 2005, 146). As the
roll rate remained consistently low throughout the transition in and out of this era, they
argue that negative agenda control is an unconditional power that the majority party
always employs. They contrast this with positive agenda control the ability of the
majority party to successfully push a measure through the chamber which they claim
is conditional and only marginally eects aggregate policy outcomes.
Recent scholarship has questioned the utility of distinguishing between positive
and negative agenda control. These scholars argue that the application of special rules
necessitates the usage of both positive and negative agenda powers (Smith 2007; Finoc-
chiaro and Rohde 2008). Restrictive rules provide scheduling benets, but also block
amendments that could pull majority party-biased legislation back to the position of the
chamber median. These rules necessitate a majority of the Houses support before they
are adopted. Moreover, scholars have noted that restrictive rules result in policy loss for
8
majority party centrists centrists whose support is necessary to ensure the passage of
the rule (Cox and McCubbins 2005; Jenkins and Monroe 2012a,b; Monroe and Robinson
2008; Young and Wilkins 2007). Consistent with this, both Finocchiaro and Rohde and
Smith argue that getting majority support for these measures necessitates the usage of
positive agenda control.
5
The degree of positive agenda control necessary to overcome centrist policy loss is
unclear. Theorists note that centrists are not being asked to vote against their ideologi-
cal interests, rather forgo opportunities to pull status quos to their ideal points (Jenkins
and Monroe 2012a). Moreover, votes in favor of special rules are said to lack traceabil-
ity, and thus unlikely to lead to electoral punishment by constituents (Arnold 1990).
Regardless, in exchange for sacrices their policy interests, scholars speculate that the
majority party accommodates centrists with electoral side payments.
These payments include collective benets accrued through the maintenance of
a favorable partisan brand name (Cox and McCubbins 1993; Monroe and Robinson
2008). Specically, by winning on the oor, the majority maintains a positive party
reputation, leading to electoral benets for all members. Cox and McCubbins (2005)
suggests that majority party centrists support the majority partys usage of the rules
5
Finocchiaro and Rohde (2008) nd less conict over special rules during eras were the majority
party had weak control over the Rules Committee and was unable to control how rules were structured.
They interpret this nd as evidence that the majority party did not attempt to bias outcomes through
their usage of special rules during this period. They conclude that, useful and important analytical
distinction(s) between positive and negative agenda control is not as clear in practice as it is in theory
when we consider the construction of procedural terms for oor consideration of legislation (Finocchiaro
and Rohde 2008, 22).
9
committee in exchange for distributive and oce benets.
6
By oce benets, they
suggest the majority party allocates committee chairmanships and favorable committee
assignments to centrists in exchange for their support. This, in conjunction with larger
stas by virtue of being in the majority party, allows centrists to accrue nonpolicy
benets like greater fundraising opportunities. Distributive benets include a greater
share of pork barrel funds and access to central party funds. Jenkins and Monroe (2012a)
builds on this work, reporting that centrists are rewarded with a disproportionate share
of campaign contributions from leadership PACs.
While theoretically appealing, Monroe and Robinson (2008) note that these elec-
toral side payments are likely not enough to compensate centrists. Another likely means
of compensation is through the construction of the restrictive rule itself. Restrictive
rules are not purely closed rules. As we have previously noted, structured rules allow
for votes on selected amendments. These amendments could provide substantial pol-
icy concessions to majority party centrists. However, data limitations have made the
systematic analysis of the construction of structured rules infeasible.
7
In what follows,
we build o of the existing literature on special rule choice by taking advantage of new
6
Cox and McCubbins (2005) does not explicitly address centrist policy loss stemming from amend-
ment restrictions. As previously discussed, when they refer to centrist policy loss, they do so in terms
of scheduling legislation. That is, particular bills that they would support are blocked from reaching
the oor by the cartel, whereas such bills would not be blocked if the oor controlled the agenda ((Cox
and McCubbins 2005, 47).
7
Based on this observation, Krehbiel (1997) oers an explicit criticism of the literature on special
rules. He argues that while the empirical analyses in these works span an impressive range of legislative
behavior from committee organization to roll call voting, the research does not include systematic
analyses of Rules Committee behavior or of the Houses nal choice of rules (Krehbiel 1997, 921).
10
data on all proposed amendments considered before the creation of a special rule in the
109th and 110th Congresses. These data grant us substantial leverage in accounting for
who is being advantaged by the special rule. In the next section, we provide examples
highlighting the importance of distinguishing between restrictive rule type and content.
The Content of Special Rules
In order for a majority party to secure non-centrist outcomes via a special rule, the
party must secure the votes of moderates within their own party. In many cases, these
moderates are asked to support a special rule that they know will produce an outcome
that is more extreme than they prefer. However, the amount of policy loss incurred by
centrists is dependent on both the content of the underlying policy and the construction
of the restrictive rule. Given this, it seems the empirical treatment of special rules
as either open or restrictive is overly simplistic.
8
Such an approach is likely to miss
important distinctions between the types of amendments allowed under the rule.
Additionally, although the content of special rules can directly impact the major-
ity partys control over policy outcomes, existing theories of political parties oer little
discussion of how the Rules Committee decides which amendments survive and which
8
These dierences also call into question studies that focus on whether a bill receives an open,
modied, or closed rule. If a bill receives a modied rule that allows only amendments preferred by the
majority party or allows minority supported amendments but these amendments fail to gain passage, the
policy implication of that rule is eectively identical to a closed rule. However, if a modied rule allows
amendments that end up rolling the majority party, the policy implication of that rule is much more
like an open rule. Studies analyzing only the category of rule a bill received, without considering the
content and eventual success of the amendments allowed or restricted, would be unable to distinguish
the vastly dierent policy eects a modied rule can have.
11
amendments die. Studies arguing that rules allow the majority party to move policy
outcomes away from the chamber median and towards the party median (Rohde 1991;
Binder 1997; Maltzman 1997; Aldrich and Rohde 2000), imply that amendments from
members near the party median should be favored over minority and moderate ma-
jority party members. Others studies highlighting the majoritarian goals of the Rules
Committee (Gilligan and Krehbiel 1987, 1989; Krehbiel 1991), imply that members near
the oor median and members with informational advantages should be favored in the
amendment selection process.
The increasing use of restrictive rules further highlights the importance of ade-
quately compensating centrists for policy loss. We believe that electoral side payments
alone are not sucient enough to counterbalance policy sacrices. To adequately com-
pensate centrists, we argue that majority party leaders make policy sacrices by allowing
moderate members amendments under structured rules. In eect, moderate members
trade support for rules for policy concessions via amendments to legislation. The con-
struction of structured rules, under which amendments are suggested by members and
granted consideration by the Rules Committee, comprises a forum where moderates can
negotiate with party leaders over much policy loss they are willing to endure and still
support a special rule.
This is not to suggest that all amendments allowed under a structured rule rep-
resent compromises on policy substance. The reality of the legislative process is rarely
that simple. Amendments considered under restrictive rules may also reect independent
12
electoral motivations. Specically, leaders can opt to allow votes on certain amendments
that are unlikely to pass but satisfy constituencies within their coalition. For example,
Sinclair (1994) notes that during consideration of the 1991 civil rights bill, majority party
Democrats allowed a vote on a more liberal substitute measure sponsored by members of
the Congressional Black Congress. While leaders were condent the amendment would
not be adopted, the vote allowed liberals the opportunity to show their purity on the
issue (Sinclair 1994, 490).
Similarly, leaders may allow votes on amendments oered by extreme members of
the minority party. This strategy of rebranding the opposition is frequently observed
on amendments. For example, scholars report that the introduction of electronic voting
in the House during the 1970s caused a sharp increase in recorded voting on amend-
ments (Smith 1989; Roberts and Smith 2003). Roberts and Smith (2003) attributed
this increase to minority party members seeking to force members of the majority to
cast unpopular votes. Majorities have cracked down on this behavior by barring these
amendments through restrictive rules, however. It is still the case that majorities can
structure rules to allow votes on certain extreme amendments that may force minority
party members into casting dicult votes.
In both cases, amendments for electoral position-taking purposes that are allowed
consideration under a restrictive rule are unlikely to garner majority support on nal
passage. In contrast to amendments oered by more extreme members for position-
taking, amendments oered by moderates are more likely to succeed in changing the
13
substance of policy. Consistent with this, Marshall (2005) suggests amendments oered
by extreme members will be included for political reasons. After a structured rule on
an immigration measure in the 104th Congress, he quoted than Representative Chuck
Schumer (D-NY), who argued that I would say there are lots of amendments that were
good amendments, ne amendments, in terms of improving and honing this bill, that
were not allowed. In certain cases it seems that the most extreme amendments were
allowed, but not those that would have moved the bill in a more moderate direction.
It looks a little bit political (Congressional Record, 104th Congress, March 19, 1996,
5288). From a purely policy standpoint, the decision to utilize a restrictive rule reects
uncertainty regarding the size of the supporting coalition on the part of the majority
party. Finocchiaro and Rohde (2008, 41) make this point explicitly, noting that once
the majority leadership decides to open the gates and allow a bill to come to the House
oor, both negative and positive agenda control depend on the leaderships ability to
shape special rules to their advantage and on their ability to hold together a majority
coalition on the oor in support of these actions. Through the structured rule, the
majority can then alter the policy content of the underlying measure to better ensure a
favorable outcome.
9
Most of these amendments are likely to be oered by chamber moderates within
the majority party. Given their closer proximity to the oor median and distance from
9
Monroe and Robinson (2008, 225) suggests this is the case, speculating that modied restrictive
rules could potentially be used on proposals the leadership nds either too extreme to pass the oor
or too moderate for its liking.
14
the majority median, threats made by these moderates are likely to be viewed more
credibly than those made by chamber extremists within the party. Allowing votes on
amendments under special rules represents an important positive agenda setting tool
for the party leaders to placate these members. Once these amendments are allowed
under the rule, they have the potential to attract minority party support and ultimately
be passed. While this strategy can result in important policy sacrices, it can be more
palatable to leaders than the defeat of the bill, the special rule, or the previous question
on the rule.
The passage of H.R. 3962 or the Aordable Health Care for America Act pro-
vides a case of how the structured rule process allowed for bargaining between House
Democratic leaders and moderates. A proposed amendment to the act by Represen-
tative Bart Stupak (D-MI) exposed an intense intraparty conict over how healthcare
reform would aect abortion policy. Largely-moderate anti-abortion Democrats were
threatening to withhold support for the bill unless party leaders allowed a vote on Stu-
paks amendment, which would bar individuals who receive federal health care funds
from using them to purchase an insurance plan that covered abortions.
10
Despite commanding the support of forty moderate Democrats, the Stupak Amend-
ment was opposed by womens rights groups and liberal, pro-choice Democratsincluding
10
In the remainder of this article, we evaluate the House under an assumption of a unidimensional pol-
icy space. While some might see the Stupak amendment as introducing a second dimension to the health
care debate, we argue that this amendment is best explained by the traditional liberal/conservative pol-
icy dimension. The Democrats who eventually voted for the Stupak amendment were overwhelmingly
moderate, with 57 of the 64 of its supporters falling to the right of the Democratic Party median. All
Republicans supported the amendment. Even if the amendment exposed a second dimension, in this
case we can claim that it was highly correlated with the rst dimension.
15
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). Eager to pass the bill, Pelosi and Rules
Chairwoman Louise Slaughter (D-NY) announced their willingness to amend the special
rule to allow for a vote on a compromise amendment oered by Representative Brad
Ellsworth (D-IN). Stupak was unmoved by the compromise. Backed by anti-abortion
groups, he began lobbying fellow pro-life Democrats to oppose any special rule that did
not allow a vote on his amendment (Roth 2009; Newmyer 2009).
Pelosi, however, recognized that the chamber could not pass the bill or the special
rule without the support of Stupak and his allies. Accordingly, she pressured members
of the Rules Committee to alter the special rule to allow a vote on the Stupak Amend-
ment. Liberal leaders on the Committee oered aggressive criticism of the proposal.
Despite these concerns, the Democrats included language allowing a vote on the Stupak
Amendment in the special rule. Despite the opposition of 75 percent of the majority
party, the Stupak Amendment passed the full chamber 240 to 194.
Specically, the debate over the Aordable Health Care for America Act demon-
strates how these amendments can play a critical role in altering the substance of the
underlying measure. Additionally, it suggests that not all amendments are created
equal. Pro-choice Democrats appeared much more willing to accept the language from
the Ellsworth Amendment than the proposal oered by Stupak. This implies that mem-
bers of the majority coalition viewed the Ellsworth Amendment as less costly from a
policy standpoint.
The Stupak Amendment case also underscores that policy concessions will oc-
16
casionally involve issues tangentially related to underlying bill content. This does not
necessitate opening up a completely divergent policy dimension, though Hixon and Mar-
shall (2007) oers a compelling argument for that strategy.
11
As we have previously
noted, the reality of the legislative process is rarely simple in practice. Often times, the
underlying measure lacks the policy continuity necessary for the oor median to amend
it to his or her independent ideal point. This policy discontinuity results in members of-
fering amendments to specic bill sections that may not represent the overarching issue.
As was the case with the Stupak Amendment, this should still result in a moderating of
the measure and policy sacrices on the part of majority coalition members.
12
We evaluate these dynamics by analyzing all instances in which the Rules Com-
mittee announced it was considering a structured amendment process during the 109th
and 110th Congresses. We then consider all amendments proposed to be included under
such structured rules. We seek to explain what factors inuenced the Rules Commit-
tees decision to allow amendments to be included in a structured rule. We also consider
what factors led proposed amendments to be more likely to pass the House and success-
fully amend the bill under consideration. Our results suggest that centrists are more
successful at getting their amendments included and adopted under structured rules.
11
Specically, Hixon and Marshall (2007, 84) argue that We argue that in addition to twisting
arms and exerting agenda control, leaders also attempt to expand the dimensions of legislative choice
creating, informally focusing attention on, or formally incorporating in the agenda otherwise dormant
issue dimensions to try to secure relatively inexpensive wins for party positions.
12
Another likely consequence of this policy discontinuity is that minority party centrists will likely
nd some success in getting amendments adopted under restrictive rules as well.
17
Data and Methods
To assess the role the Rules Committee plays in setting the agenda in the House, we
analyze how the committee decides which amendments are included in structured rules.
When the Rules Committee is considering a structured rule, the committee sends a
letter to members requesting that they submit proposed amendments. Fortunately, the
Rules Committee has recently begun archiving all amendments proposed in response to
an announcement of a structured rule on its website.
13
The text of the structured rule
reported for each bill, also found on the Rules Committee website, includes a list of all the
proposed amendments allowed under the rule. Together these data give us all proposed
amendments and all successful amendments for the 109th and 110th Congresses. Of
the 116 bills considered under restrictive rules during the 109th Congress, 54 (46.6%)
received structured rules. In the 110th Congress, 76 (55.9%) of the 136 restrictive rules
were structured.
We collected data for each bill where the Rules Committee announced that it
might issue a structured rule.
14
For each proposed amendment we code whether the
amendment was disallowed in the structured rule by the Rules Committee (Y
1
= 0) or
whether the proposed amendment was allowed by the structure rule (Y
1
= 1). It is not
uncommon for the Rules Committee to receive over 100 proposed amendments for highly
13
These can be accessed at http://.rules.house.gov.
14
The data examined in this paper looks primarily at bills considered under a structured rule. Occa-
sionally, the Rules Committee will solicit pre-led amendments and then issue a closed rule rather than
a structured rule. This occurred one time in the 109th Congress and three times in the 110th Congress.
18
salient bills receiving structured rules. After receiving all proposed amendments to a
bill, the committee, typically in consultation with the House leadership, decides which,
if any, will be allowed to be considered on the oor. Of the 1429 amendments proposed
for consideration under structured rules in the 109th Congress, the Rules Committee
included only 447. In the 110th Congress 608 out of 1589 proposed amendments were
allowed consideration. As the Rules Committee website warns, The submission of
an amendment to the Rules Committee does not guarantee that the amendment will
be made in order . . . If an amendment was included in a structured rule, its odds
of success on the oor were very high. Of the 447 allowed amendments in the 109th
Congress, 305 (68.2%) were eventually passed. Similarly, 482 out of the 608 (79.3%)
allowed amendments were passed in the 110th House.
We recognize that the majority party may allow some amendments to be voted
on, knowing that the amendment is unlikely to survive a oor vote. If the majority
party allows a minority amendment on the agenda, knowing that this amendment will
lose, it does not mean that the majority party is not successfully controlling the agenda.
Rather, we think it is more likely an indication that the majority prefers to be on record
opposing a policy, while not changing the underlying policy content of the bill under
consideration. To account for these instances we also consider whether each proposed
amendment is ultimately successful in amending the bill under consideration. To do this,
we examine the Congressional Record and code whether each proposed amendment was
ultimately defeated (Y
2
= 0), or passed, leading to the bill under consideration to be
19
amended (Y
2
= 1). Of the proposed amendments 20.95% were eventually passed by the
109th House and over 30% of proposed amendments were passed in the 110th House.
There are many potential factors that could explain why the Rules Committee
allows some amendments, but not others. We begin by considering the role of the
sponsor of the proposed amendments.
15
We argue that the ideological orientation of
the sponsor should play a key role in whether an amendment is allowed or not. We use
rst dimension DW-Nominate coordinates as a proxy for a members general voting
behavior. We also assess the partisan patterns in amendment allowance and passage. In
the Republican-controlled 109th Congress, Republicans-sponsored amendments passed
29.40% of the time, while Democrat-sponsored amendments were only successful 15.14%
of the time. In the 110th Congress majority-party Democrats were ultimately successful
44.79%, while only 15.57% of Republican amendments were successful.
Figures 1 and 2 provide visual representations of how party and member ideology
inuenced amendment success in the 109th and 110th Congresses. The top panel of
both gures displays the distribution of members, using DW-Nominate scores. The
gures then display histograms, sorted by DW-Nominate of all amendments proposed,
all amendments that were allowed consideration on the oor by the Rules Committee,
and all amendments that eventually gained passage on the House oor.
15
If an amendment has multiple sponsors, we consider the lead sponsor to be the amendments sponsor
for purposes of member-level independent variables.
20
Figure 1: Distributions of Amendment Sponsors: 109th HouseRepublican
Majority
Member Ideologies
Ideology
N
u
m
b
e
r

o
f

M
e
m
b
e
r
s
0.5 0.0 0.5 1.0
0
2
0
Sponsor Ideology of Proposed Amendments
Ideology
N
u
m
b
e
r

o
f

A
m
e
n
d
m
e
n
t
s
0.5 0.0 0.5 1.0
0
6
0
1
4
0
Sponsor Ideology of Allowed Amendments
Ideology
N
u
m
b
e
r

o
f

A
m
e
n
d
m
e
n
t
s
0.5 0.0 0.5 1.0
0
6
0
1
4
0
Sponsor Ideology of Passed Amendments
Ideology
N
u
m
b
e
r

o
f

A
m
e
n
d
m
e
n
t
s
0.5 0.0 0.5 1.0
0
6
0
1
4
0
21
Figure 2: Distributions of Amendment Sponsors: 110th HouseDemocratic
Majority
Member Ideologies
Ideology
N
u
m
b
e
r

o
f

M
e
m
b
e
r
s
0.5 0.0 0.5 1.0
0
1
5
3
5
Sponsor Ideology of Proposed Amendments
Ideology
N
u
m
b
e
r

o
f

A
m
e
n
d
m
e
n
t
s
0.5 0.0 0.5 1.0
0
1
0
0
Sponsor Ideology of Allowed Amendments
Ideology
N
u
m
b
e
r

o
f

A
m
e
n
d
m
e
n
t
s
0.5 0.0 0.5 1.0
0
1
0
0
Sponsor Ideology of Passed Amendments
Ideology
N
u
m
b
e
r

o
f

A
m
e
n
d
m
e
n
t
s
0.5 0.0 0.5 1.0
0
1
0
0
22
Multivariate Results
To evaluate members ability to gain policy concessions from party leaders in return for
their support for special rules, we consider the party status and average roll call behavior
for each, we also include an interaction term of majority party status and a members
DW-Nominate coordinate.
We also recognize that there are a number of factors, unrelated to party or ideology
orientation that may also inuence the Rules Committees decision to accept a proposed
amendment, particularly on bills that have a relatively easy path to passage. Consistent
with arguments made by Krehbiel (1991, 1997) and Gilligan and Krehbiel (1987, 1989,
1990), the committee system in the House leads certain members to become highly
specialized experts in the topics considered by their committees. As such, we consider
whether each amendments sponsor is a member of the bills committee of origin. It may
be that the Rules Committee defers to the expertise of relevant committee members.
In the 109th Congress, of the 1,429 proposed amendments, 630 of them were pro-
posed by members of the parent committee. Of those 630, 232 amendments were allowed
and 146 were eventually successful. In the 110th Congress, 43.45% of amendments were
proposed by members of parent committees. Of these, 39.94% were allowed and 30.31%
were successful. A limited number of the proposed amendments (36 in the 109th and 33
in the 110th) are managers amendments. These amendments are proposed by both the
majority and minority managers of a bill. Given the expertise of the bills managers,
it seems very likely that the Rules Committee would be more likely to allow managers
23
amendments and that such amendments would pass on the oor. We also control for
Rules committee membership as these individuals have the means ware able to use their
position on the Committee to increase the odds of their amendments being accepted. To
account for popular amendments, we introduce dummy variable controls for amendments
that have multiple sponsors and those that have bipartisan co-sponsors.
Table 1: Logit Models of Amendment Allowance
Variable 109th Congress 110th Congress
Majority Sponsor 0.002 0.411
(0.411) (0.400)
Sponsor Ideology 0.821 1.391

(0.648) (0.531)
Majority x Sponsor Ideology 0.174 2.134

(0.787) (0.713)
Partisan Cosponsors 0.396 0.366
(0.269) (0.197)
Bill Managers Amendment 2.066

1.326

(0.499) (0.443)
Sponsor on Committee of Origin 0.457

0.277

(0.122) (0.113)
Sponsor on Rules Committee 0.006 0.361
(0.305) (0.197)
Constant 1.031

0.323
(0.299) (0.352)
N 1429 1588
Log-likelihood -838.5 -989.5

2
(7)
98.7 133.5
Models examined amendment allowance are presented in Table 1. The ndings
indicate mixed support for the idea that moderates have an advantage when the Rules
24
Committee decides which amendments to allow on the oor. The top row of Figures
3 and 4 display this graphically, by presenting the eect of majority party status and
member ideology on amendment allowance. In the 109th Congress, while majority-
party Republican amendments are allowed at a slightly higher rate than Democrats,
there is no clear advantage for moderates. In the 110th Congress, there is evidence that
moderates from both parties enjoy greater success in having their proposed amendments
considered on the oor. Why might these two congresses have diering results? The most
obvious explanation is the change in party control. Most observers of recent congressional
politics would agree that House Republicans have typically displayed more homogeneity
in their voting behavior. This could be due to more preference homogeneity, better party
discipline than their Democratic counterparts, or the use of a side payment other than
amendment voting. Unfortunately, our data do not allow us to determine which, if any,
of these explanations are at work here. Among the control variables we nd that being
on the committee of origin and being a bill manager increase the odds of consideration
for both congresses.
These somewhat conicting results for amendment allowance are not surprising.
As discussed above, the amendment process is not just a tool to change the substan-
tive content of legislation; it is also an opportunity to participate in electorally mo-
tived position-taking. When more ideological extreme members of both parties propose
amendments for position-taking reasons there is little chance that such amendments
gain sucient support to pass. As such, party leaders are more likely to allow such
25
amendments to be considered. Indeed, as discussed above, majority party leaders may
see benets in allowing majority party extremists the opportunity to formally act on
issues of importance to their home constituents. There are also benets in allowing
minority party extremists to act on amendments that document minority party position
that can be used against them in upcoming elections. The dierent motives of members
and party leaders between policy amendments and position taking amendments make it
a more dicult task to predict which amendments will be granted consideration on the
oor.
We also t models examining which of the allowed amendments pass on the oor.
These results are presented in Table 2. These models include the same independent
variables as those in Table 1.
16
Moderates amendments enjoy a clear advantage at the
passage stage for both the 109th and 110th Congresses. The bottom rows of Figures 3
and 4 display these results graphically. Once an amendment is allowed to be considered
by the Rules Committee, amendments sponsored by majority party moderates almost
always pass. In the 109th Congress, the most moderate members of the Republican party
are predicted to have their amendments pass at an average rate of 89.437% [0.864, 0.953]
compared to a predicted success rate of 54.504% [0.464, 0.753] for the most conservative
member.
17
In the 110th Congress, the most moderate Democrat saw their allowed
amendments passed on average 95.6% [0.940, 0.983], compared to 81.5% [0.770, 0.906]
16
All managers amendments passed in the 110th Congress, so this variable is omitted from the 110th
Congress model.
17
In the 109th Congress, the most moderate member of the Republican party, Jim Leach (R-IA) had
a DW-NOMINATE score of 0.182 and the most conservative, Ron Paul (R-TX), had a score of 1.163.
26
Figure 3: Predicted Probability of Amendment Success: 109th Congress
1.0 0.8 0.6 0.4 0.2 0.0
0
.
0
0
.
2
0
.
4
0
.
6
0
.
8
1
.
0
Minority(Democrat)Allowed
Ideology
P
r
e
d
i
c
t
e
d

P
r
o
b
a
b
i
l
i
t
y
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
0
.
0
0
.
2
0
.
4
0
.
6
0
.
8
1
.
0
Majority(Republican)Allowed
Ideology
P
r
e
d
i
c
t
e
d

P
r
o
b
a
b
i
l
i
t
y
1.0 0.8 0.6 0.4 0.2 0.0
0
.
0
0
.
2
0
.
4
0
.
6
0
.
8
1
.
0
Minority(Democrat)Passed
Ideology
P
r
e
d
i
c
t
e
d

P
r
o
b
a
b
i
l
i
t
y
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
0
.
0
0
.
2
0
.
4
0
.
6
0
.
8
1
.
0
Majority(Republican)Passed
Ideology
P
r
e
d
i
c
t
e
d

P
r
o
b
a
b
i
l
i
t
y
27
Figure 4: Predicted Probability of Amendment Success: 110th Congress
1.0 0.8 0.6 0.4 0.2 0.0
0
.
0
0
.
2
0
.
4
0
.
6
0
.
8
1
.
0
Majority(Democrat)Allowed
Ideology
P
r
e
d
i
c
t
e
d

P
r
o
b
a
b
i
l
i
t
y
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
0
.
0
0
.
2
0
.
4
0
.
6
0
.
8
1
.
0
Minority(Republican)Allowed
Ideology
P
r
e
d
i
c
t
e
d

P
r
o
b
a
b
i
l
i
t
y
1.0 0.8 0.6 0.4 0.2 0.0
0
.
0
0
.
2
0
.
4
0
.
6
0
.
8
1
.
0
Majority(Democrat)Passed
Ideology
P
r
e
d
i
c
t
e
d

P
r
o
b
a
b
i
l
i
t
y
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
0
.
0
0
.
2
0
.
4
0
.
6
0
.
8
1
.
0
Minority(Republican)Passed
Ideology
P
r
e
d
i
c
t
e
d

P
r
o
b
a
b
i
l
i
t
y
28
for the most liberal Democrat.
18
Moderates in the minority parties also have a signicant
advantage in the predict success of their amendments.
Table 2: Logit Models of Amendment Passage
Variable 109th Congress 110th Congress
Majority Sponsor 0.458 2.074

(0.843) (0.945)
Sponsor Ideology 4.772

7.395

(1.355) (1.241)
Majority x Sponsor Ideology 6.774

9.511

(1.606) (1.612)
Partisan Cosponsors 0.674 0.716

(0.457) (0.362)
Bill Managers Amendment 2.107

(0.766) ()
Sponsor on Committee of Origin 0.668

0.013
(0.222) (0.239)
Sponsor on Rules Committee 0.884 0.129
(0.667) (0.468)
Constant 2.959

5.158

(0.648) (0.824)
N 447 607
Log-likelihood 225.46 248.09

2
(7)
47.93 123.85
Discussion and Conclusion
Our analysis highlights the complex and important role played by special rules. We
oer four primary conclusions. First, we believe that this analysis calls into question
18
In the 110th Congress, the most moderate member of the Democratic party, FIRST NAME Childers
(D-MS) and FIRST NAME Cazayoux (D-LA) had a DW-NOMINATE score of 0.003 and the most
liberal, Jim McDermot (D-WA), had a score of -0.759.
29
previous research that claims the Rules Committee works primarily to advantage the
majority party at the expense of the oor median. While amendments introduced by
members of the majority party are more successful in general, majority party members
near the median do far better than previous research on special rules has indicated.
Negative agenda control in the amendment process is far from ironclad. Amendments
from both minority party members and from moderate majority party members are not
only allowed onto the agenda; their amendments are frequently passed, changing the
substance of policy.
Second, we believe this paper demonstrates that special rules may be more com-
plicated than previous literature has suggested. Simply considering whether or not a
measure received a restrictive rule can cause researchers to miss important distinctions
between the types of amendments allowed under dierent rules. For example, even if a
bills parent committee and the Rules Committee are more liberal than the oor median,
restrictive rules could provide for the consideration of a more moderate amendment to
induce support on nal passage. Without knowing variables like the party aliation or
ideology of the member oering the amendment, and the success of that amendment,
scholars may only be able to tell a partial story.
Third, these results are consistent with work reporting more intraparty conict on
amendment votes (Froman and Ripley 1965; Roberts and Smith 2003). This suggests
that scholars of political parties may be well-served by shifting away from analyses
that focus exclusively on nal passage votes. Focusing primarily on nal passage votes
30
can lead to overlooking signicant and important disagreements within the party. This
conict can ultimately determine where nal policy outcomes are located within the
party.
Finally, in addition to the facilitation of non-median policy output, restrictive rules
play a signicant rule in increasing observed levels of political polarization in the U.S.
House (Roberts 2010). There is a strong correlation between the restrictiveness of the
rule used for a bill and the amount of party division on its nal passage vote. For the two
congresses we study here (109th and 110th), bills considered under a open rule had an
average party dierencedened as the absolute dierence in proportion of each party
voting ayeof 29.29, for structured rules it was 49.15, for fully closed rules it was 65.33.
To be sure, the type of rule adopted is not completely independent of the issue under
consideration. Measures that have broad support or do not raise controversial issues may
be considered under more open procedures. However, the decreasing opportunities to
oer amendments has produced a situation where minority party members end up voting
in opposition to the majority party more often both on procedural and substantive votes
(Rohde 1991; Finocchiaro and Rohde 2008). In contrast, open amending processes tend
to moderate bills and can help attract broad support on nal passage.
31
Appendix 1: Example of Rules Committee Call for Amendments
Amendment Process for H.R. 928 - Improving Government
Accountability Act of 2007
September 28, 2007
Dear Colleague:
The Committee on Rules is expected to meet the week of October 1, 2007 to report
a rule which may structure the amendment process for oor consideration of H.R. 928,
the Improving Government Accountability Act of 2007.
Any Member wishing to oer an amendment to H.R. 928 must do the following
by 10:00 AM on Tuesday, October 2, 2007 in order for the amendment to be
considered by the Rules Committee:
Submit to the Rules Committee in room H-312 of the Capitol:
30 copies of the amendment
One copy of a brief (1-2 sentences) explanation of the amendment
A completed Log-in form (attached)
Submit an electronic copy of the amendment via the Committees web page (http :
//www.rules.house.gov/amendment form.asp). Electronic submission of an amend-
ment is required in addition to physically ling the amendment with the Commit-
tee.
The amendment must be drafted to the bill as reported on September 27, 2007 by
the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. The bill is available on the
Rules Committee website (www.rules.house.gov).
Members are strongly advised to adhere to the noticed amendment deadline to ensure
the amendments receive consideration. Amendments should be drafted by Legislative
Counsel and also should be reviewed by the Oce of the Parliamentarian to be sure
that the amendments comply with the rules of the House. Members are also strongly
encouraged to submit their amendments by fax (6-1366) to Bob Sunshine at the Con-
gressional Budget Oce (CBO) for analysis regarding possible violations of Clause 10
of Rule XXI (PAYGO).
If you have any questions, please contact Rebecca Motley of my sta at extension
5-9091.
Sincerely,
/s
Louise M. Slaughter, Chairwoman
32
References
Aldrich, John H. and David W. Rohde. 2000. The Consequences of Party Organization
in the House: The Role of the Majority and Minority Parties in Conditional Party
Government. In Polarized Politics: Congress and the President in a Partisan Era, ed.
Jon Bond and Richard Fleisher. CQ Press pp. 3172.
Arnold, R. Douglas. 1990. The Logic of Congressional Action. New Haven, CT: Yale
University Press.
Binder, Sarah A. 1997. Minority Rights, Majority Rule: Partisanship and the Develop-
ment of Congress. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Black, Duncan. 1948. On the Rationale of Group Decision-Making. Journal of Political
Economy 56(1):2334.
Cox, Gary W. and Keith T. Poole. 2002. On Measuring Partisanship in Roll-Call
Voting: The U.S. House of Representatives, 1877-1999. American Journal of Political
Science 46(3):47789.
Cox, Gary W. and Mathew D. McCubbins. 1993. Legislative Leviathan: Party Govern-
ment in the House. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Cox, Gary W. and Mathew D. McCubbins. 2005. Setting the Agenda: Responsible Party
Government in the U.S. House of Representatives. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Dion, Douglas and John Huber. 1996. Procedural Choice and the House Committee
on Rules. Journal of Politics 58(1):2553.
Dion, Douglas and John Huber. 1997. Sense and Sensibility: The Role of Rules.
American Journal of Political Science 41(4):94557.
Downs, Anthony. 1957. An Economic Theory of Democracy. New York: Harper.
Evans, Lawrence. 1999. Legislative Structure: Rules, Precedents, and Jurisdictions.
Legislative Studies Quarterly 24:605642.
Finocchiaro, Charles J. and David W. Rohde. 2008. War for the Floor: Partisan
Theory and Agenda Control in the U.S. House of Representatives. Legislative Studies
Quarterly 33:3562.
Froman, Lewis A. and Randall B. Ripley. 1965. Conditions for Party Leadership: The
Case of the House Democrats. American Political Science Review 59:5263.
33
Gilligan, Thomas W. and Keith Krehbiel. 1987. Collective Decisionmaking and Stand-
ing Committees: An Informational Rationale for Restrictive Amendment Procedures.
Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization 3(2):287335.
Gilligan, Thomas W. and Keith Krehbiel. 1989. Asymmetric Informatoin and Legisla-
tive Rules with a Heterogenous Committee. American Journal of Political Science
33:459490.
Gilligan, Thomas W. and Keith Krehbiel. 1990. Organization of Informative Commit-
tees by a Rational Legislature. American Journal of Political Science 34(2):53164.
Hixon, William and Bryan W. Marshall. 2007. Agendas, Side Issues and Leadership in
the U.S. House. Journal of Theoretical Politics 19:8399.
Jenkins, Jeery A. and Nathan W. Monroe. 2012a. Buying Negative Agenda Control
in the U.S. House. American Journal of Political Science Forthcoming(3):116.
Jenkins, Jeery A. and Nathan W. Monroe. 2012b. Partisan Agenda Control in the US
House: A Theoretical Exploration. Journal of Theoretical Politics Forthcoming(3):1
16.
Krehbiel, Keith. 1991. Information and Legislative Organization. Ann Arbor, MI: Uni-
versity of Michigan Press.
Krehbiel, Keith. 1997. Rejoinder to Sense and Sensibility. American Journal of
Political Science 41(3):95864.
Maltzman, Forrest. 1997. Competing Principals: Committees, Parties, and the Organi-
zation of Congress. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.
Marshall, Bryan W. 2002. Explaining the Role of Restrictive Rules in the Postreform
House. Legislative Studies Quarterly 27(1):6185.
Marshall, Bryan W. 2005. Rules for War: Procedural Choice in the U.S. House of
Representatives. Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing.
Monroe, Nathan W. and Gregory Robinson. 2008. Do Restrictive Rules Produce Non-
median Outcomes? A Theory with Evidence from the 101st-108th Congresses. Jour-
nal of Politics 70(1):217231.
Newmyer, Tory. 2009. Abortion Compromise in House Tees Up Health Reform Vote.
Roll Call November 7.
Oleszek, Walter J. 2004. Congressional Procedures and the Policy Process. 6th ed.
Washington, D.C.: CQ Press.
34
Oleszek, Walter J. 2011. Congressional Procedures and the Policy Process. 8th ed.
Washington D.C.: CQ Press.
Roberts, Jason M. 2005. Minority Rights and Majority Power: Conditional Party Gov-
ernment and the Motion to Recommit in the House, 1909-2000. Legislative Studies
Quarterly 30(2):219234.
Roberts, Jason M. 2010. The Development of Special Orders and Special Rules in the
U.S. House, 1881-1937. Legislative Studies Quarterly 35:307336.
Roberts, Jason M. and Steven S. Smith. 2003. Procedural Contexts, Party Strategy, and
Conditional Party Voting in the U.S. House of Representatives, 1971-2000. American
Journal of Political Science 47(2):305317.
Rohde, David W. 1991. Parties and Leaders in the Postreform House. Chicago, IL:
University of Chicago Press.
Roth, Bennett. 2009. Activists Gear Up for Fight. Roll Call November 5.
Sinclair, Barbara. 1994. House Special Rules and the Institutional Design Controversy.
Legislative Studies Quarterly 19(4):477494.
Smith, Steven S. 1989. Call to Order: Floor Politics in the House and Senate. Wash-
ington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press.
Smith, Steven S. 2007. Party Inuence in Congress. New York, NY: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press.
Snyder, James M. and Timothy Groseclose. 2000. Estimating Party Inuence in Con-
gressional Roll-Call Voting. American Journal of Political Science 44(2):193211.
Tiefer, Charles. 1989. Congressional Practice and Procedure. New York, NY: Greenwood
Press.
Young, Garry and Vicky Wilkins. 2007. Vote Switchers and Party Inuence in the U.S.
House. Legislative Studies Quarterly 32(1):5977.
35