Party Discipline in the Contemporary Congress:Rewarding Loyalty in Theory and in Practice

Kathryn Pearson

Chapter 3Do Leaders Reward Loyalty on the Legislative Calendar?

When describing how party leaders determined whose legislation to bring to the House

floor for consideration from 1995 to1998, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich explained that

the loyalty of the bill’s sponsor was important: “Jim Nussle (R-Iowa), who had been heroic on a

huge range of things for the party, had to have that opportunity (to have his ethanol legislation

considered).”1 Near the end of the 107th Congress, Republican leaders pulled Congressman

Christopher Smith’s (R-NJ) legislation to provide loans to small businesses in developing

countries from the House calendar to punish him for deviating from the party position on

unrelated legislation (Pomper 2002). In the contemporary congressional environment, do party

leaders systematically reward loyalty and punish disloyalty in the legislative process as a way of

implementing party discipline, or are these examples anomalies?

The legislative calendar provides party leaders with many opportunities to exert

discipline. This chapter evaluates how majority party leaders allocate legislative opportunities to

their rank-and-file members. The empirical focus is on how party leaders in the congresses from

1987-2002 decided which members’ bills, amendments, resolutions, and “suspensions” were

considered on the House floor, and under what conditions. I pay particular attention to the

interplay between the majority party’s electoral motive of maintaining a partisan majority and

the policy motives of enhancing party unity and passing legislation.

Despite increases in the power and prerogatives of party leaders in the post-reform

Congress, congressional party discipline is difficult to identify. Some scholars question whether

parties matter at all controlling for members’ policy preferences (e.g., Krehbiel 1993, 1998,

2000). Many find that parties exert influence in post-reform congressional politics (e.g., Aldrich

and Rohde 2000; Binder, Lawrence, and Maltzman 1999; Rohde 1991; Sinclair 1995, 1999), but

there is no consensus on the causes or consequences of party effects. In analyses of members’

roll call votes, scholars detect party influence, but they do not specify how leaders exact party

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loyalty (Ansolabehere, Snyder, and Stewart 2001; Snyder and Groseclose 2000; McCarty, Poole,

and Rosenthal 2001; Cox and Poole 2001).

Cox and McCubbins (1993) argue that parties are—and have been historically—stronger

than most scholars recognize. They model parties in the House as a “legislative cartel,” whereby

the majority party wields power over every stage of the legislative process. The majority party’s

ability to solve the institution’s inherent collective action problem rests on this “automatic”

control, but also on their “active” control, i.e., their power to punish their members. Analyses

focusing on overt punishment will not get very far: the use of potent sanctions, such as expelling

a member from the party caucus or a committee, is rare (Schickler and Rich 1997). When it

comes to rewarding loyalty, Cox and McCubbins’ empirical evidence shows that parties indeed

provide selective incentives to loyal party members in the form of desirable committee transfers.

Party loyalty is a significant factor explaining members’ transfers to exclusive committees from

the 80th to the 100th Congress (Cox and McCubbins 1993). They do not, however, specify the

electoral and institutional conditions in which leaders are more likely to use incentives, nor do

they explore other potentially important, less visible tools employed by party leaders to

advantage loyal members as a means of discipline.

As parties became more ideologically homogeneous beginning in the mid-1970s, rank

and file members ceded more legislative prerogatives to their leaders (Rohde 1991; Sinclair

1995). On the majority side, the most significant leaders include the Speaker of the House, the

Majority Leader, the Majority Whip, the Caucus or Conference Chair, and the chair of the

party’s campaign committee (i.e., the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee or the

National Republican Congressional Committee). On the minority side, the leadership group

consists of the Minority Leader, the Minority Whip, the Caucus or Conference Chair, and the

chair of the campaign committee. Party leaders in the contemporary House of Representatives

allocate many scarce resources and opportunities to their rank-and-file members, e.g., committee

assignments and transfers, conference committee assignments, campaign resources, and the

consideration of their legislation. Given the limited amounts of exclusive committee positions,

campaign resources, and available time on the House floor, party leaders have many

opportunities to reward and punish members of their caucus.

1 Quote from author’s interview with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich October 8, 2003.

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Majority party leaders set the overall legislative agenda and fill the House calendar,2

which has space for a small fraction of the thousands of bills and amendments introduced.

Majority party leaders determine whose bills are considered on the House floor and under what

conditions. Leaders generally work closely with committee chairs to determine which bills are

reported out of committee and in what form. They shepherd some bills through committee from

start to finish, carefully monitoring their legislative progress. In other instances, they evaluate

the legislation marked up by a committee or committees and determine whether it will be

considered on the House floor. Pursuant to the rules of the House—and in actual practice—the

Speaker determines whose bills are considered under “suspension of the rules,” a procedural

shortcut used to expedite non-controversial legislation. Using their influence over the House

Committee on Rules, leaders decide which amendments are in order during the consideration of

legislation, increasingly employing restrictive rules that permit the amendments of just a selected

few members. In sum, by employing their prerogatives, leaders pick and choose among

members’ requests for legislative preference. Given a massive pool of legislation (e.g., over

6,000 pieces in the 107th Congress) introduced by 435 members of varied backgrounds and

institutional positions to choose from, leaders must weigh many factors when deciding whose

bills, resolutions, and amendments to bring to the House floor. They have incentives to reward

loyalty and recognize legislative entrepreneurship, and they naturally want to help their

electorally vulnerable members.

Leaders’ Pursuit and Prioritization of Goals

As outlined in detail in Chapter 1, I test three hypothesis to explain party leaders’ goals

when they determine the legislative agenda: a “policy control” hypothesis that party leaders

reward members’ past loyalty in policy and procedural voting in order to provide incentives for

future loyalty; an electoral hypothesis that party leaders seeking majority control assist

electorally vulnerable members—regardless of their party loyalty—and reward members who

provide campaign contributions to their colleagues; and an institutional maintenance hypothesis

that legislative entrepreneurs, committee chairs, and senior members are likely to see their

efforts, experience, and expertise pay off. These are not mutually exclusive alternatives. In

2Members have some limited checks on majority party leaders’ authority in the form of both negative and positiveagenda control. A majority of members can prevent legislation from being considered, as bills need a special rule topass with a majority of votes before being considered. Legislation opposed by party leaders can be considered onthe House floor if 218 members sign a discharge petition, though these are rare.

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interviews, leaders and former leaders have stressed that they are well aware of members’ voting

records, fundraising efforts, districts, electoral situations, and legislative activities and are in fact

likely to consider all of these factors. Multivariate analyses over several congresses allow me to

assess the use and prioritization of each hypothesized consideration.

I argue that leaders pursue each of these goals; their relative priority depends on the

particular electoral and institutional context in a given Congress. Specifically, strong leaders

interested in centralizing power and passing a party program, particularly in congresses with

narrow margins where they need almost every vote to pass a legislative program, are more likely

to exert party discipline by rewarding loyalty. In congresses where leaders are particularly

concerned about reelecting their members, i.e., many of their members face competitive races,

they increase their efforts to pursue electoral goals.

Congressional leaders have an incentive to pursue policy control by exerting party

discipline, i.e., rewarding loyal party members with legislative opportunities and punishing

defectors by keeping their bills off the legislative calendar. Party discipline helps leaders

cultivate something akin to responsible party government (APSA 1950) in which they can

promulgate a partisan policy agenda. In congresses with narrow majorities, majority party

leaders need the votes of nearly all their members on nearly all important issues, given the

increased polarization on significant roll call votes (Sinclair 2000). Using rewards to provide

members with extra incentives for voting with the party could thus make the difference in policy

outcomes. Beyond attaining the 218th vote necessary to pass legislation, party leaders also strive

to maximize the support of their members to present a united front to the public. Dissent from

fellow partisans makes it more difficult attract public support for the party’s position.

Dissenters’ cues provide the attentive public reasons to oppose the majority’s legislative

program, reducing its ultimate chances for enactment in its House-passed form and diminishing

the party’s political gain.

For their part, members have incentives to obtain preferential treatment from the

leadership by demonstrating their loyalty in their policy and procedural voting. Reelection and

policy achievements are primary goals for members of Congress (Fenno 1973), and legislative

accomplishments and the attendant publicity they receive bolster members’ chances of reelection

(Wawro 2000). As new policy issues emerge and electoral dynamics change, loyal members

have reason to seek continued party support from party leaders.

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An obvious litmus test of party loyalty is consistently voting with the party majority on

policy legislation considered on the House floor. Such loyalty is particularly valuable in an era

of tight competition for party control of Congress, when both parties want to be able to point to a

record of legislative accomplishment and every vote counts. But according to several current

and former members of Congress and their senior aides, voting with the party on rules is the

ultimate test of loyalty. Rules set the terms of debate on legislation, giving party leaders control

over the consideration of legislation.

That said, party leaders also want to maintain or attain electoral majorities, and this can

militate against an overly rigid use of party loyalty as a criterion for allocating legislative

preference. Losing seats may cost leaders their jobs, and leading the majority party is far better

than leading the minority party. The House is a majoritarian institution. Majority party leaders

are far better positioned to maintain and enhance their own power, and they have a much better

chance of achieving their party’s policy goals. Accordingly, party leaders strive to elect as many

fellow partisans as possible, regardless of their loyalty to the party’s ideological core. The need

to win a majority of seats focuses attention on the party’s vulnerable incumbents, and this can

limit the selective use of legislative benefits to enhance party loyalty, particularly as partisan

margins have narrowed. Given leaders’ desire to provide vulnerable members with legislative

accomplishments as an aid for reelection, they should bring their legislation to the floor for

consideration, regardless of their level of party loyalty.

In the electoral domain, members can demonstrate party loyalty by forming leadership

PACs or making contributions from their own campaign coffers to fellow incumbents and the

party congressional campaign committee, thereby increasing their party’s chances for retaining

seats in the next election. As variance in party loyalty in roll call voting declines, large

contributors can distinguish themselves from other consistent party line voters. Party leaders

also have an incentive to reward loyal fundraisers as a means of encouraging other members to

raise campaign funds.

Party leaders have a significant interest in institutional maintenance. They need to pass

annual appropriations bills and other necessary legislation to keep the Congress functioning and

the government running. Party leaders therefore depend on the expertise and efforts of the senior

members, committee chairmen, and legislative entrepreneurs in their caucus or conference.

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In the contemporary congressional era, majority party leaders often shepherd legislation

through the legislative process from start to finish. When determining whether to schedule

legislation, they sometimes bypass the committee system altogether (Davidson 1999; Sinclair

2000). 3 A surprisingly large number of bills considered in committee hearings and even marked

up in a full committee do not reach the floor, and a surprisingly large number of bills considered

on the floor are not the subject of committee hearings. Nonetheless, I predict that leaders should

be more likely to consider legislation introduced by committee chairmen. Committee chairs and

subcommittee chairs convene hearings and mark ups of their own legislation, launching a bill on

a traditional path to floor consideration. When party leaders are indifferent to the policy in

question, they are likely to defer to committee chairs. Further, committee chairmen often work

with party leaders to craft party policy on significant issues within their jurisdiction. It is not a

coincidence that the tax bills considered on the House floor are usually written by the Chairman

of the Committee on Ways and Means. Committee chairs are thus likely to see much more of

their legislation considered on the House floor. In addition, seniority may enhance a member’s

ability to have her legislation considered. Experience enhances institutional and policy expertise,

helping members to take advantage of policy gaps with their own legislation.

Party leaders need their members to help develop policy proposals on a variety of

complex issues of public concern—many more than party leaders could master on their

own—and to overcome the collective action problem of passing the mundane legislation

necessary to keep the Congress functioning (Cox and McCubbins 1993; Sinclair 1995; Wawro

2000). Although many members may focus on their district careers rather than their legislative

careers (Fenno 1973, 1978), most members are motivated to sponsor some legislation for

electoral reasons. Sponsorship provides members with opportunities for position-taking and

advertising (Mayhew 1974). But, legislative success is necessary for credit-claiming. Members

who introduce many bills without translating them into new public policy run the risk of being

labeled ineffective. Further, there is a significant difference between introducing legislation for

symbolic reasons and introducing legislation intended to bring about major policy change. When

leaders determine whose bills to consider, they send a signal to members considering whether to

engage in serious policy-making. If majority party “work-horses” don’t have their legislation

brought to the House floor, as should naturally occur in a competitive environment, other

3 Unless 218 members sign a discharge petition.

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members may be discouraged. By giving legislative entrepreneurs, senior members and

committee chairmen legislative preference, party leaders provide all members incentives to

introduce good public policy and gain policy expertise. All else equal, then, members who are

more legislatively active should have more of their legislation considered on the House floor.

Majority party leaders fill most of the legislative calendar. Minority party leaders are left

with limited opportunities to grant legislative preference, e.g., through motions to recommit,

minority party substitutes to major bills, and even determining the sponsors of party-supported

discharge petitions.4 In this analysis, I therefore consider majority party leaders’ allocation of

legislative opportunities to their caucus or conference members, analyzing Democrats from

1987-1994 and Republicans from 1995-2002.

Legislative Preference as a Mechanism of Discipline

The legislative calendar is not an immediately obvious place to search for party

discipline. Although the power of committee chairs is diminished, they still have the power to

forward legislation from the hearing stage through committee mark up. Much of the legislative

calendar is pre-determined. It contains “must-pass” legislation, including the 13 annual

appropriations bills and conference reports, rules and resolutions necessary for House operations

and maintenance, rules that govern the terms of consideration of most bills, and periodic

continuing resolutions necessary to keep the federal government operating, and occasional

increases in the debt ceiling. Majority party priorities by definition have a reserved place on the

congressional agenda. Significant domestic and international events may necessitate the

consideration of legislative solutions. The party of the president is compelled to pursue

presidential priorities. But even in the management of these legislative musts, party leaders have

opportunities to delegate sponsorship to individual members or to adjudicate between members’

competing proposals. And beyond these constraints on the shape of the legislative calendar,

leaders can select from among their caucus members’ legislation to fill the remaining space.

Because the number of bills introduced in a given Congress far exceeds the time available on the

House floor, leaders must pick and choose among many requests.

Changing Institutional and Electoral Contexts

4 Ascertained in an interview with a senior staff member to Democratic leaders, August 2003.

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To review the critical changes from the 100th to the 107th Congress (1987-2002),

described in greater detail in Chapter 2, this analysis encompasses four Democratic-controlled

congresses under the leadership of two Speakers, Jim Wright (TX) and Tom Foley (WA), and

four Republican-controlled congresses, led by Speakers Newt Gingrich (GA) and Dennis Hastert

(IL). In all but the 103rd and 107th Congress, the majority party faced a president of the opposite

party.

With large margins in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Democratic leaders assumed that

they would be in the majority for the foreseeable future. This did not mean, however, that they

were never concerned about the size of their margins. In 1992, many Democratic incumbents

were vulnerable. Congressional redistricting, the House Bank scandal, and the public’s generally

low opinion of congress meant that Democratic leaders were more concerned than usual

(Jacobson 2000).

Democratic leaders’ behavior toward Republicans in the minority reflected their electoral

advantage. By the early 1980s, leading a caucus of increasingly like-minded members,

Democratic leaders and committee chairmen no longer needed Republican votes to pass their

legislation, and they had begun to shut Republicans out of the legislative process. The

Republican “bomb-throwing” faction emerged in response, led by Newt Gingrich and Bob

Walker (Connelly and Pitney 1994; Fenno 1997), and partisan politics dominated much of the

legislative process.

Partisan conflict only grew more intense after the 1994 elections when party control of

the chamber switched and suddenly was up for grabs every two years. Republicans gained 52

seats in the 1994 elections, giving them a majority in the House of Representatives for the first

time in 40 years, stunning Democrats and Republicans alike. In their new role, Republican

leaders pushed a vigorous legislative agenda, learning to govern along the way, and Democrats

were forced to adapt to life in the minority (Fenno 1997).

At the start of the 100th and 104th Congresses, newly elected Speakers Jim Wright (D-

TX) and Newt Gingrich (R-GA) actively pursued a partisan policy agenda and expanded leaders’

powers. The careers of both Speakers ended prematurely, and they were succeeded by more

pragmatic, less controversial Speakers. Speaker Jim Wright was more aggressive in

promulgating a party program and centralizing power than his successor, Tom Foley. In January

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1987, Wright succeeded Tip O’Neill as Speaker of the House. The context was ripe for a

relatively powerful Speaker. Democrats “at last saw an opening for their policy agenda, and they

expected their leadership to knock down any internal obstacles” (Connelly and Pitney 1994:82).

Wright articulated a partisan legislative agenda, further developed the leaderships’ powers in

pursuit of the agenda, and used procedural maneuvers to block Republican-supported alternatives

to ensure the passage of Democratic legislation (Connelly and Pitney 1994; Rohde 1991).

Wright’s use—or, in the view of Republicans, abuse —of partisan tactics intensified

Republicans’ pursuit of ethics charges against Wright, which eventually led to his resignation

(Connelly and Pitney 1994).

Though a relatively homogeneous membership is a necessary condition for strong

leadership, the goals and skills of individual leaders also matter (Rohde 1991: 172). Tom Foley

had risen through the party’s leadership ranks, but he had a reputation for prioritizing governance

over partisan politics. When Foley was elected Speaker in June 1989, he was seen as “the

antidote to Wright’s roughshod partisanship” (Hoy 1994: 3290). But by the time he was

defeated for reelection in 1994, Speaker Foley was viewed as a weaker Speaker than Wright.

His “characteristic graciousness . . . thwarted him as he struggled to balance his dual role as the

institutional leader of the House against his partisan position as the congressional torchbearer of

his party” (Hoy 1994: 3290).

The change in majority party control ushered in a powerful Speaker—many Republican

members credited Speaker Gingrich as the architect of the Republican takeover—determined to

pass the party program outlined in the “Contract With America.” Committee chairmen, lacking

experience and independent power bases, were often bypassed altogether in the 104th Congress

(Davidson 1999). The Republican majority operated in a different political context than their

Democratic predecessors had. Democrats’ majorities from 1987 to 1994 ranged anywhere from

81 to 100 seats, dwarfing Republicans’ 12 to 26 seat majorities. Since the 1994 elections, the

narrow margins between the parties have meant that either party could conceivably be in the

majority after the next election, and Republican leaders, pursuing a partisan agenda, have needed

almost every Republican vote to pass their major legislative agenda.

Republican leaders centralized their power in many of the same ways as their Democratic

predecessors had in the 1970s. Moreover, under Gingrich’s leadership Republicans made

additional changes in the rules of both House of Representatives and the Republican Conference

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to tighten their control over the institution and over rank-and-file members. Most notable were

changes in the rules governing committee chairs’ tenure and selection. In 1995, Republicans

enacted six-year term limits on their new committee chairs and decreased the importance of

seniority in the selection process. Republican Conference rules specifically stated that the

member designated by the Steering Committee for each chairmanship “need not be the member

with the longest consecutive service on the committee” (Foerstel 2000: 1443). By the 105th

Congress, Gingrich was weakened by inta-party conflict, a “coup” attempt, and a series of media

gaffes.

The disappointing results of the 1998 election caused Gingrich to step down as Speaker

(Fritz 1998). Contrary to expectations set by historical precedent and pollsters alike,

Republicans lost congressional seats in the 1998 mid-term elections, and their eleven seat margin

was reduced to a six seat margin. Speaker Gingrich’s would-be replacement, Robert Livingston

(R-LA), withdrew from the contest and resigned from the House when his extra-marital affairs

were exposed. In the midst of this turmoil, Deputy Whip Dennis Hastert emerged as the party’s

choice for Speaker in the 106th Congress, his reputation as a serious legislator and avoidance of

the limelight making him the antidote to Gingrich. Speaker Dennis Hastert inherited the strong

partisan tools established by Gingrich, but he did not adopt his combative style or quest for

media attention. Though he has generally received high marks from his colleagues, he is known

for his even-handedness and demeanor, not his partisan combativeness (Foerstel 2000a).

Periodically, journalistic accounts question his power relative to his deputy, Majority Whip (now

Majority Leader) Tom DeLay, who brings “potent mixtures of anger and persuasiveness, partisan

fervor and political practicality . . . and relishes his nickname—“The Hammer” (Martinez and

Koszcuk 1999: 1322).

Changes in electoral competitiveness, party control, leaders’ agendas and institutional

rules from congress to congress shift the relative emphasis of leaders’ priorities when the allocate

opportunities to their members. The hypotheses below specify how I expect majority party

leaders to allocate legislative preference to their members between 1987 and 2002.

Hypotheses

As indicated, the main hypotheses regarding the allocation of benefits are:

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H1. Policy Control Hypothesis: Majority party leaders will, all else equal, grant legislativepreference to loyal partisans. Majority party members should reward their members whodemonstrate loyalty in their voting records, both on policy and procedural issues, withlegislative benefits, bringing their bills and resolutions to the House floor and makingtheir amendments in order under restrictive rules.

H2. Electoral Hypothesis: Party leaders, in their attempt to help bolster the campaigns ofelectorally vulnerable members, will prioritize the consideration of vulnerable members’bills and amendments on the House floor, particularly in congresses with manyvulnerable members. Majority party leaders will also reward members for theirfundraising efforts, including members’ leadership PAC contributions and contributionsfrom their campaigns to fellow incumbents and congressional campaign committees.

H3. Institutional Maintenance Hypothesis: In a competitive environment, party leaders willrecognize the expertise, experience, and effort of their committee chairmen, seniormembers, and legislative entrepreneurs. This will encourage them, and others byexample, to further develop their policy expertise and contribute to the party’s legislativeprogram and institutional maintenance.

H4. Leaders should increase the relative weight of their members’ loyalty on policy andprocedural votes in their decision-making process in congresses with narrower margins,particularly after 1994. Narrow margins mean that leaders need most every vote to passtheir legislative program and thus they are more likely to provide incentives to theirmembers to vote with the party.

H5. In congresses where there are a relatively large number of vulnerable members, leadersshould prioritize electoral concerns by assisting vulnerable members, regardless of theirloyalty, and by rewarding members who express loyalty by raising large contributions fortheir colleagues and party’s congressional campaign committee.

Data and Measures

Legislative Data and Measures

The data on bills, resolutions, and amendments, come from the THOMAS website

maintained by the Library of Congress. It contains information about bills and amendments

from the 93rd Congress on, including sponsors and cosponsors; official, short and popular titles;

committee, floor and executive actions; a detailed legislative history; Congressional Record page

references; and bill summaries. Within this large collection of legislative data, there are many

types of legislation of varying importance and content. I thus code and analyze them separately.

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I examined every piece of legislation, including bills, resolution, and amendments,

considered on the House floor between 1987 and 2002. This includes legislation subject to a

recorded vote, voice vote, or that was withdrawn after having been brought up and debated.

Many data sets only include legislation and amendments on which there were recorded votes,

relying on such data sets would miss significant (albeit less controversial) legislative action. I

began by compiling a list of every piece of legislation considered on the House floor in each

Congress. I then coded the legislation along many dimensions. I attributed the legislation to its

sponsor according to one of the numerous codes I developed to capture its significance, purpose,

and even content.

Bills and Resolutions

There are a variety of types of legislation considered, and there are many ways that

leaders can bring legislation to the House floor for consideration. I distinguish between pieces of

legislation according to whether they are bills, meaning they have an H.R. number, or they are

resolutions, i.e., are preceded by H.Con.Res., H.Res., or H.J.Res. Bills effect changes in the law,

whereas resolutions express the sense of the Congress or change the rules of the House itself.

When coding bills, I categorize them in the several ways. Two important categories are policy

bills and district bills, respectively. A bill is coded as district bill when its description mentions a

geographic region in the member’s state. District-specific and policy legislation of broad interest

should be considered separately, as leadership incentives in allocating legislative preference may

differ given the seemingly natural congruence between loyal members’ policy goals and party

leaders’ policy goals. A more direct test of the effect of loyalty is the party leaders’ response to

members’ district-specific legislative requests. Unfortunately, in most analyses I pool district

bills and policy bills together because there are not sufficient numbers of district bills to allow

for multivariate analysis. The thirteen appropriations bills are categorized separately because

they are “must-pass” legislation and are always introduced by the relevant “cardinal,” i.e., the

chair of the appropriations subcommittee from which it originated. Annual budget resolutions

are also coded separately. Since the passage of the Congressional Budget and Impoundment

Control Act of 1974, the House of Representatives has usually considered the majority party’s

budget blueprint on the floor, sponsored by the Chairman of the House Budget Committee. I

also separate bills passed by unanimous consent and bills taken from the corrections calendar,

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recognizing that these two types of bills are of less significance than legislation debated on the

House floor.

More and more bills are passed as “suspensions,” including legislation authorizing

significant programs. Roughly three-fourths of the bills enacted in the 106th Congress were

initially considered in the House under suspension of the rules (Wolfensberger 2002). Under

clause 1 of Rule XV, the Speaker may entertain motions to “suspend the rules and pass

legislation” referred to as suspensions. Suspensions require a vote of two-thirds of the members

present and voting. No amendments are in order, and debate is limited to 40 minutes. Unless a

waiver is included, the cost of legislation considered under suspension generally cannot exceed

$100 million. Accordingly, suspensions are usually bipartisan and relatively non-controversial,

otherwise they fail. The Speaker determines which bills are called up and considered as

suspensions, though committee chairs are involved. In recent years, minority party Democrats

have threatened to vote against legislation considered under suspension if Democratic-sponsored

legislation didn’t comprise around a quarter of the calendar. Needing Democratic votes to meet

the two-thirds requirement for passage, Republicans conceded, though the Speaker always

recognizes a majority party member to offer the legislation, even if its sponsor is a Democrat.

As is the case with all bills, these suspensions are coded according to their sponsor, not the

members offering them on the House floor. The majority leadership schedules the bills under

suspension of the rules, usually on Mondays and Tuesdays, in accordance with the rules of the

House.

Suspensions range from significant policy legislation to resolutions that merely provide

symbolic benefits. I develop three codes for H.R. legislation considered under suspension:

international relations bills passed under suspension, district bills passed under suspension, and

all other policy bills passed under suspension. I code resolutions passed under suspension

separately, in four ways: as policy resolutions (expressing Congress’ support for a policy but not

constituting an actual policy change), resolutions expressing the views of Congress with regard

to an international situation, resolutions recognizing one’s district, and resolutions honoring a

specific person or group.

During Democratic-controlled congresses, members proposed hundreds of

commemoratives to name a day, week, or even year in honor of a person, group, or issue. For

example, a law was passed designating November 16, 1989, as "Interstitial Cystitis Awareness

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Day," January 16, 1993, as "National Good Teen Day,” and May 3, 1992 through May 9, 1992,

as "Be Kind to Animals and National Pet Week.” As inconsequential as these examples seem, a

number of former Democrats interviewed insist that commemoratives were quite important to the

members who introduced them on behalf of their constituents. Hence, I code them separately.

Amendments

The majority party leadership controls the structure—and often the content—of the

amendment process in conjunction with the House Committee on Rules. Bills, except privileged

matters and suspensions, can be brought up on the House floor only after a rule is adopted.

Rules set the time allocated for general debate and the structure of the amendment process.

Rules are written and reported to the House from the Rules Committee, which acts as an arm of

the majority leadership. Since 1975, the Speaker has appointed majority party Rules Committee

members and the minority party leader has appointed minority party members. The majority

party has a 9-4 supermajority on the Rules Committee, ensuring that the majority party controls

the process. Before the House considers a rule, the Rules Committee convenes a hearing to give

members a chance to testify to urge committee members to make their amendments in order, i.e.,

to allow them to offer them.

There are many types of rules that provide or deny members opportunities to offer

amendments, but I classify all amendments in one of two ways: “leadership controlled” and

open. An open rule allows any member to offer an amendment that complies with the standing

rules of the House. The leadership thus relinquishes control of the sponsors and substance of the

amendments offered. As leaders have become more creative, they have used many different

types of rules to deal with amendments on the House floor. Bach and Smith (1988) categorize

rules as: open, organizing, expansive, closed, restrictive, and complex. The distinction I make in

the analysis to follow, however, focuses only on whether or not the leadership controls a

member’s ability to offer an amendment. Restrictive rules of any sort that preclude amendments

other than those specified by the rule fall into the “leadership controlled” category, and open

rules, of course, fall into the “open” category. Departing from some previous scholarship (e.g.,

Bach and Smith 1988), I consider a rule that limits amendments to those submitted in advance to

the Congressional Record to be open. Although such rules are not traditionally considered to be

open, any member has the opportunity to submit an amendment to the Congressional Record,

thus only a lack of forethought impinges on a member’s ability to offer an amendment.

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Categorizing complex rules is complex, as their name suggests. When a complex rule protects

certain amendments from points of order, or specifies that a certain member shall offer them,

those amendments are coded as leadership-controlled. The same rule, however, may open

certain titles of a bill to amendment. Those amendments are then categorized as open. For the

purpose of comparison, I collect data on amendments offered under open rules as well.

To illustrate the general trend, Figure 3-1 illustrates the number of majority party

members’ legislation considered on the House floor under leadership control in the 106th

Congress. This includes the bills and resolutions described above and leadership-controlled

amendments. Forty-five Republicans in the 106th Congress did not have any legislation

considered on the House floor that was subject to majority leaders’ control. Of all leadership-

controlled legislation combined, the mean was 2.4 pieces of legislation considered on the House

floor (with a standard deviation of 2.7) and the median was 2 pieces. Among Democrats, the

mean was .3 pieces of legislation, and 164 Democrats had no Republican “leadership controlled”

legislation considered.

[Insert Figure 3-1 about here]

Party Loyalty

Members can express party loyalty in many ways. Leaders’ view of what constitutes

loyalty and its significance may vary depending on the electoral and institutional circumstances.

I operationalize party loyalty in three ways: policy loyalty, procedural loyalty, and fundraising

loyalty.

Policy Loyalty in Policy Voting

An obvious litmus test of loyalty is the rate at which members vote in favor of legislation

supported by the majority party and opposed by the minority party on the House floor. To pass

their legislative program (and to avoid embarrassment), the majority party needs 218 of 435

votes. But even in congresses with large majority party margins, attaining 218 votes is not

always easy. The majority whip and his team keep track of members’ votes and leaders

remember who fails to support the party when it comes to important votes. I capture members’

support in voting with scores compiled by Congressional Quarterly. At the end of each year,

Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report publishes members’ “party unity scores,” the percentage

of votes in which a member of Congress votes with his or her party on roll call votes where the

majority of each party opposes the majority of the another, adjusted for participation.

16

Figure 3-2 plots the members’ average CQ party unity scores, by party, in each of the

eight congresses in my study. From 1987-2002, party loyalty in roll call voting increases

significantly among members of both parties. As members become more loyal, on average, the

standard deviations also drop: members are increasingly clustered at the loyal end of the

continuum.

[Insert Figure 3-2 about here]

Some have argued that the increase in party line voting exhibited in Figure 3-2 by itself

demonstrates an increase in party discipline in the House of Representatives. If each party’s

members vote with their party more frequently, does this mean their leaders have tightened party

discipline, or provided more incentives to vote with one’s party? Unity is not in and of itself

evidence that leaders effectively worked to produce loyalty (see, e.g., Krehbiel 1993). The

increase in party line voting among members could also be explained by the increasing

homogeneity of members’ policy preferences within each party. The continuing partisan

realignment in the South is reducing the share of conservatives in the Democratic Caucus and it

increasing it in the Republican Conference. Because roll call votes in support of the party’s

position could simply be a reflection of members’ preferences, I define party loyalty in two

additional ways. The first, procedural voting, helps leaders attain policy control, and the second,

fundraising, helps leaders pursue electoral goals.

Party Loyalty in Procedural Voting

Most major legislation is brought up for consideration on the House floor only after a rule

is passed that sets the terms of debate and the amendment process, as explained above.5 Rules

make legislating in the House more efficient and orderly. More significantly, they allow the

majority party to structure the choices available to members and thus achieve political or policy

objectives and even “tilt the outcome of a choice among alternatives” (Bach and Smith 1988:

87). If, for example, a member wants to offer an amendment to a bill that would garner at least

218 votes but is opposed by the majority leadership, the Rules Committee, under the direction of

the Speaker, will simply not allow the member to offer that amendment. Occasionally, this

strategy of precluding members from offering amendments backfires, and majority party

members vote against the rule, to the distress of majority party leaders.

5 There are notable exceptions. Many appropriations bills are considered without rules, and more non-majorlegislation is considered under “suspension of the rules.”

17

Because rules allow majority party leaders to control both the process and content of the

policies under consideration, it is very important to leaders that they pass. Open rules tend to

pass by voice vote, but rules that limit amendment opportunities often engender fierce opposition

from the minority party and thus pass on party line votes. Votes on rules, according to several

current and former members and their staff, are the ultimate test of loyalty. In the words of a

former Democratic (majority) party leader: “it’s all about the rule.”

When members cannot vote with their party on substantive issues, leaders still expect

them to vote with the party on the rule. When the policy issue in question generates significant

opposition from a member’s constituents, leaders will give the member a “pass,” provided they

have the requisite 218 votes necessary to pass the bill. Rule votes, however, are largely invisible

to constituents. Procedural intricacies are difficult to explain and of no interest to almost all

constituents. As a result, rules rarely fail, although at least one rule failed in every congress

under consideration except during the 106th Congress. One rule failed in the 100th Congress,

three failed in the 101st, one failed in the102nd, six failed in the 103rd, one failed in the 104th, five

failed in the 105th, and two failed in the 107th.6

Because of the significance of votes on special rules, I create a measure of procedural

loyalty derived from members’ voting records on special rules where a majority of each party

and each party’s leaders vote the opposite way. Figure 3-3 reveals that procedural loyalty is

quite high, though it is generally lower among minority party members, except in the 103rd

Congress.

[Insert Figure 3-3 about here]

Fundraising Loyalty

Party leaders look to their members for assistance in pursuing electoral majorities. Most

members of Congress represent relatively safe districts and face weak challengers. Thus with

regard to their own campaigns, they have little incentive to raise large sums of campaign money

above and beyond what they need to ward off potential challengers. Beginning in the 104th

Congress, leaders of both parties recognized that majority party status rested on the outcome of a

handful of districts. Vulnerable members need as much money as they can get, including

contributions from party leaders and their colleagues. This poses a collective action

6 According to former leadership aides, sometimes leaders knew rules would fail and brought them to the Housefloor anyway for political purposes, other times the leadership miscounted votes.

18

problem—why should members in safe seats spend time and resources fundraising for other

candidates when they will still share in the benefits of majority party status? Nonetheless,

members and leaders have taken on a much bigger role as financiers of their colleagues’

campaigns.

Leaders provide incentives to help overcome this collective action problem.

Increasingly, leaders encourage the safer members of their caucus to help raise funds for the

party’s marginal candidates in the upcoming elections (Kolodny 1998; Sabato and Larson 2002).

A current Republican member of Congress revealed in a recent interview that party leaders

approached him and informed him that his subcommittee chairmanship obligated him to

contribute at least $50,000 to his party.7 Many members’ contributions exceed these requests,

especially contributions from rank-and-file members with ambitions of being a committee chair

or future leader. Members’ campaign contributions are an expression of party loyalty above and

beyond supporting the party position in roll call votes. Generally requiring more effort than

voting with one’s party on a special rule or bill, raising money for one’s party and colleagues sets

members apart from colleagues whose party loyalty is expressed only in their voting records.

I distinguish between three types of fundraising: contributions members make from their

personal campaigns to other House candidates of their party; contributions members make from

their personal campaigns to their party congressional campaign committee (i.e., the Democratic

Congressional Campaign Committee or the National Republican Congressional Committee); and

contributions members make from their own leadership PAC. I obtained data from the Federal

Election Commission for the 1988-2002 election cycles. Specifically, I calculated every

contribution made from incumbents to candidates running in the general election for the House

of Representatives (which includes incumbents, challengers and open seat candidates) and to the

party’s congressional campaign committee and national committee. I also collected data on

every member of Congress’ leadership PAC contributions to general election candidates and

party committees.

Members are increasingly active fundraisers, as illustrated in Table 3-1. Members’

contributions to the party’s campaign efforts, whether from their own campaigns and leadership

PACs to individual members or to the congressional campaign committees, generally increased

from one Congress to the next. In the 1988 election cycle, Democratic members gave, on

7 However, his contributions were well below $50,000, and he remains a subcommittee chair.

19

average, $2,768 to other congressional candidates, $649 to the DCCC, and $5,328 from their

own leadership PACs. By the 2002 cycle, these totals were $12,418; $14,124; and $21,037

respectively. Republican members contributed, on average, $1,693 to other congressional

candidates, $22 to the NRCC, and $555 from their own leadership PACs in the 1988 cycle. By

the 2002 cycle, these totals for Republicans were $5,985; $54,287; and $38,772 respectively. In

addition, forming a leadership PAC is increasingly common, especially among members who

aspire to become committee chairs (Pearson 2001). A sharp increase in contributions from both

Republican and Democratic members occurs in the 103rd and 104th Congresses, concomitant with

the onset of an era of electoral uncertainty.

[Insert Table 3-1 about here]

Measuring Electoral Vulnerability

In an era of tight party competition, leaders have incentives to help their most vulnerable

members in any way they can, including helping them achieve legislative successes. One

leadership aide referenced recent legislation on the House floor that the leadership “gave” a

vulnerable member to help him in his next reelection campaign. I rely on Congressional

Quarterly race rankings to measure members’ electoral situation in each congress. These

rankings are superior to simply using a member’s margin of victory in the previous election. The

race rankings take a member’s past performance into account, but they also incorporate dynamic

changes in a member’s electoral situation since the last election. A member may be facing a

tougher, or weaker, opponent, or they may have been involved in a scandal, or their party may be

unpopular. Every fall of an election year, Congressional Quarterly categorizes the 435 House

races based on their electoral competitiveness: “toss up,” “leans Democrat or Republican,”

“favors Democrat or Republican” and “safe seat.” Using these data, I create four dummy

variables of competitiveness. As illustrated in Figure 3-4, Congressional Quarterly data indicate

that 1992 and 1996, party leaders had more members to worry about. Overall, however, most

members running for reelection from 1988-2002 had little to worry about. In 2002, a

redistricting year, only 9 incumbents’ races were ranked as a “toss up” by Congressional

Quarterly. As a result, I combine in my analysis the “toss up” races and “leans Democrat or

Republican” races into one “competitive race” category.

[Insert Figure 3-4 about here]

20

Measuring Legislative Entrepreneurship

Members demonstrate legislative entrepreneurship in a variety of ways. They may

actively participate in committee deliberation (Hall 1996), lobby committee chairs and party

leaders to have their legislation considered, appear before the Committee on Rules to request that

their amendments be made in order, actively collect cosponsors for legislation, send many “Dear

Colleagues” urging consideration of their legislation, or sponsor and cosponsor many bills. It

would be difficult to track all of these activities, so I follow Wawro’s (2000) lead and measure

legislative entrepreneurship by totaling the number of pieces of legislation a member introduces.

Like Wawro, I exclude cosponsorships and special rules from the members’ scores. Unlike

Wawro, however, I include resolutions introduced to recognize international and domestic

events, policies, and groups. The legislative entrepreneurship indicator captures a member’s

level of legislative activity, which includes drafting and pressing resolutions. Resolutions are

significant to the members who sponsor them.

Figure 3-5 reveals that the average level of legislative entrepreneurship among majority

party members is increasing. Not surprisingly, given their decreased chances of success,

minority party members introduce, on average, fewer pieces of legislation throughout both

Democratic and Republican-controlled congresses.

[Insert Figure 3-5 about here]

The institutional hypothesis predicts that committee chairs and senior members should

have more legislation considered on the House floor. Seniority is measured by the number of

terms a member has served in Congress, and I include dummy variables for committee chairs in

the analysis.

Because the distribution of legislation considered on the House floor is skewed toward

zero, as is often the case with count data (see Figure 3-1), I employ negative binomial regression

techniques. Poisson regressions are not appropriate here because the data violate the assumed

equality of the conditional mean and variance functions (see Greene 2000: 886-887). Tables 2-7

report the changes in the expected number of a majority party member’s bills (or amendments,

suspensions, resolutions, commemoratives) considered on the House floor given the following

shifts in the independent variables: from rank and file member to committee chair; from a non-

competitive race to a competitive race; from contributing no money from a leadership PAC to

21

fellow members to contributing the mean amount; from contributing no money from one’s

campaign to the party congressional campaign committee; from contributing no money to fellow

members to contributing the mean amount; and from the mean to one standard deviation above

the mean for two indicators of party loyalty (voting and rule scores), legislative entrepreneurship

(the number of bills sponsored) and seniority (the number of years served in Congress).

Calculations are made using Gary King’s CLARIFY program for Stata (King, et al. 2000; Tomz

et al. 1999).

Major Legislation

The results of eight separate analyses of major legislation are shown in Table 3-2. The

dependent variable includes all major legislation in each congress other than the 13 annual

“must-pass” appropriations bills. In all of the categories of legislative preference under analysis,

having major legislation considered on the House floor is the most valuable reward to members.

When it comes to having one’s major legislation considered on the House floor, no one

factor explains consideration across all eight congresses, or even across the four congresses of

Democratic or Republican party control. Party loyalty expressed in roll call votes increases the

number of bills a member has considered by .09 in the 100th Congress and by .38 in the 104th

Congress, ceteris paribus. It has no significant effect in any of the other congresses. As

anticipated, the aggressive, newly elected Speakers in these congresses (Jim Wright and Newt

Gingrich, respectively) were more likely to pursue party control during these congresses. Each

of these newly elected Speakers actively pursued a party policy agenda in an era of divided

government. Not surprisingly, Gingrich rewarded loyalty at a higher rate. His policy agenda

was particularly pronounced; it took the form of the “Contract with America,” a legislative

program designed for the 1994 elections containing ten policy changes guaranteed to be

considered within 100 days. To pass his program, Gingrich needed almost every Republican

vote.

[Insert Table 3-2 about here]

In the Democratic congresses, fundraising doesn’t buy members much in terms of major

legislation. Loyalty expressed by making leadership PAC contributions is associated with a .48

increase in legislation in the 100th Congress and loyalty expressed by making contributions to

other candidates is associated with a .01 increase in the 102nd Congress. Fundraising does matter

in both of the Hastert-led congresses where Republicans hold narrow partisan margins. In the

22

106th Congress, contributing the mean amount of money to House candidates is associated with

.02 more bills. In the 107th Congress, contributing the mean amount to the NRCC is associated

with .02 more bills, and the mean level of leadership PAC contributions is associated with .01

more bills.

Not surprisingly, leaders recognize legislative entrepreneurs. In six of the eight

congresses (all but the 101st and 106th), the more bills a member introduces, the more likely she

is to have her legislation considered on the House floor. In four of the eight congresses (102nd,

103rd, 105th, and 106th), senior members have more legislation considered, and in four of the

congresses (101st, 102nd, 104th, and 107th), committee chairs have more of their legislation

considered. Given the power of committee chairs to mark up legislation and report it out of

committee, it is striking that, all else equal, committee chairs don’t see more of their major

legislation considered in every congress.

Legislation and Resolutions Considered under Suspension of the Rules

The requests made to the Speaker for legislation to be considered under suspension of the

rules exceed the scope of his ability to accommodate them. When it comes to passing H.R.

legislation under suspension, Speakers consistently recognize legislative entrepreneurs, as Table

3-3 reveals, rewarding them for their policy work. It is hardly surprising that as leaders look to

fill the legislative schedule with suspensions while the details of more complex major legislation

are being worked out, the more bills a member has sponsored, the more likely it is that one of

them will be considered. Given that suspensions must pass with the support of two-thirds of

those voting, thus requiring minority party votes, such bills are generally not part of leaders’

party program, but reflect routine congressional business, e.g., the reauthorization of non-

controversial programs. For example, legislation reauthorizing Veterans Administration health

programs was passed under suspension in 1999. Leaders reward party loyalty in roll call voting

only in the 104th Congress.

Leaders prioritize electoral goals in the 102nd Congress. This is not surprisingly, given

that the 102nd Congress and concomitant 1992 election cycle saw an unusually large number of

vulnerable incumbents because of redistricting, a stagnant economy, the House Bank scandal,

and the public’s particularly low regard for Congress (Jacobson 2000). Only in the 102nd

Congress do Democratic leaders reward fundraising efforts and favor their more vulnerable

23

incumbents by bringing more of their legislative suspensions to the floor. Leaders thus send

signals that fundraising is appreciated. By helping the vulnerable, leaders provide them with an

accomplishment to publicize in their campaign.

[Insert Table 3-3 about here]

Speakers pursue different goals when determining which resolutions to bring up under

suspension of the rules. Resolutions, especially those requiring support of two-thirds of the

House, are not part of a party’s policy agenda—they may praise or condemn a particular

international or domestic event, express support for a change in policy, or honor a person or

group—but they do not enact policy change. Nonetheless, such resolutions are important to

members, so they provide leaders with a relatively easy, low-cost way to reward or assist their

members.

Party loyalty is also rewarded in some contexts: Speaker Foley rewarded party line voters

in the 102nd Congress with .16 more resolutions, all else equal. The Speaker pursues electoral

goals in the suspension calendar with resolutions too. As shown in Table 3-4, Speakers Wright

and Hastert rewarded those making contributions to candidates with 1.64 more resolutions and

.03 more resolutions in the 100th and 107th Congresses, respectively. Republican leaders in the

106th Congress use resolutions considered under suspension to help their vulnerable incumbents,

providing vulnerable incumbents with .59 more resolutions, all else equal. As in the case of H.R.

suspensions described above, in every congress except the 103rd, legislatively active members

are more likely to see their resolutions pass under suspension.

[Insert Table 3-4 about here]

Whose Amendments are in Order?

Leaders appear to pursue a mixed strategy when determining whose policy amendments

will be considered under restrictive rules, as seen in Table 5. Party loyalty affects the terms of

special rules in different ways in different congresses. Only in the 106th Congress does loyalty

expressed in roll call voting increase the number of amendments a member has considered (by

.18, all else equal). Procedural loyalty, however, is more complicated for leaders to grapple

with. In the 101st Congress, members who consistently voted with their party on special rules

saw .48 more amendments made in order under restrictive rules. However, procedurally loyal

members had significantly fewer amendments made in order in the 102nd and 106th Congresses.

24

Instead of rewarding loyalty, it seems leaders were trying to prevent defectors from defecting

again, appeasing them by making their amendments in order and giving them an additional

reason to vote for special rules.

Helping the party’s team in the upcoming elections by contributing leadership PAC

dollars to fellow partisans significantly increases the number of amendments a member has

considered (by .17) only in the 100th Congress. Legislative entrepreneurship is recognized in

five of the eight congresses. It is not surprising that legislatively active members are more likely

to offer amendments and also be recognized for their policy alternatives and additions.

Democratic committee chairs’ amendments are prioritized in only the Foley congresses, further

evidence of Foley’s increased deference to committee chairs relative to Speaker Jim Wright.

Republican committee chairs’ amendments are made in order significantly more in the 104th and

107th Congresses. The seniority of the sponsor is never significant.

[Insert Table 3-5 about here]

When determining whose amendments are in order and protected from points of order on

appropriations bills, leaders weight the party loyalty of the sponsors in only two of the eight

congresses, as Table 3-6 shows. In the 102nd and 105th Congresses, leaders again pursue

preventive strategies by making the amendments of rule defectors in order more often than other

members’ amendments. Only in the 105th Congress does party loyalty expressed in policy votes

translate into more opportunities to amend appropriations bills. In an analysis of members’

appropriations amendments offered under open rules (not shown), members who are

procedurally disloyal, i.e., vote against the rule more often, offer more appropriations

amendments in the 107th Congress when they have the opportunity to do so, suggesting that

those who are procedurally disloyal may be prevented from offering amendments in the 107th

Congress after all.

[Insert Table 3-6 about here]

Democrats’ Commemoratives

Democratic leaders had the opportunity to reward or assist members by bringing their

commemoratives designating days, weeks, and months to the House floor for consideration.

Commemoratives were rarely, if ever, controversial, yet they allowed members to curry favor

with their constituents by bringing national attention to their cause or group. As shown in Table

3-7, in the 102nd and 103rd Congress, Democratic leaders rewarded loyalty when it came to

25

scheduling commemoratives. In the 103rd Congress, party loyalty in roll call voting was the only

significant variable in the model explaining the consideration of members’ commemoratives. In

the 102nd Congress, loyalty was the most important factor, associated with a .1 increase in

commemoratives, but legislative entrepreneurship also mattered (a .07 increase). Speaker Foley,

but not Speaker Wright, rewarded party loyalty when the stakes were low. Citing the high cost

to taxpayers, Republicans banned commemoratives when they gained majority control in 1995.

[Insert Table 3-7 about here]

A Closer Look at Party Control, Electoral Concerns, and Party Leaders

The legislative calendar provides leaders with opportunities to exert discipline in pursuit

of policy goals. This chapter evaluates how majority party leaders allocate legislative

opportunities to their rank-and-file members, in particular, party leaders’ decisions regarding

which members’ bills, amendments, resolutions, and “suspensions” are considered on the House

floor. It gives particular attention to the interplay between the majority party’s electoral motive

of maintaining a majority and the policy motives of enhancing party unity and encouraging

legislative entrepreneurship. The results show that party leaders pursue multiple goals—policy,

electoral, and institutional—when they allocate benefits to their members.

From 1987 to 2002, legislative preference is indeed a mechanism of discipline;

Democratic and Republican majority party leaders reward party loyalty in some legislative

domains. The allocation of legislative opportunities on the basis of party loyalty varies from

congress to congress, hinging primarily on the electoral context and party leaders’ policy agenda.

In congresses with more vulnerable members, leaders respond by pursuing electoral goals, i.e.,

rewarding fundraisers and helping vulnerable incumbents. In almost every legislative domain,

leaders pursue institutional goals by recognizing their legislative entrepreneurs. Committee

chairs are often sponsors of the legislation that reaches the House floor, although the effects of

institutional changes diminishing the power of committee chairmen are visible, particularly in

Republican-controlled congresses, as committee chairs are not always more likely to see even

their major legislation reach the House floor.

Party leaders’ aggressive efforts to pass a policy program and centralize power drive the

use of discipline. Leaders’ disciplinary tactics, however, can be constrained by their standing

within the party caucus. The Speakers who were most active in pursuit of a party policy agenda,

Speakers Jim Wright and Newt Gingrich, rewarded loyalty when it mattered most: in the

26

consideration of major legislation in the 100th and 104th Congresses. But as the reputation and

concomitant power of each of these Speakers diminished, they were less likely to use their

prerogatives to exert party discipline on the legislative calendar. Speaker Gingrich exerted party

discipline more forcefully in the 104th Congress than he did in the 105th Congress, and Speaker

Wright exerted party discipline more frequently in the 100th Congress than he did in the 101st

Congress.

In the Republican-controlled congresses, Republican leaders exert party discipline by

rewarding party loyalty expressed in roll call voting in three of the last four congresses—all but

the 107th. However, the significance of the legislative rewards vary, resulting in the “checker

board” pattern of results displayed in Tables 3-2 through 3-7. In some of the Republican

congresses, members who demonstrate policy loyalty and procedural loyalty reap significant

rewards, as hypothesized (H1). Analyses of the most significant bills considered in the 104th-

107th Congresses show consistent party-line voters in the 104th Congress are more likely to see

their major legislation and H.R. suspensions reach the House floor. The legislative benefits

accrued by loyal policy and procedural voters are less significant in the other congresses, but

loyalty still has consequences. In the 105th and 106th Congresses, loyalty in roll call voting is

rewarded when it comes to determining whose amendments are made in order or protected by

the rule governing consideration of major legislation.

Despite the theoretical availability of legislative preference for leaders to use consistently

to enact strict party discipline, there are clearly constraints on its use, including the leadership’s

responsibility to ensure the reelection of its members and pass necessary legislation. In pursuit

of electoral goals, leaders have an incentive to reward fundraisers. As hypothesized (H5), they

do so when their assistance is most critical: leaders reward fundraisers in the 106th and 107th

Congresses—the congresses with the narrowest margins. In the 107th Congress, fundraising

loyalty trumps loyalty in voting; leaders reward large contributors—but not loyal voters—in

several domains.

Leaders also have an incentive to recognize legislative entrepreneurs, and Republican

leaders generally do so when it comes determining whose major legislation, suspensions of both

types, and policy (but not appropriations) amendments are considered on the House floor. It is

therefore also not surprising that the statistical analyses of major legislation considered on the

27

House floor reveal that committee chairmen and senior members often have more of their bills

considered than other members, all else equal, as predicted in H3.

Speaker Newt Gingrich, known for his aggressive pursuit of a partisan legislative

program, was more willing to exert party discipline by rewarding loyal policy voters than his

successor, Dennis Hastert, who put a premium on fundraising loyalty. The effects of Speaker

Gingrich’s leadership, including both his policy goals and centralization of power, lingered in the

two congresses following his resignation. Though Speaker Hastert has maintained a much lower

public profile, he has attained higher levels of party line policy and rule voting than Gingrich, as

illustrated in Figures 3-2 and 3-3.

Democratic leaders in Democratic-controlled congresses governed in a different political

context than their Republican successors. They governed with wider margins and less concern

over losing party control, yet their caucus had many more members who deviated from the party

line. Given the slimmer margins in Republican-controlled congresses, it is not surprising that, as

hypothesized (H4), Republican leaders pursuing policy control rewarded loyalty slightly more

frequently than Democratic leaders (excluding commemoratives): they needed almost every vote

to pass their legislative program.

His large majority notwithstanding, Speaker Wright had to contend with many caucus

members who regularly voted against the party. Wright, in his aggressive pursuit of policy

control, thus exerted discipline in the 100th Congress, especially where it counted most—in the

consideration of major legislation. In the 100th Congress, party line voters saw more of their

major bills considered on the House floor, all else equal. When Wright’s power was weakened

by an ethics investigation, however, his disciplinary tactics subsided. In the 101st Congress,

which witnessed Speaker Wright and Democratic Whip Tony Coelho (D-TX) brought down by

scandal, the only remaining evidence of party discipline in the legislative calendar was in the

domain of policy amendments.

Speaker Foley was not known as a partisan leader. By the 103rd Congress, discipline

governed the legislative calendar only in domains without major legislative implications. In both

Foley-led congresses (1991-1994), discipline governed the consideration of commemoratives,

whereas it had not during the Wright years. Given Foley’s consensus-oriented leadership style, it

is not surprising that he would exert discipline where it would be least likely to cause resentment

among members of his caucus.

28

Speaker Foley had good reasons to focus on electoral goals: the many vulnerable

Democratic incumbents going into the 1992 elections. As seen in Figure 3-4, as the election

approached, according to Congressional Quarterly more House Democrats faced competitive

races than in any other election from 1988-1994. In response, Speaker Foley prioritized electoral

goals in the allocation of legislative preference in the 102nd Congress, as predicted (H5). He

rewarded loyal fundraisers when it came to the consideration of major bills and H.R.

suspensions. Further, the only instance where Democratic leaders provided their vulnerable

incumbents with legislative opportunities was in the 102nd Congress: vulnerable incumbents had

.48 more suspensions on the House floor, all else equal.

This chapter is an analysis of just one domain in which party leaders allocate scarce

benefits. The results reveal that in their pursuit of policy control, leaders in the eight congresses

under consideration exert party discipline by rewarding party loyalty in voting. The significance

of the legislative reward and the types of loyalty rewarded, however, vary from congress to

congress. Leaders also pursue electoral and institutional goals, prioritizing them when

necessary. The powers and prerogatives that enable party discipline also enable leaders to assist

vulnerable incumbents, reward fundraisers, and recognize legislative entrepreneurs. The next

two chapters investigate and compare leaders’ allocation of resources and opportunities in many

additional arenas from 1987 to 2002, including committee assignments, committee

chairmanships, conference committee assignments, and campaign assistance.

29

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Fenno, Richard. 1973. Congressmen in Committees. Boston: Little, Brown and Company.

Fenno, Richard. 1978. Homestyle. Boston: Little, Brown and Company.

Fenno, Richard. 1997. Learning to Govern: An Institutional View of the 104th Congress.Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.

Foerstel, Karen. 2000. “Choosing GOP Chairmen.” Congressional Quarterly. 17 June.

Foerstel, Karen. 2000a. “Hastert and the Limits of Persuasion.” Congressional Quarterly. 30September.

Fritz, Sara. 1998. “From the Editor.” Congressional Quarterly. 7 November.

Greene, William H. 2000. Econometric Analysis, 4th Edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: PrenticeHall.

Hoy, Anne Q. 1994. “Foley’s Gracious Style Was Key to His Rise—and to His Fall.”Congressional Quarterly. 12 November.

Jacobson, Gary. 2001. The Politics of Congressional Elections, 5th ed. New York: Longman.

King, Gary, Michael Tomz, and Jason Wittenberg. 2000. “Making the Most of StatisticalAnalyses: Improving Interpretation and Presentation.” American Journal of PoliticalScience 44 (2): 347-361.

Kolodny, Robin. 1988. Pursuing Majorities: Congressional Campaign Committees in AmericanPolitics. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.

Krehbiel, Keith. 1991. Information and Legislative Organization. Ann Arbor: The Universityof Michigan Press.

Krehbiel, Keith. 1993. “Where’s the Party?” British Journal of Political Science 23: 235-266.

Krehbiel, Keith. 1995. “Cosponsors and Wafflers from A to Z.” American Journal of PoliticalScience 41: 958-964.

31

Krehbiel, Keith. 1998. Pivotal Politics: A Theory of U.S. Lawmaking. Chicago: The Universityof Chicago Press.

Krehbiel, Keith. 2000. Party Discipline and Measures of Partisanship. American Journal ofPolitical Science 44(2): 212-227.

Martinez, Gebe, and Jackie Koszczuck. 1999. “Tom DeLay: ‘The Hammer’ That Drives theHouse GOP.” Congressional Quarterly. 5 June.

Mayhew, David R. 1974. Congress: The Electoral Connection. New Haven: Yale UniversityPress.

McCarty, Nolan, Keith T. Poole, and Howard Rosenthal. 2001. “The Hunt for Party Disciplinein Congress.” American Political Science Review 95(3): 673-687.

Pearson, Kathryn. 2001. “Leadership PACs: Who Benefits?” Presented at the Annual Meetingof the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago, Illinois.

Pomper, Miles A. 2002. “GOP Leaders Pull Microloan Bill To Punish N.J. Rep. Smith.”Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report. November 23: 3091.

Poole, Keith T. voteview.uh.edu.

Price, David. 2000. The Congressional Experience, 2nd ed. Boulder, CO.: Westview Press,

Rohde, David W. 1991. Parties and Leaders in the Postreform House. Chicago: ChicagoUniversity Press.

Sabato, Larry J., and Bruce Larson. 2002. The Party’s Just Begun: Shaping Political Parties forAmerica’s Future, 2nd ed. New York: Longman.

Schickler, Eric, and Andrew Rich. 1997. “Controlling the Floor: Parties as ProceduralCoalitions in the House.” American Journal of Political Science 41:1340-1375.

Sinclair, Barbara. 1995. Legislators, Leaders, and Lawmaking: The U.S. House ofRepresentatives in the Postreform Era. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Sinclair, Barbara. 1999. “Do Parties Matter?” Paper presented at the History of CongressConference, Stanford University, January 15-16.

Sinclair, Barbara. 2000. Unorthodox Lawmaking: New Legislative Processes in the U.S.Congress. Washington, DC: CQ Press.

Snyder, James, and Timothy Groseclose. 2000. “Estimating Party Influence in CongressionalRoll-Call Voting.” American Journal of Political Science 44(2): 193-211.

32

THOMAS. The Library of Congress’ Legislative Information on the Internet. Bill Summaryand Status, 100th-107th Congress. http://thomas.loc.gov/

Tomz, Michael, Jason Wittenberg, and Gary King. 1999. CLARIFY: Software for Interpretingand Presenting Statistical Results. Version 1.2.1. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University,June 1. http://gking.harvard.edu/.

Wawro, Gregory. 2000. Legislative Entrepreneurship in the U.S. House of Representatives.Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press.

Wolfensberger, Don. 2002. "Suspended Partisanship in the House: How Most Laws Are ReallyMade." Paper prepared for delivery at the 2002 Annual Meeting of the American PoliticalScience Association, Boston, August 29-September 1.

33

Figure 3-1. Majority Party Members’ Legislation Considered on the House Floor under Leadership Control, 106th

Congress

Source: Data compiled from THOMAS.

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36

Number of Pieces of Legislation Considered on the House Floor

Nu

mb

er o

f M

emb

ers

34

Figure 3-2. Party Loyalty in Roll Call Voting, 1987-2002

Source: Congressional Quarterly 1987-2002.

73.5 73.5

78.5

83.5

89

87 86.5

89.5

8081

80

84

80

82.583.5

85.5

70

75

80

85

90

95

100th 101st 102nd 103rd 104th 105th 106th 107th

Congress

Ave

rage

CQ

Par

ty L

oyal

ty S

core

Republican Party Unity Democratic Party Unity

35

Figure 3-3. Loyalty on Rule Votes, 100th Congress – 106th Congress

Source: Data compiled from THOMAS.

92.8993.57

94.99

93.12

88.68 88.72

90.98

78.89

84.78

90.87

96.04

97.37

94.77

98.91

75

80

85

90

95

100

100th 101st 102nd 103rd 104th 105th 106th

Perc

ent V

otin

g w

ith P

arty

Democrats Republicans

36

Figure 3-4. Competitive Seats, 1988-2002

Toss Up Seats

Competitive Seats

Safe Seats

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002

Election Year

Perc

ent

Source: Data come from Congressional Quarterly. “Toss up” races are shown separately and the “favors” and “leans” categoriesare combined into the “competitive seats” category.

37

Source: Data compiled from THOMAS.

Figure 3-5. Legislative Entrepreneurship, 100th - 107th Congress

0

5

10

15

20

100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107

Congress

Ave

rage

Num

ber

of B

ills

Democrats Republicans

38

Table 3-1. Fundraising Loyalty

100th 101st 102nd 103rd 104th 105th 106th 107th

REPUBLICANS

Average Contribution toNRCC

$22(163)

$7(67)

$178(1626)

$6095(9803)

$19401(45685)

$55402(84967)

$63969(115271)

$54287(79488)

Average TotalContributions to HouseCandidates

1693(5309)

3036(5719)

1787(7766)

8848(22955)

6952(1132)

12454(22353)

18236(66489)

5985(14197)

Leadership PACContributions

555(4456)

1193(11405)

1486(12256)

3505(28344)

10015(60216)

24901(101518)

31239(112199)

38772(155706)

Total Number ofLeadership PACs

5 6 6 8 23 36 51 61

DEMOCRATS

Average Contribution toDCCC

$649(2581)

$1145(2763)

$1343(3110)

$6231(5433)

$8866(7521)

$12808(11877)

$51079(64813)

$14124(14212)

Average TotalContributions to HouseCandidates

2768(7712)

3135(6775)

2045(5812)

3087(9683)

5960(14058)

9798(78605)

15520(25026)

12418(16424)

Leadership PACContributions

5328(35260)

3719(23808)

2869(19982)

6948(5599)

4241(27510)

6427(31618)

17946(867241)

21037(91980)

Total Number ofLeadership PACs

16 16 15 14 14 17 22 38

Cell entries are average dollar amounts, with standard errors in parentheses. Data come from the Federal ElectionCommission, entries are calculated by the author.

39

Table 3-2. Explaining the Consideration of Majority Party Members’ Major Legislation on the House Floor

Congress 100th 101st 102nd 103rd 104th 105th 106th 107th

Party Loyalty:Roll Call Votes

.09[.01,.20]

.03[-.06,.15]

-.00[-.08,.09]

.08[-.03,.29]

.38[.06, .77]

.03[-.06,.17]

.04[-.07,.16]

.04[-.02,.11]

Party Loyalty:Rule Votes

-.01[-.10,.10]

-.01[-.07,.09]

.02[-.06,.13]

-.03[-.10,.65]

-.11[-.35,.15]

-.01[-.09,.08]

.12[-.02,.30]

.03[-.02,.09]

Party Loyalty: $Contributions toCandidates

8.9[-.21,38]

.00[-.02,.02]

.01[.001,.03]

.24[-.17,.49]

-.02[-.14,.11]

.00[-.00,.01]

.02[.002,.04]

.00[-.02,.02]

Party Loyalty: $Contributions toParty CCC

--.00

[-.02,.02]-.01

[-.04,.01].00

[-.21,.66]-.09

[-.22,.02].02

[-.05,.08].00

[-.06,.06].02

[.002,.04]

Party Loyalty: $Leadership PACContributions

.48[3.1,21]

.00[-.00,.01]

.00[-.00,.01]

.59[-.08,3.05]

-.00[-.05,.05]

-.01[-.04,.02]

-.04[-.08,.00]

.01[.004,.01]

LegislativeEntrepreneurship(Bills Sponsored)

.06[.02,.12]

.05[-.01,.13]

.08[.01,.17]

.09[.03,.18]

.97[.60,1.45]

.12[.01,.26]

.05[-.04,.17]

.06[.02,.11]

Competitive Race.11

[-.12,.68]-.04

[-.18,.36].01

[-.11,.16].01

[-.09,.18]-.05

[-.54,.51]-.07

[-.31,.38]-.09

[-.41,.44].13

[-.07,.47]

Seniority.05

[-.00,.11].05

[-.02,.15].07

[.01,.17].08

[.02,.21].06

[-.22,.02].18

[.05,.36].43

[.28,.62].04

[-.00,.10]

CommitteeChairman

.18[-.01,.52]

.50[.07, 1.4]

.68[.21,1.5]

.22[-.00,.67]

1.31[.23,2.87]

.15[-.13,.67]

.05[-.21,.38]

.37[.12,.77]

Log likelihood -150.45 -133.43 -166.19 -148.461 -329.021 -171.36 -214.03 -134.44

χ2 59.39*** 44.02*** 63.33*** 47.74*** 100.20*** 38.79*** 61.86*** 61.06***

Pseudo R2 .16 .14 .16 .14 .13 .10 .13 .19N 254 254 264 255 222 220 216 222

Cell entries are first differences as described in the text from negative binomial regressions, confidence intervals are in parentheses.Entries in bold are significant at p<.05 or better.

40

Table 3-3. Explaining the Consideration of Majority Party Members’ H.R. Suspensions on the House Floor

Congress 100th 101st 102nd 103rd 104th 105th 106th 107th

Party Loyalty:Roll Call Votes

-.06[-.23,.12]

.13[-.16,.50]

.06[-.11,.26]

-.07[-.30,.20]

.34[.01,.76]

-.01[-.21,.20]

-.02[-.22,.23]

-.01[-.21,.22]

Party Loyalty:Rule Votes

-.04[-.33,.30]

-.07[-.33,.28]

-.10[-.25,.08]

.05[-.20,.38]

-.08[-.30,.21]

.12[-.09,.40]

.15[-.10,.43]

.17[-.33,.01]

Party Loyalty: $Contributions toCandidates

67[-1.3,160]

.03[-.06,.12]

.04[-.00,.07]

6.7[-.66,6.7]

.03[-.11,.18]

.00[-.01,.02]

-.04[-.13,.03]

.03[-.05,.10]

Party Loyalty: $Contributions toParty CCC

---.06

[-.15,.02].06

[.01,.10]1.64

[-.97,5.9]-.13

[-.28,.02].02

[-.16,.18]-.24

[-.46,.-02]-.05

[-.19,.06]

Party Loyalty: $Leadership PACContributions

4.3[-1.15,39]

-.01[-.04,.02]

-.01[-.03,.01]

-.38[-.83,.89]

-.05[-.14,.04]

-.08[-.15,-.00]

-.04[-.13,.03]

.01[-.03,.04]

LegislativeEntrepreneurship(Bills Sponsored)

.83[.48,1.25]

.72[.36,1.17]

.53[.32,.80]

.72[.46,1.06]

.90[.51,1.41]

.74[.33,1.23]

.95[.56,1.38]

.77[.46,1.18]

Competitive Race-.08

[-.75,.97].50

[-.26,1.6].48

[.12,.93].34

[-.00,.38]-.05

[-.52,.50].12

[-.52,1.06]-.40

[-1.04,.43].50

[-.36,1.5]

Seniority .04[-.17,.31]

.11[-.11,.4]

.09[-.07,.29]

.17[-.00,.38]

-.02[-.25,.26]

.23[-.01,.54]

-.05[-.31,.26]

.19[-.03,.43]

CommitteeChairman

.45[-.37,1.7]

.63[-.22,1.9]

.34[-.16,1.2]

.66[.01,1.74]

.40[-.34,1.63]

.44[-.27,1.56]

2.09[.59,4.21]

.44[-.22,1.4]

Log likelihood -377.85 -361.93 -373.53 -324.10 -290.98 -308.01 -348.81 -334.99

χ2 57.97*** 48.71*** 86.19*** 92.51*** 66.33*** 64.84*** 81.58*** 71.29***

Pseudo R2 .07 .06 .10 .12 .10 .10 .10 .10N 254 254 265 255 222 220 216 222

Cell entries are first differences as described in the text from negative binomial regressions, confidence intervals are in parentheses.Entries in bold are significant at p<.05 or better.

41

Table 3-4. Explaining the Consideration of Majority Party Members’ Resolutions under Suspension on theHouse Floor

Congress 100th 101st 102nd 103rd 104th 105th 106th 107th

Party Loyalty:Roll Call Votes

.04[-.02,.13]

.06[-.06,.32]

.16[.04,.36]

.07[-.04,.32]

-.01[-.05,.05]

-.07[-.16,.02]

-.04[-.13,.08]

.03[-.09,.16]

Party Loyalty:Rule Votes

.01[-.06,.13]

.10[-.09,.51]

.04[-.08,.24]

.01[-.06,.17]

-.02[-.06,.03]

.04[-.08,.20]

.00[-.10,.14]

.01[-.11,.10]

Party Loyalty: $Contributions toCandidates

1.64[1.0,2.7]

.02[-.01,.05]

-.02[-.05,.01]

6.97[-.13,3.8]

.02[-.01,.05]

.002[-.01,.01]

.02[-.00,.04]

.03[.001,.07]

Party Loyalty: $Contributions toParty CCC

---.01

[-.04,.03].00

[-.03,.03]4.31

[-.14,2.1].01

[-.02,.03]-.01

[-.13,.09].02

[-.04,.07].04

[-.03,.11]

Party Loyalty: $Leadership PACContributions

4.8[-.14,16]

.06[-.17,1.14]

.00[-.00,.01]

5.34[.06,6.66]

-.01[-.11,.29]

-.00[-.00,.00]

-.01[-.04,.03]

-.03[-.08,.02]

LegislativeEntrepreneurship(Bills Sponsored)

.06[.01,.13]

.11[.01,.29]

.10[.02,.23]

.02[-.01,.10]

2.01[.001,.12]

.20[.02,.48]

.27[.12,.47]

.29[.15,.48]

Competitive Race-1.36

[-.16,.05].05

[-.13,.48]-.04

[-.16,.09]-.03

[-.09,.05].01

[-.09,.18]-.04

[-.31,.52].59

[.06,1.59].50

[-.02,1.3]

Seniority-.01

[-.04,.05].15

[.02,.37]-.00

[-.06,.09]-.01

[-.05,.05].01

[-.04,.08].06

[-.06,.23].04

[-.08,.20]-.04

[-.13,.08]

CommitteeChairman

.42[.03,1.44]

-.08[-.18,.04]

.17[-.1,.86]

.41[.02,1.47]

.02[-.08,.29]

-.04[-.29,.42]

.04[-.31,.58]

.02[-.32,.53]

Log likelihood -104.52 -96.88 -118.15 -81.55 -78.91 -166.22 -229.62 -239.55

χ2 36.31*** 22.71** 24.36** 21.04 27.14** 24.38** 36.62 29.95***

Pseudo R2 .15 .10 .09 .11 .15 .07 .07 .06N 254 254 266 255 222 220 216 222

Cell entries are first differences as described in the text from negative binomial regressions, confidence intervals are in parentheses.Entries in bold are significant at p<.05 or better.

42

Table 3-5. Explaining the Consideration of Majority Party Members’ Policy Amendments on the House Floor

Congress 100th 101st 102nd 103rd 104th 105th 106th 107th

Party Loyalty:Roll Call Votes

-.01[-.03,.04]

-.13[-.27,.04]

.09[-.07,.29]

.09[-.13,.43]

.05[-.05,.20]

-.04[-.16,.10]

.18[.04,.34]

-.04[-.10,.02]

Party Loyalty:Rule Votes

.01[-.03,.07]

.48[.05,1.13]

-.14[-.24,.01]

.07[-.24,.15]

-.06[-.15,.04]

.04[-.10,.22]

-.07[-.13,-.002]

.00[-.08,.09]

Party Loyalty: $Contributions toCandidates

.02[-.03,.06]

.01[-.02,.05]

.15[-.47,.87]

-.00[-.06,.05]

-.02[-.10,.06]

.01[-.01,.03]

.01[-.02,.04]

Party Loyalty: $Contributions toParty CCC

--.03

[-.02,.07].02

[-.03,.06]5.07

[-.67,2.1].04

[-.01,.09]-.03

[-.14,.07].001

[-.05,.05].02

[-.02,.06]

Party Loyalty: $Leadership PACContributions

.17[.001,.67]

-.01[-.03,.01]

.01[-.00,.03]

.59[-.47,5.1]

-.02[.04,.01]

.004[-.04,.05]

.02[-.01,.04]

.001[-.02,.02]

LegislativeEntrepreneurship(Bills Sponsored)

.01[-.01,.05]

.33[.14,.54]

.24[.08,.44]

.21[.05,.43]

.08[.001,.18]

.09[-.06,.26]

.24[.10,.39]

.04[-.02,.12]

Competitive Race1.3

[-.07,1.6]-.09

[-.38,.40]-.06

[-.26,.17].03

[-.24,.47].04

[-.16,.33]-.02

[-.36,.53].08

[-.22,.53]-.04

[-.22,.29]

Seniority .01[-.02,.05]

.00[-.12,.16]

-.13[-.21,.03]

.07[-.07,.25]

.04[-.05,.16]

.08[-.07,.25]

-.03[-.13,.07]

-.001[-.07,.08]

CommitteeChairman

.01[-.06,.24]

.31[-.17,1.2]

2.49[.80,5.8]

.75[.02,1.94]

.58[.07,1.38]

.32[-.18,1.12]

.04[-.25,.54]

.66[.14,1.46]

Log likelihood -42.85 -270.10 -273.09 -244.76 -184.248 -219.65 -202.88 -164.26

χ2 11.81 39.69*** 40.88*** 28.82*** 37.25*** 12.08 25.78** 22.96**

Pseudo R2 .12 .07 .07 .06 .09 .03 .06 .07N 254 254 266 254 222 220 216 222

Cell entries are first differences as described in the text from negative binomial regressions, confidence intervals are in parentheses.Entries in bold are significant at p<.05 or better.

43

Table 3-6. Explaining the Consideration of Majority Party Members’ Appropriations Amendments on theHouse Floor

Congress 100th 101st 102nd 103rd 104th 105th 106th 107th

Party Loyalty:Roll Call Votes

-.00[-.02,.01]

-.01[-.04,.04]

-.03[-.06,.00]

.02[-.02,.12]

-.02[-.05,.02]

.10[.05,.02]

-.01[-.03,.01]

-.002[-.05,.06]

Party Loyalty:Rule Votes

.12[-.02,.56]

.01[-.03,.10]

-.04[-.07,-.01]

-.01[-.03,.03]

.01[-.03,.07]

-.06[-.10,-.02]

-.01[-.03,.01]

-.07[-.00,.21]

Party Loyalty: $Contributions toCandidates

1.04[-.03,5.1]

.01[-.01,.02]

.01[-.01,.02]

3.0[-.06,5.8]

-.01[-.05,.03]

-.004[-.03,.03]

-.01[.06,.03]

-.01[-.10,.06]

Party Loyalty: $Contributions toParty CCC

---.00

[-.01,.02]-.02

[-.05,.01]3.21

[-.05,1.9].02

[-.00,.08]-.01

[-.06,.04]-.01

[.05,.02]-.01

[-.08,.08]

Party Loyalty: $Leadership PACContributions

3.28[-.04,14]

3.4[-.08,11]

-.00[-.03,.02]

9.5[-.03,73]

4.17[-.12,2.4]

.01[.01,.03]

.01[-.06,.03]

-.01[-.14,.38]

LegislativeEntrepreneurship(Bills Sponsored)

.00[-.01,.02]

.01[-.02,.07]

.05[.01,.14]

-.00[-.02,.02]

.02[-.03,.13]

.03[-.02,.11]

.05[.01,.13]

.02[-.02,.11]

Competitive Race1.4

[-.04,1.1].11

[-.04,.62]-.02

[-.09,.08].02

[-.02,.12]-.01

[--.09,.10].06

[-.10,.38].11

[-.02,.38]7.24

[-.16,2.3]

Seniority.01

[-.00,.03].02

[-.01,.10].04

[-.01,.16]-.01

[-.02,.01]-.02

[-.06,.04].08

[.002,.18]-.02

[-.05,.02]-.01

[-.06,.08]

Committee Chairman.08

[-.01,.41].01

[-.08,.25].07

[-.07,.62].38

[.01,1.71].06

[-.09,.64].13

[-.07,.62]7.04

[-.12,3.2].35

[-.09,2.7]

Log likelihood -22.12 -49.38 -61.06 -58.12 -52.716 -98.19 -42.80 -32.94

χ2 12.70 6.26 17.48* 10.59 11.19 19.77* 19.88* 15.99

Pseudo R2 .22 .06 .13 .08 .10 .09 .19 .20N 254 254 264 254 222 220 216 222

Cell entries are first differences as described in the text from negative binomial regressions, confidence intervals are in parentheses.Entries in bold are significant at p<.05 or better.

44

Table 3-7. Explaining the Consideration of Commemoratives on the House Floor

Congress 100th 101st 102nd 103rd

Party Loyalty:Roll Call Votes

.03[-.06,.17]

.04[-.03,.13]

.10[.02,.23]

.14[.02,.33]

Party Loyalty:Rule Votes

.01[-.07,.15]

-.001[-.08,.11]

.21[-.01,.65]

.01[-.22,.32]

Party Loyalty: $Contributions toCandidates

12[-.20,35]

.02[-.01,.04]

.01[-.00,.02]

4.3[-.14,1.7]

Party Loyalty: $Contributions toParty CCC

--.01

[-.03,.01]-.00

[-.02,.02]3.5

[-.16,8.5]

Party Loyalty: $Leadership PACContributions

56[-.17,37]

.002[-.004,.01]

.04[-.00,.01]

.44[-.00,1.8]

LegislativeEntrepreneurship(Bills Sponsored)

.02[-.03,.09]

.05[-.01,.14]

.07[.01,.17]

.03[-.00,.09]

Competitive Race.15

[-.10,.68].03

[-.16,.28]-.06

[-.14,.04].02

[-.07,.16]

Seniority -.01[-.06,.07]

-.03[-.08,.04]

-.07[-.11,.-03]

.00[-.04,.06]

CommitteeChairman

.25[-.07,.83]

.26[-.06,.98]

.45[-.01,1.5]

-.04[-.13,.14]

Log likelihood -144.72 -127.29 -131.71 -86.27

χ2 11.47 12.9 26.14*** 19.09*

Pseudo R2 .04* .05 .09 .10N 254 254 266 255

Cell entries are first differences as described in the text from negative binomial regressions, confidence intervals are inparentheses. Entries in bold are significant at p<.05 or better.