Separation of Powers and Legislative Organization
The President, the Senate, and Political Parties in the Making of House Rules

Examines how constitutional requirements of the lawmaking process, and the factional divisions within parties, affect US representatives' decisions on distributing power among themselves.

Gisela Sin (Author)

9781107626096, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 21 December 2017

211 pages, 16 b/w illus. 11 tables
23 x 15.3 x 1.4 cm, 0.33 kg

'This is a groundbreaking book with far-reaching implications for congressional scholarship. Professor Sin's carefully theorized and empirically supported argument demonstrates that researchers must think more broadly about House rules and, in turn, about congressional party power. Moreover, the author persuasively shows that we have much to gain by taking seriously the long-standing interplay of intraparty factions in Congress. And the payoff for this rethinking is quite clear: Professor Sin sheds new light on major episodes in House history, including the 1910 revolt and the 1961 Rules Committee expansion.' Scott R. Meinke, Congress and the Presidency

This book examines how the constitutional requirements of the lawmaking process, combined with the factional divisions within parties, affect US representatives' decisions about how to distribute power among themselves. The incorporation of the presidential, senatorial, and House factions in the analysis of House rule making marks an important departure from previous theories, which analyze the House as an institution that makes laws in isolation. This book argues that, by constitutional design, the success of the House in passing legislation is highly contingent on the actions of the Senate and the president; and therefore, also by constitutional design, House members must anticipate such actions when they design their rules. An examination of major rule changes from 1879 to 2013 finds that changes in the preferences of constitutional actors outside the House, as well as the political alignment of these political actors vis-à-vis House factions, are crucial for predicting the timing and directionality of rule changes.

1. A constitutional perspective on House organization
2. Constitutional actors and intraparty groups
3. A constitutional theory of House organization
4. Timing of House organizational changes
5. The Senate and White House shadows: centralization and decentralization of the rule of the US House, 1879–2013
6. New rules for an old Speaker: revisiting the 1910 revolt against Speaker Cannon
7. Conclusion
Appendix A. Constitutional actors, partisanship, and House majority intraparty groups
Appendix B. Theoretical proof
Appendix C. List of changes in the rules and procedures of the House
Appendix D. The universe of rules-and-procedures coding of the William H. Taft and Calvin Coolidge presidencies
Appendix E. Directionality of rules and procedures
Appendix F. Senate's ideal point.

Subject Areas: Political control & freedoms [JPV], Regional government [JPR], Central government [JPQ], Public administration [JPP], Political structure & processes [JPH], Political ideologies [JPF], Political science & theory [JPA], Politics & government [JP]