Separation of Powers and Legislative Organization

The President, the Senate, and Political Parties in the Making of House Rules

Gisela Sin

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781107048799
• eBook ISBN: 9781316057735
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: American Government
• Index: Politics & International Relations

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.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title
• Endorsement
• Title page
• Copyright information
• Dedication
• Table of contents
• List of figures and tables
• Acknowledgments
• 1 A Constitutional Perspective on House Organization
• 2 Constitutional Actors and Intraparty Groups
• 3 A Constitutional Theory of Legislative Organization
• 4 Timing of House Organizational Changes
• 5 The Senate and White House Shadows: Centralization and Decentralization...
• 6 New Rules for an Old Speaker: Revisiting the 1910 Revolt against Speaker Cannon
• 7 Conclusion
• Appendix A Constitutional Actors, Partisanship, and House Majority Party Factions
• Appendix B Theoretical Proof
• Appendix C List of Changes in the Rules and Procedures of the House
• Appendix D Universe of Rules and Procedures
• Appendix E Coding of William H. Taft and Calvin Coolidge Presidencies
• Appendix F Directionality of Rules and Procedures
• Appendix G Senate’s Ideal Point
• Bibliography
• Index