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Political Research Quarterly
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The Speaker's Discretion

Conference Committee Appointments in the 97th through 106th Congresses

Jeffrey Lazarus

Georgia State University, Atlanta

Nathan W. Monroe

University of the Pacific, California

House rules allow the Speaker to choose any conferees he wishes, suggesting he might use conference delegations to advance partisan goals. In practice, the Speaker nearly always selects members of the bill's jurisdictional committee(s). The authors propose a theory of conferee selection that endogenizes both partisan goals and committee participation. They argue that the Speaker's incentives lead him to appoint committee members, but he anticipates cases in which they would produce an outcome unfavorable to the majority party. In these cases, the Speaker appoints other conferees in addition to those from the jurisdictional committee, thereby "packing" the delegation in favor of the majority party position. The authors derive and test hypotheses regarding when the Speaker packs conference delegations, and what delegations look like when packed. The tests support the theory.

Key Words: Congress • House of Representatives • parties • Speaker of the House • leaders • conference committees

This version was published on December 1, 2007

Political Research Quarterly, Vol. 60, No. 4, 593-606 (2007)
DOI: 10.1177/1065912907304498
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