Committee Jurisdiction, Congressional Behavior and Policy Outcomes

Authors

John M. de Figueiredo, Duke Law SchoolFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2013

Keywords

congressional committees, Congress, legislatures, interest groups

Abstract

The literature on congressional committees has largely overlooked the impact of jurisdictional fights on policy proposals and outcomes. This paper develops a theory of how legislators balance the benefits of expanded committee jurisdiction against preferred policy outcomes. It shows why a) senior members and young members in safe districts are most likely to challenge a committee’s jurisdiction; b) policy proposals may be initiated off the proposer’s ideal point in order to obtain jurisdiction; c) policy outcomes will generally be more moderate with jurisdictional fights than without these turf wars. We empirically investigate these results examining proposed Internet intellectual property protection legislation in the 106th Congress.

Comments

This is a pre-print of the article that appears in Public Choice.

Citation

John M. de Figueiredo, Committee Jurisdiction, Congressional Behavior and Policy Outcomes, 154 Public Choice 119-137 (2013)