Partisan politics? The strategic use of conference committee appointments in the United States House of Representatives

Theories of congressional power can generally be placed into three competing camps that advocate the party, the standing committee, or the floor as the location of power. This work will address the question of power in Congress by studying the congressional strategies that center on conference committees. The key existing theories that are prevalent in congressional literature will be used to generate hypotheses regarding conferee appointments. I will consider the strategies the Speaker of the House uses when appointing conferees, understanding that the Speaker will take into account the preferences of the Senate, and that the rules of the House constrain the Speaker's behavior. Finally, I will analyze the influence of a recent rules change allowing the Speaker to remove conferees for any reason at any point in the conference process. The broader theory of conferee appointments developed here is supported by the data. The Speaker's conference committee appointments are conditioned by the relative locations of the status quo, the Senate pivot, the House floor mean, and the House majority party mean. Indeed, in some situations the Speaker is more likely to appoint members who are closer to the majority party mean than in other situations. Additionally, the rules change regarding conferee appointments appears to influence the Speaker's behavior. The Speaker appoints more conferees after the rules change and also appoints conferees who are closer to the Majority party mean after the rules change. In light of the debate regarding where power resides in Congress, this study finds that the Speaker exerts significant influence in the conferee selection process, discounting the ex post veto arguments of Shepsle and Weingast (1987), and further supporting the party power theories of Congressional behavior.