Conferences / Stanford SSHI (650) 723-1466

History of Congress Conference
January 15th-16th, 1999

Wattis Room, Littlefield Center
Stanford University

As part of the celebrations for the Fiftieth Anniversary of the School of Humanities and Sciences at Stanford, SSHI is sponsoring a conference on The History of Congress. The conference focuses on a longstanding concern of Congress scholars: why, in a system of majoritarian and partisan elections, the legislature is organized around so many non-majoritarian principles. Members of Congress have, since before the Civil War, chosen a decentralized form of governmentgovernment by committee. Committees, it often seems, are not only ancillary to the party organizations, but often at odds with it. At various times in our nations history, we have observed strong leaders, with public policy being drafted in the leaders office or by the majority caucus. At other times, the focus of policy making has been in committees, and parties played only a coordinating role. What explains these variations? Recent developments in the literature on Congress have provided us with conditions under which policy making leans toward a committee-centered versus a party-centered process. But we have only begun to understand the dynamics of congressional organization.

It now seems clear that any complete theory of congressional organization will have to be dynamic--to reflect variations over time--and will need to be tested against historical data. The conference will therefore examine topics from throughout the different eras of congressional organization, from the ante-bellum rise and institutionalization of standing committees, through the centralized party control under Boss Cannon around the turn of the century, into the King Caucus years and the rise of committee government in the 1930s, through the re-emergence of party government in the early 1970s.

The History of Congress Conference will be held on January 15th-16th, 1999, in the Wattis Room of the Littlefield Center on the Stanford campus.

PROGRAM

Friday, January 15th

Opening Remarks
Morning Panel
Afternoon Panel
Evening Panel

Saturday, January 16th

Morning Panel
Afternoon Panel

Friday, January 15th

9:00-9:15

Opening Remarks:

Stephen Haber, Director, Social Science History Institute

Morning Panel

David Brady (Stanford University), Chair

9:15-10:30

Paper #1. Keith Krehbiel (Stanford University) and Alan Wiseman (Stanford University), "Joe Cannon: Majoritarian from Illinois."

Discussants: Rod Kiewiet (Cal Tech) and Keith Poole (Carnegie-Mellon University)

10:30-11:45

Paper #2. Randall Strahan (Emory University), "Leadership in Institutional Time: The 19th Century House."

Discussants: Mickey Keller (Harvard University) and Charles Stewart III (MIT)

11:45-1:00

Lunch break

Afternoon Panel

Nelson Polsby (U.C., Berkeley), Chair

1:00-2:15

Paper #1. John Aldrich (Duke University), Mark Berger (Duke University), and David Rohde (Michigan State University), "The Historical Variability in Conditional Party Government."

Discussants: Doug Arnold (Princeton University) and John Ferejohn (Stanford University)

2:15-3:30

Paper #2. Brian Sala (University of Illinois), "Party Loyalty and Committee Leadership in the House."

Discussants: Melissa Collie (University of Texas) and David Epstein (Columbia University)

3:30-4:00

Afternoon break

Evening Panel

Morris Fiorina (Stanford University), Chair

4:00-5:15

Paper #1. Sean Theriault (Stanford University) and Barry Weingast (Stanford University), "Process and Substance in the Compromise of 1850: Agenda Manipulation, Strategic Voting, and Legislative Details."

Discussants: Pat Hurley (Texas A&M) and Joel Silbey (Cornell University).

5:15-6:30

Paper #2. Gerald Gamm (University of Rochester) and Steve Smith (University of Minnesota), "Policy Leadership and the Development of the Modern Senate."

Discussants: Samuel Patterson (Ohio State University) and Gary Jacobson (U.C., San Diego)

8:00

Conference Banquet at the Schwab Center

Saturday, January 16th

9:00-9:15

Continental breakfast

Morning Panel

Joe Cooper (Johns Hopkins University), Chair

9:15-10:30

Paper #1. Keith Poole (Carnegie-Mellon University), Nolan McCarty (Columbia University), and Howard Rosenthal (Princeton University), "Congress and the Territorial Expansion of the United States."

Discussants: Brian Humes (University of Nebraska) and Garry Young (University of Missouri)

10:30-11:45

Paper #2. Gary Cox (U.C., San Diego) and Mathew McCubbins (U.C., San Diego), "Agenda Power in the U.S. House of Representatives."

Discussants: Brian Gaines (University of Illinois) and Mike Munger (Duke University)

11:45-1:00

Paper #3. Kenneth Finegold (Eastern Washington University), Brian Humes (University of Nebraska), Evelyn C. Fink, Elaine Swift (Eastern Washington University), and Rick Valelly (Swarthmore College), "Overrepresenting the South: Measuring the Impact of the Three-Fifths Clause and the Fourteenth Amendment."

Discussants: Richard Fenno (University of Rochester) and Steve Smith (University of Minnesota)

1:00-2:15

Lunch break

Afternoon Panel

Mathew McCubbins (U.C., San Diego), Chair.

2:15-3:30

Paper #1. Jeffrey Jenkins (Michigan State University) and Charles Stewart III (MIT), "Order from Chaos: The Transformation of the Committee System in the House, 1810-1822."

Discussants: Gerald Gamm (University of Rochester) and Sharyn O'Halloran (Columbia University).

3:30-4:45

Paper #2. Barbara Sinclair (UCLA), "Institutional Structure, Political Context and Policy Making."

Discussants: Sarah Binder (Brookings Institution and George Washington University) and Skip Lupia (U.C., San Diego)

4:45-6:00

Paper #3. Joe Cooper (Johns Hopkins University) and Garry Young (University of Missouri), "Party and Preference in Congressional Decision Making: Roll Call Voting in the U.S. House of Representatives, 1889-1997."

Discussants: Joel Aberbach (UCLA) and Craig Volden (Claremont Graduate University)

7:00

Dinner at the Mandarin Gourmet