Partisanship and Seniority in Legislative Committee Assignments: California After Reapportionment
| DOI | 10.1177/106591297102400410 |
| Published date | 01 December 1971 |
| Date | 01 December 1971 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
740
PARTISANSHIP
AND
SENIORITY
IN
LEGISLATIVE
COMMITTEE
ASSIGNMENTS:
CALIFORNIA
AFTER
REAPPORTIONMENT
ALVIN
D.
SOKOLOW,
University
of
California,
Davis
and
RICHARD
W.
BRANDSMA,
California
Legislative
Analyst
Office
HE
ASSIGNMENT
of
members
to
standing
committees
is
a
critical
stage
in
the
organization
of
any
legislative
session.
Assignment
patterns
which
result
in
particular
committee
compositions
can
determine
legislative
policy
outputs
and
may
protect
or
frustrate
the
demands
of
outside
interests.
They
can
also
have
an
internal
effect
on
the
legislature
by
enhancing
leadership
control
and
providing
a
means
for
allocating
rewards
and
punishments
to
individual
legislators.
The
two
major
types
of
assignment
criteria,
as
practiced
by
American
legis-
latures,
are
partisanship
and
seniority.
Both
houses
of
Congress
rely
on
a
com-
bination of
these
two
methods.1
Political
party
lines
are
consistently
followed
in
that
all
standing
committee
chairmen,
and
a
majority
of
the
members
of
each
committee,
represent
the
house-wide
majority
party
in
that
session.
At
the
same
time,
relative
seniority
on
a
congressional
committee
automatically
determines
which
majority
party
member
obtains
the
chairmanship,
and
also
provides
a
means
of
ranking
all
other
members
of
the
committee
within
the
two
party
groups.
Par-
tisanship
and
seniority
-
separately
or
in
combination
-
appear
also
to
be
the
principal
factors
in
the
committee
assignment
decisions
of
most
state
legislative
chambers,
although
they
are
used
less
consistently
than
in
Congress.2
2
This
paper
compares
the
committee
assignment
criteria
of
partisanship
and
seniority
as
to
their
effect
on
leadership
control
and
stability
in
a
legislature.
We
assume
that
both
standards
permit
legislative
leaders
to
use
committee
assignments
as
member
rewards
and
punishments,
but
that
they
differ
in
the
extent
of
flexibility
afforded
the
leaders.
Specifically,
we
hypothesize
the
following:
1.
Partisanship
is
a
flexible
arrangement
that
gives
much
leeway
to
leaders
in
NOTE:
This
article
was
prepared
in
connection
with
a
long-term
study
of
the
impact
of
reapportionment
on
the
California
Legislature,
which
is
being
supported
by
a
grant
from
the
National
Municipal
League
to
the
Institute
of
Governmental
Affairs,
Univer-
sity
of
California,
Davis.
An
earlier
version
of
this
article
was
presented
to
the
1968
meeting
of
the
Western
Political
Science
Association,
March
21-23,
in
Seattle,
Wash-
ington.
1
See
Charles
L.
Clapp,
The
Congressman:
His
Work
as
He
Sees
It
(Garden
City:
Anchor
Books,
1964),
pp.
207-40;
George
Goodwin,
Jr.,
"The
Seniority
System
in
Congress,"
American
Political
Science
Review,
53
( June
1959), 412-37;
John
D.
Lees,
The
Com-
mittee
System
of
the
United
States
Congress,
Library
of
Political
Studies
(New
York:
Humanities
Press,
1967),
pp.
13-14,
21—22;
Nicholas
A.
Masters,
"House
Committee
Assignments,"
American
Political
Science
Review,
55
(June
1961),
345-58;
and
Nelson
W.
Polsby,
Miriam
Gallaher,
and
Barry
Spencer
Rundquist,
"The
growth
of
the
Senior-
ity
System
in
the
U.S.
House
of
Representatives,"
American
Political
Science
Review,
63
(September
1969),
787-807.
2
Loren
P.
Beth
and
William
C.
Havard,
"Committee
Stacking
and
Political
Power
in
Flor-
ida,"
Journal
of
Politics,
23
(February
1961),
57-83;
and
Dean
E.
Mann,
"The
Legis-
lative
Committee
System
in
Arizona,"
Western
Political
Quarterly,
14
(December
1961),
925-41.
741
their
assignment
decisions.
The
major
constraint
is
that
the
majority
party
must
receive
all -
or
most
of
-
the
committee
assignment
rewards.
2.
Seniority,
on
the
other
hand,
is
a
more
rigid
arrangement
that
limits
the
assignment
powers
of
leaders.
Members
with
relatively
long
service
automatically
receive
promotions
to
better
assignments,
leaving
very
little
room
for
leadership
discretion.
3.
Given
a
threat
to
continued
control
introduced
from
outside
the
legislature,
such
as
a
very
large
turnover
in
membership,
a
leadership
structure
based
on
a
seniority
system
is
more
vulnerable
to
change
than
one
based
on
partisanship.
To
test
such
hypotheses
requires
a
comparison
of
legislative
situations
in
which
partisanship
and
seniority
separately
are
the
dominant
committee
assignment
cri-
teria.
We
have
such
a
setting
in
the
California
Legislature,
unusual
among
bicameral
systems
in
that
the
two
houses
have
long
used
different
assignment
standards.
The
Senate
has
relied
almost
exclusively
on
seniority
while
the
Assem-
bly
has
employed
primarily
a
brand
of
partisanship.
An
extensive
state
legislative
reapportionment
in
California
in
1965
threatened
major
changes
in
the
positions
and
control
of
leaders
of
the
two
houses.
How
they
used
their
power
over
committee
assignments
to
respond
to
these
threats,
and
the
extent
to
which
they
were
able
to
apply
normal
assignment
strategies,
is
the
focus
of
this
paper.
Initially
we
describe
the
pre-reapportionment
assignment
patterns
of
the
two
houses
and
their
consequences
for
leadership
control.
Then
the
assign-
ment
strategies
of the
critical
1967
session
-
the
first
after
reapportionment
-
are
detailed.
The
description
is
carried
through
the
1968
and
1969
sessions
in
an
effort
to
assess
the
permanence
of
the
1967
leadership
strategies
and
the
long-term
effects
of
reapportionment.
Our
analysis
is
based
on
data
collected
from
close
personal
observation
of
the
California
Legislature
and
from
several
sets
of
interviews
with
legislators
and
others.3
3
This
paper
is
part
of
a
larger
study
of
the
impact
of
re-
apportionment
on
the
leadership,
decision-making,
and
policy
outputs
of
the
California
Legislature.
ASSIGNMENT
PROCEDURES
AND
TRADITIONS :
BEFORE
REAPPORTIONMENT
The
responsibility
for
making
assignments
to
standing
committees
in
the
Cali-
fornia
Legislature,
as
stipulated
in
the
formal
rules
of
the
two
houses,
is
carried
out
by
the
speaker
in
the
Assembly
and
the
Rules
Committee
in
the
Senate.
While
political
party
groups
do
not
formally
participate
in
the
California
process
as
they
do
in
CongresS,4
majority
party
interests
are
usually
represented
by
the
two
appointing
agencies.
The
speaker
ordinarily
is
the
leader
of
the
Assembly’s
majority
3
Between
1966
and
1969,
open-ended
interviews
were
conducted
with
a
majority
of Califor-
nia’s
state
legislators
and
with
approximately
50
legislative
staff
members
and
lobbyists.
These
interviews
covered
a
variety
of
topics
other
than
committee
assignments,
including
decision-making
and
policy
outputs,
sponsorship
behavior
of
legislators,
leadership
pat-
terns,
and
constituency
relations.
4
Committee
assignments
in
both
houses
of
Congress
are
made
by
party
committees.
Once
the
party
ratios
for
standing
committees
are
worked
out
by
the
majority
and
minority
leaders
in
each
house,
the
party
groups
—
the
Democratic
Steering
Committee and
the
Republican
Committee
on
Committees
in
the
Senate,
and
the
two
Committees
on
Com-
mittees
in
the
House
of
Representatives
—
make
their
assignments.
Of
course
their
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