Legislative Organization with Informational Committees

Abstract

Legislative organization in the face of uncertain policy outcomes has been investigated from the perspective of signaling models in which an informed committee reports a bill and the legislature then amends, enacts, or rejects the bill. As the political principal, however, the legislature could take the lead rather than react to the work of its agent. This article presents a new theory of legislative organization with informational committees in which the legislature as the principal explicitly structures its arrangement with a committee before the committee begins its legislative work. The theory provides a number of quite different predictions. For example, in the signaling theory a closed rule can create stronger incentives for specialization by a moderate committee than an open rule, whereas in this theory an open rule provides stronger incentives. Moreover, the legislature prefers to structure the arrangement with the committee rather than simply react to its efforts. egislatures such as the U.S. Congress are self-organizing in the sense that they choose their internal organization and develop procedures and norms under which they operate. A central theme in the legislative organization literature is that, as in other forms of work, there are gains from the division of labor and specialization through committees. Specialization can be particularly important when policies have uncertain outcomes. The desire to avoid uncertainty and make informed policy choices provides a rationale for establishing committees that specialize in policy areas and develop information that can be used in writing legislation. Political institutions, however, have limited means of generating incentives for informational specialization. They cannot grant property rights, enter into contracts enforceable by a third party, or explicitly pay for performance.1 A legislature's principal instruments for providing incentives are grants of parliamentary advantage, resources that lower the costs of specialization and committee work, and rewards to committee members for their work. In their seminal research on legislative organization, Gilligan and Krehbiel (1987, 1989a, 1989b, 1990; Krehbiel 1991) studied the relationship between a parent legislature and a committee that specializes by obtaining private information about policy outcomes.2 In developing their theory Gilligan and Krehbiel use a legislative signaling model in which an informed committee moves first by reporting a bill followed by the parent legislature taking a final passage vote possibly after amendments. In contrast to the signaling approach, a legislature need not wait passively for a committee to report a bill. Instead, a legislature can choose its internal organization before it and its committees begin their work. To the extent it has instruments at its disposal to structure the work of the committee, the legislature gains by moving first rather than waiting for the committee to act. As the political principal in the relationship, the legislature thus would be expected to take the lead rather than be passive with respect to the work of its agent. This article presents a theory of legislative organization with informational committees in which the legislature as the principal explicitly structures its arrangement with a committee before the committee begins its

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