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Political Parties and the Porkbarrel: Party Conflict and Cooperation in House Public Works Committee Decision Making*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

James T. Murphy
James T. Murphy*
Affiliation:
Wesley an University
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Abstract

This study of the House Public Works committee examines the relationship between membership goals and the degree of party conflict, identifies conditions of party conflict and cooperation, and links party conflict and cooperation to policies adopted by the House.

Party conflict is the Public Works committee's most striking behavioral characteristic. This party conflict stems from (a) the issues processed by the committee and (b) the partisan program orientations of committee members. Beyond these initial sources of party conflict on Public Works, there is a norm of partisanship adopted by each of the parties on the committee in order to achieve an extra measure of party cohesion. Public Works committee party conflict is, to be sure, often modified by shared interests cutting across party lines. Committee party cooperation stems, however, not from widespread shared interests but, instead, from a fundamental distrust between the parties respecting the allocation of federal largesse. To preclude porkbarreling, Congress has adopted fixed allocation formulas for distributing the boodle on programs likely to involve a majority in each party, thereby constraining the parties on the committee to cooperate on such proposals.

Whether Public Works is united or divided when reporting legislation, the House of Representatives will typically adopt its proposals. This success of the Public Works committee is attributable to a mixture of anticipation and influence.

Type
Articles
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 68 , Issue 1 , March 1974 , pp. 169 - 185
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1974

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Footnotes

*

I wish to express my appreciation to the American Political Science Association for a Congressional Fellowship which gave me the opportunity to be a participant-observer with both the Senate and the House Public Works committees during the first session of the 90th Congress, and to the Brookings Institution for a Research Fellowship in Government which facilitated the preparation of this paper. In addition, I am indebted to David W. Adamany, Richard F. Fenno, Jr., Fred I. Greenstein, Russell D. Murphy, James L. Payne, Nelson W. Polsby, and Hubert J. O'Gorman for many helpful suggestions in the revision of earlier drafts.

References

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37 Since all Bureau of Reclamation projects reported out by the House Interior Committee must go through exactly the same process as the Corps projects, the explanation for party cooperation on Public Works should be just as valid for party cooperation on Interior. And since the Bureau of Reclamation projects —a national allocation issue—constitutes the overwhelming bulk of Interior's legislative proposals, mutual partisan distrust should account for Interior's party cooperation, the most salient characteristic of its behavior. See Fenno, , “Congressional Committees,” pp. 36–37 Google Scholar; also see Inter-Agency Committee on Water Resources, Subcommittee on Evaluation Standards.

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