Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Figures and Tables
- Acknowledgments
- Setting the Agenda
- 1 Introduction
- PART I WHY PARTY GOVERNMENT?
- PART II NEGATIVE AGENDA POWER
- 3 Modeling Agenda Power
- 4 The Primacy of Reed's Rules in House Organization
- 5 Final Passage Votes
- 6 The Costs of Agenda Control
- 7 The Textbook Congress and the Committee on Rules
- 8 The Bills Reported from Committee
- 9 Which Way Does Policy Move?
- PART III THE CONSEQUENCES OF POSITIVE AGENDA POWER AND CONDITIONAL PARTY GOVERNMENT
- Appendix
- Addendum
- Bibliography
- Index
- Author Index
5 - Final Passage Votes
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 September 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Figures and Tables
- Acknowledgments
- Setting the Agenda
- 1 Introduction
- PART I WHY PARTY GOVERNMENT?
- PART II NEGATIVE AGENDA POWER
- 3 Modeling Agenda Power
- 4 The Primacy of Reed's Rules in House Organization
- 5 Final Passage Votes
- 6 The Costs of Agenda Control
- 7 The Textbook Congress and the Committee on Rules
- 8 The Bills Reported from Committee
- 9 Which Way Does Policy Move?
- PART III THE CONSEQUENCES OF POSITIVE AGENDA POWER AND CONDITIONAL PARTY GOVERNMENT
- Appendix
- Addendum
- Bibliography
- Index
- Author Index
Summary
Certainly since early in their history, the House of Representatives and the Senate have relied on parties and committees to provide the structure that enables them to get their work done. Parties organize the chambers and provide coordination; committees do most of the substantive work on legislation.
– Sinclair 2002bINTRODUCTION
The Republican majority dominated the agenda of the Ways and Means Committee in the 108th Congress. Of the 64 bills reported by the committee, 61 were sponsored by Republicans. Only three bills sponsored by Democrats made it out of committee and only two of these passed the House. Both successful Democratic bills were sponsored by Tom Lantos (D-CA), both involved relations with Burma, and both passed under suspension of the rules – pursuant to motions made by Republicans – with only two dissenting votes.
In contrast to the broad support that the two Democratic bills garnered on a minor matter, many of the 61 Republican bills reported by Ways and Means were hotly partisan and involved major matters. Perhaps the hottest of all bills reported by Ways and Means concerned pension reform.
In what the Democratic minority dubbed “an egregious abuse of power and a pointless provocation,” House Republicans on Ways and Means used every tactic available to them to push legislation (H.R. 1776) that would reform employer pension plans (Ota, Higa, and Hughes 2003). It all began when Chairman Bill Thomas (R-CA) changed the original version of the bill, brought it up for consideration at an 11:00 p.m. meeting of the committee, and then insisted that all members be ready to vote on it the next morning.
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- Information
- Setting the AgendaResponsible Party Government in the U.S. House of Representatives, pp. 87 - 105Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2005