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
4 - The Primacy of Reed's Rules in House Organization
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
Our government is founded on the doctrine that if 100 citizens think one way and 101 think the other, the 101 are right. It is the old doctrine that the majority must govern. Indeed, you have no choice. If the majority does not govern, the minority will; and if the tyranny of the majority is hard, the tyranny of the minority is simply unendurable. The rules, then, ought to be so arranged as to facilitate the action of the majority.
– Thomas Brackett Reed 1887Besides giving the chair the power to count a quorum and to refuse to entertain motions it regarded as dilatory, the rules provided that the Rules Committee should write for each bill a special rule that would determine the conditions under which the bill would be considered. Since Reed was the dominant member of the Rules Committee, this last measure increased his power still further. The Democrats had warned darkly that ‘the Speaker, instead of being as for the past one hundred years the servant of the House, shall be its master.”
– Cheney and Cheney 1983INTRODUCTION
In this chapter, we examine the rules and organization of the post-Reconstruction House of Representatives. We begin by systematically describing changes in House rules and organization in the period 1880–1988 (the 46th to 100th Congresses).
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Setting the AgendaResponsible Party Government in the U.S. House of Representatives, pp. 50 - 86Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2005