The Impact of the Australian Ballot on Member Behavior in the U.S. House of Representatives

Abstract

Katz and Sala linked the development of committee property rights in the late-nineteenth-century U.S. House of Representatives to the introduction of the Australian ballot. If, as they posited, members sought personal reputations to carry them to reelection in the new electoral environment, the current article argues that behaviors with more immediate political payoffs also should have changed in ways their theory would predict. The article examines whether committee assignments, floor voting behavior, and the distribution of pork barrel projects changed in predicted ways and finds supportive outcomes, but usually only when the office bloc ballot, and not the party bloc ballot, was in use.

Electoral Reform and Changes in Legislative Behavior: Adoption of the Secret Ballot in Congressional Elections

“…Wittrock et al. () both reevaluate and expand upon Katz and Sala's () earlier work by examining a broader range of legislative behavior. First, they change the focus on committee assignments from tenure to the overall “value” of a member's committee portfolio.…”

Electoral Reform and Parliamentary Debates

“…Katz and Sala (), studying the introduction of the Australian ballot in the United States, find that this shift towards a more candidate‐centered system made legislators less likely to change committees, while Wittrock et al. () find that legislators became less loyal to their party following the reform. Carson and Sievert revisit this reform, but improve the research design by adopting a cross‐over design, that is, “a sequential comparison of units who change between treatment and control” (, 90; see also Imai et al , 782).…”

Making Washington Work: Legislative Entrepreneurship and the Personal Vote from the Gilded Age to the Great Depression

“…Wittrock et al. () show that postreform members exhibited less party loyalty on roll‐call votes and were more successful in securing desired committee assignments and pork barrel projects.…”

“…Scholars credit these reforms with eroding party control over candidates and voters (Ware ), stimulating innovation and career development inside Congress (Katz and Sala ; Kernell ), reducing party loyalty (Wittrock et al. ), and increasing the incumbency advantage (Roberts ). To date, however, little research connects these reforms to bill sponsorship.…”