Tweeting the Agenda

Straus, Jacob R.; Williams, Raymond

doi:10.4324/9780429466007-6

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…Another theory of Congress (Cartel Theory) posits the majority party wants to maintain its majority and the minority party wants to become the majority (Cox and McCubbins 1993;Straus and Williams 2020). To maintain its status quo, the majority party, especially in the House, has the ability to control the legislative schedule (Sinclair 1995;Cox and McCubbins 2005).…”

Section: Partisanshipmentioning

confidence: 99%

Amending Ethics Committee Sanction Recommendations in the House of Representatives

Straus

2022

Public Integrity

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The Constitution provides Congress with the power to punish and discipline its Members. Since the 90 th Congress (1967Congress ( -1968, the House Ethics Committee has been authorized to investigate allegations of misconduct and recommend punishments. This paper examines seven instances where the House Ethics Committee has recommended a punishment and the House has considered an amendment to increase or decrease the proposed sanction. Using a combination of case studies and a roll call vote data, this paper finds that demographic similarities between the accused and the voting Member (race, party, and state delegation), partisanship, and serving on the Ethics Committee influence whether a Member might choose to support an alternative sanction. For amendments that proposes an increased penalty, same state delegation (negative effect), co-partisanship (positive effect), race (positive effect), ideology (positive effect), and type of scandal (negative effect) matter. For decreased penalties, same state delegation (positive effect), race (positive effect), and ideology (negative effect) matter. For all amendments, being an Ethics Committee member is a strongly negative predictor. These findings imply that committee members attempt to protect the committee's recommendation, that demographic similarities matter when Members are making sanction decisions, and that ideology is a driving factor in deciding to support a change in ethics penalty.

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Section: Partisanshipmentioning

confidence: 99%