The Conventional Wisdom on Party Ratios
Stage four concerns the establishment of committee sizes and party ratios. Shepsle
(1978) notes, however, that “[o]ur knowledge of the maneuvers by which committee slots
are manufactured in the early days of a new Congress is quite limited,” and “[t]he only
public aspect of the negotiation of the committee structure is the actual structure that
emerges. Descriptive detail of other aspects of structure negotiation is sketchy. An
occasional bit of information emerges from journalistic accounts of momentous events.”
The process that generated stage four outcomes was generally hidden, even to Shepsle
who had considerable access. This lack of descriptive detail has not, however, prevented
scholars from generalizing about what drives the outcomes eventually observed. Shepsle
notes that even though “minority representation on committees is at the majority’s
pleasure,” the minority party “has come to expect a fair share of the committee seats.
The minority, that is, expects its proportion of seats on most committees to be
approximately its chamber proportion. The majority party generally maintains
extraordinary majorities on the two money committees and the agenda committee.” As
evidence of this general proportionality principle, Shepsle lists chamber ratios and
committee ratios for the 86
th
through 94
th
Congresses.
Many subsequent scholars have commented similarly on House committee party ratios.
Krehbiel (1993) examines House committees in the 99
th
Congress and notes that
“[c]onsistent with conventional wisdom, a large majority of committees lie within one
seat of proportionality … and a handful of committees give a slight proportional
advantage to the minority party.” Examining House and Senate committees, Smith and
Deering (1997) report that “party ratios on most House and Senate committees are close
Convention