3
• Formal procedures remain unchanged as the Republican Party gradually
gained more seats in southern state legislatures;
• The Republican Party makes major alterations to the “old” rules once in
power;
• The Democratic majority imposes formal limits on minority procedural
rights to limit the power of a growing minority (Dion 1997); and/or
• The Democratic majority expands minority rights preparing for a time
when they would be in the minority, hoping that a new Republican majority
would observe a “norm of reciprocity” and leave minority procedural rights
intact once in power (Binder 1997).
Legislative Chambers, Party Power, and Procedural Adoption
Recently, political scientists have taken a renewed interest in studying the
development of legislative structures and procedures. Many of these studies have
attempted to account for the role that political parties play in this process (Binder 1997;
Dion 1997; Wright and Schaffner 2001; Dion and Huber 1996; Hedlund and Hamm
1996; Shickler and Rich 1997; Cox and McCubbins 1997; Binder, Lawrence and
Maltzman 1999; Fink 2000; Carruba and Volden 2000; Aldrich and Battista 2001;
Hamm, Hedlund and Martorano 2001; Martorano, Hamm and Hedlund 2000; Martorano
2001, 2002a, 2002b, forthcoming). In particular, much of the congressional research in
this area explores the role of majority party size and strength on the expansion and
contraction of minority procedural rights (e.g. Binder 1997; Dion 1997; Fink 2000).
The theories and analyses concerning the expansion and contraction of minority
procedural rights of Sarah Binder (1997) and Douglas Dion (1997) provide a theoretical
starting point for assessing the impact of partisan realignment in the southern United
States. The theories of both authors make the basic assertion that the existence of
legislative procedures that give the minority party the ability to impact the policy making
Convention