From representativeness to efficiency to deliberative capacity and openness, Alan Rosenthal's fine paper demonstrates how the diverse normative benchmarks we use to evaluate legislatures are difficult to define and often are mutually exclusive. Moreover, scholars have only recently sought to systematically analyze the "nitty-gritty" of legislative organization that is of interest to reformers such as Rep. Hamilton. So our goals here are modest. Rather than explore a large number of normative criteria and legislative features, we focus on one benchmark that we agree is critical to a good legislature--the provision of policy-relevant information to lawmakers. And our focus is on a single institutional arrangement--committee jurisdictional boundaries. 

The congressional environment is rife with competing informational sources, and the days of committee-based informational monopolies are long gone, if they ever really existed to begin with. Still, members often are uncertain about how to evaluate the abundance of information that is available to them. Which experts and reports should lawmakers believe? Scholars such as Arnold (1990) and Krehbiel (1991) maintain that legislators typically have firm views about the policy-making outcomes that they and their constituents prefer. But considerable uncertainty can exist about the relationships between specific policy proposals and the set of possible policy outcomes. An environmentalist lawmaker may have firm preferences for cleaner air, but be uncertain about the legislative language that will best achieve that end. Based on our combined experience as participant-observers on Capitol Hill, we think that this characterization of policy uncertainty in a legislature reflects very well the practical exigencies of the congressional process. Further, some of the most respected reformers in Congress, such as Hamilton and the late Rep. Richard Bolling, D-Mo, have emphasized expertise and information in developing comprehensive reform plans for the institution. "Solutions to a legislative problem," said Bolling, "depend on the right kind of information." 

What legislative structures especially enhance the ability of lawmakers to understand the likely policy consequences of legislative proposals? Asked this question, most members of Congress will emphasize the role of the standing committee system. Then what characteristics of a committee system most directly affect the quality of the information lawmakers receive? Our view is that jurisdictional boundaries are crucial here, because they determine the range of interests and viewpoints that surface during the committee process, and thus the extent to which such information is balanced or tilted. 

Consider the House and Senate Veterans' Affairs Committees, which by most accounts are dominated by organized groups that purport to represent the interests of America's military veterans. From the selection of hearings topics and witnesses to the contents of committee reports, the information and legislation produced by the panels is designed to benefit veterans. In contrast, scan the jurisdiction of the House Commerce Committee, which ranges from health care and energy to telecommunications and finance. A vast array of interests and constituency groups are drawn to this panel; the committee's membership is characterized by diverse policy preferences on major issues; and most observers agree that the information and legislation it produces reflect the informational needs and policy mood of the entire House. In short, committee jurisdictions can have significant consequences for the quantity and quality of information available to lawmakers. 

Political scientists are beginning to accumulate careful empirical research about the implications of overlapping committee jurisdictions. Jones, Baumgartner, and Talbert (1993) and King (1997) marshal evidence that jurisdictional boundaries are inherently diffuse. As a policy area increases in salience, lawmakers not on the primary committee of jurisdiction will seek to participate early in the process, and panels with jurisdictions related to the lead committee will seek to frame the issue so that they can legislate. Such jurisdictional overlaps may enhance the informational capacity of a legislature by increasing the range of interests active at the committee stage. Indeed, the 1970s House reformers institutionalized the multiple referral of legislation in part to broaden the base of expertise on complex legislation. 

One problem with multiple referrals is that the competing informational signals and legislative proposals the various committees produce need to be reconciled at some point. This is typically done in the Rules Committee or on the floor, with party leaders playing pivotal roles. As legislation moves from standing committees to the Rules panel to the floor, the preferences of members tend to become more entrenched, complicating efforts to reconcile the divergent policy views. As generalists, party leaders typically are not as well suited to interpret complex policy information or to resolve substantive disagreements as are expert standing committee members. As a result, prominent reformers have argued that the committee system in Congress should be structured so that competing interests are encouraged, if not forced, to confront one another within a single committee of jurisdiction.

Consider the rationale for the failed Bolling reform plan of 1974. Rep. Bolling and his colleagues sought to reshuffle jurisdictional boundaries in the House to promote a "balance of interests" in major policy areas such as energy, the environment, and health care. Unfortunately, the Bolling plan was soundly defeated by powerful lawmakers and constituency groups seeking to protect their turf. In 1993, Senator Pete Domenici, R-NM, developed a plan to overhaul Senate Committee jurisdictions that likewise aimed at grouping competing interests (e.g. energy firms and environmental groups) together within individual committee boundaries. His plan never got off the ground. 

We believe that a good legislature--an assembly that, among other things, maximizes the ability of lawmakers to evaluate and utilize diverse policy information in a timely fashion--would have a committee system structured along the lines of the Bolling and Domenici proposals. Legislative responsibilities should be distributed fairly evenly across different panels, so that the skills of the full membership can be harnessed. And issues should be organized within jurisdictions so that competing interests are induced to confront each other's policy arguments as early as possible in the legislative process. Keith Krehbiel (1991) has asserted that current committee assignment practices have already produced House and Senate committees with heterogeneous policy preferences, but the evidence here is mixed (Hall and Grofman, 1990; Londregan and Snyder, 1994; Adler and Lapinski, 1997). In our view, a number of existing panels (Agriculture, Small Business, and Veterans' Affairs come immediately to mind) are excessively oriented toward narrow constituencies and are suspect as sources of balanced policy information. 

Committee boundaries are just one feature of a legislature, and informed observers will disagree about the proper criteria for establishing jurisdictions. For instance, during our stint as staffers to Hamilton's 1993 joint reform panel, more than thirty distinct plans were drafted to realign committee boundaries. Most were intended to promote different goals, such as workload parity or committee correspondence with executive branch agencies. We believe that normative discourse about legislatures should weigh heavily the importance of expertise and the institution's capacity to harness policy-relevant information for informed decision making. Further, we suggest that a major emphasis of such discourse should be on the structure of the standing committee system, especially the delineation of jurisdictional boundaries.

References

Adler, E. Scott, and John S. Lapinski. 1997. "Demand-Side Theory and Congressional Committee Composition: A Constituency Characteristics Approach." American Journal of Political Science 41:895-918.

Arnold, R. Douglas. 1990. The Logic of Congressional Action. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. 

Hall, Richard, and Bernard Grofman. 1990. "The Committee Assignment Process and the Conditional Nature of Committee Bias." American Political Science Review 84:1149-66. 

Jones, Bryan D., Frank R. Baumgartner, and Jeffery C. Talbert. 1993. "The Destruction of Issue Monopolies in Congress." American Political Science Review 87:657-71. 

King, David C. 1997. Turf Wars. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 

Krehbiel, Keith. 1991. Information and Legislative Organization. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. 

Londregan, John, and James Snyder, Jr. 1994. "Comparing Committee and Floor Preferences." Legislative Studies Quarterly 19:223-66.