Title:      Congressional Careers, Committee Assignments, and
Seniority Randomization in the U.S. House of Representatives

Authors:    Michael Kellermann, Kenneth Shepsle

Entrydate:  2008-02-01 12:47:35

Keywords:   Congress, committees, seniority, randomization

Abstract:   This paper estimates the effects of initial
committee seniority on the career outcomes of Democratic members
of the House of Representatives from 1949 to 2006. When more than
one freshman representative is assigned to a committee, positions
in the seniority queue are established by lottery. This ensures
that queue positions are uncorrelated in expectation with other
legislator characteristics within these groups. This natural
experiment allows us to estimate the causal effect of seniority
on a variety of outcomes. Lower ranked committee members are
less likely to serve as subcommittee chairs on their initial
committee, are more likely to transfer to other committees, and
have fewer sponsored bills passed in the jurisdiction of their
initial committee. On the other hand, there is little evidence
that the seniority randomization has a net effect on reelection,
terms of service in the House, or the total number of sponsored
bills passed.

http://polmeth.wustl.edu/retrieve.php?id=732

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