(iPoster) Understanding Committee Assignment Power in State Legislatures

• In Event: Poster Session: Legislative Studies & Politics in the American States
  In Poster Session: Poster Session: Politics in the American States

Abstract

My research examines the power dynamics of committee assignments in state legislatures. While previous studies, such as Fouirnaies and Hall (2018), argue that assignment power increases campaign contributions by $190,000 per election cycle, my analysis challenges this claim by investigating whether assignment power represents a unique source of influence or merely overlaps with broader leadership roles, such as negative agenda control. Since assignment power is granted to Speakers and Majority Leaders, it is possible that its observed effects are a proxy for broader leadership authority, which includes a combination of procedural powers. My findings suggest that leadership positions dilute the influence of assignment power, indicating it serves more as a reflection of broader powers than as an independent mechanism of influence. Furthermore, the effects of assignment power vary significantly across states: in only 12 of 99 legislative chambers does assignment power correlate with increased campaign contributions. Removing certain states and high-leverage individuals from the analysis reduces the substantive effects by nearly 40%. One particularly illuminating case is the Arkansas state legislature, where Fouirnaies and Hall attribute committee assignment power to leadership roles such as the Speaker and Rules Chair. However, in Arkansas, committee assignments are determined by seniority and a lottery system within freshman cohorts. This suggests that Fouirnaies and Hall’s assignment power variable may capture the broader influence of leadership roles rather than committee assignment power alone. To investigate further, I matched Fouirnaies and Hall’s dataset (1995–2004) with the Anzia and Jackman (2013) dataset on state legislative rules. My analysis reveals that Fouirnaies and Hall’s assignment power variable aligns more closely with gatekeeping power than with true committee assignment authority, reinforcing the argument that it reflects procedural authority rather than a distinct source of influence.

Author

• Ayoung Chun, University of California, Los Angeles