The Politics of Talk: Unconstrained Floor Time in the U.S. House of Representatives

Abstract

One- and five-minute morning speeches and special orders at the end of the day provide members of the House of Representative the opportunity to express themselves to a national audience. We hypothesize that these opportunities for unconstrained floor time can be used either to further a member's electoral prospects or to shape the policy debate. Using data on House members' behavior during the One-hundred Third Congress, we show that the use of unconstrained floor time is more consistent with policy based than electorally based explanations. In particular, we demonstrate that unconstrained floor time is used disproportionately by ideologically extreme members and by members of the minority party--both of whom are on the outside when it comes to policy influence.