The Politics of Speaker Cannon's Committee Assignments

Abstract

decision-making process. erhaps the most fabled example of the Speaker's use of institutional power is Speaker Joseph Cannon's appointment of committees in the early twentieth century (Jones 1968). Conventional wisdom holds that Cannon used his unilateral control over assignments to further a variety of political goals, including securing Cannon's own position as House leader. Although Cannon's critics insisted that Cannon manipulated committee assignments for his own purposes (Norris 1946), scholarly views of his assignments offer a much more complicated portrait (Chiu 1928; Polsby, Gallaher, and Rundquist 1969; Shepsle 1978; and Krehbiel and Wiseman forthcoming). We use newly discovered archival evidence-personal notebooks maintained by Cannon's staff for the Speaker's use-to enrich our understanding of the assignment process during an earlier set of legislative institutions. We build upon previous portraits of Cannon's assignment practices in two important respects. First, we demonstrate that Cannon was a strategic leader who systematically employed different assignment criteria at different stages of his speakership. Whereas during his first term in office (the 58th Congress, 1903-1905) Cannon used his powers to promote party loyalty, at the start of the 61st Congress (1909-1911), Cannon used his power to punish members whom he viewed as personally disloyal. Second, we suggest that assignment decisions are shaped by auxiliary actors inside and outside the House chamber.