Good Public Policy Voting in the US Congress: An Explanation of Financial Institutions Politics

Abstract

Two important themes in the literature on the United States Congress are that members experience difficulty transacting complex technical legislation – because most are not experts – and that they make their decisions on the basis of what will help them win re-election, by following the economic preferences of their interest group or electoral constituencies. The few writers who have examined congressional decisionmaking on financial institutions regulatory policy have generally accepted the conventional re-election premise and argued that legislators follow the economic preferences of their interest group of electoral constituencies. Using a case study of how members of a House committee make decisions on complex financial institutions regulatory policy, the article offers an alternative political explanation which takes better account of the complexity of congressional decisionmaking and the specific nature of the policy issues which are decided. Through a close analysis of internal committee politics, the research demonstrates the crucial roles played by subject specialists and the importance of party-mediated cue-passing.