Representation and Congressional Committees

Abstract

Congressional committees are not little legislatures because they do not accurately reflect the full range of interests articulated in the political system or even in the parent houses. Legislators tend to seek assignments on committees which offer them career advancement; committees, in turn, are most vulnerable to interests with direct stakes in their decisions. More generalized interests are thus underrepresented—a fact which reflects the broader biases of pluralist decision making. Shifts in committee control lag behind social and political changes affecting the electorate at large. Reformers should devise measures to make committee membership more responsive to diverse political viewpoints and to subject the committees to stronger countervailing forces by exposing committee work to closer scrutiny and control by other legislators. Ultimately, intensified social and economic interdependencies may reduce this problem by equalizing the impact of any given problem upon individual constituencies.