Military Committee Membership and Defense-Related Benefits in the House of Representatives

CONVENTIONAL wisdom about Congress holds that membership on a standing committee tends to be associated with constituency benefits in substantive policy areas under the jurisdiction of the committee. Indeed, according to Nicholas A. Masters, committee assignments in the House are likely to be based on the principle that the member should be placed where he can best serve his constituents?. The notion of constituency benefits is inferred when it is pointed out that the Interior Committees are dominated by members from the seventeen reclamation states of the west and that urban Democrats are believed to