Building Majorities for Policy Changes in the House of Representatives

This paper attempts to determine whether member replacement or member conversion accounts for policy change in the U.S. Congress. Unlike previous work in this area we focus on the number of votes necessary for final passage rather than on scale scores. We investigate policy changes in civil rights and welfare legislation during the mid-1960s, a period characterized by significant policy changes. The results show that depending upon the policy area conversion, replacement, and/or a combination of these can account for policy shifts. Perhaps the most interesting finding is that unlike previous research we find that policy change can occur quickly, even in an area like civil rights which is dominated by constituency effects.