Individual Incentives and Institutional Imperatives: Committee Jurisdiction and Long-Term Health Care

This paper focuses on the degree to which a legislator's institutional position accounts for his or her willingness to punish violations of norms. The case comes from the 100th Congress, where Rep. Claude Pepper proposed a rule that would have forced consideration of a long-term health care bill without first going through the committees of jurisdiction and without following normal discharge procedures. Empirical analysis of the floor vote on the rule suggests that members were not guided in their vote by the fact that procedural norms had been violated but rather voted based on personal preferences. In particular, the analysis demonstrates that those members expected to be most likely to punish the violation did not do so.