The Electoral Cost of Committee Chairs in a Post-Seniority Era

The role of seniority in the Congresses of the twentieth century has been well documented by congressional scholars and political observers alike. For most of that century seniority was akin to power. However, over the course of the last twenty-five years we have observed the weakening of the institution of seniority. One area where this weakening is especially apparent is in the selection of committee chairs. Historically committee chairs were selected on the basis of their seniority. Following the Republican takeover of the House in 1994, party leadership began assigning committee chairs to committee members who demonstrated loyalty to the party. Drawing on elections literature that finds linkages between the partisan loyalty of a member and a decrease in electoral success I evaluate whether a loyalty-based selection system puts committee chairs at an electoral disadvantage. My results demonstrate that institutional changes designed to induce party loyalty in committee chairs can have adverse effects on the electoral vote share of said chairs. However, I fail to find evidence that committee chairs selected under a loyalty-based selection system do any worse electorally relative to rank-and-file members in similar districts.Master of Art