Separation of power and legislative institutions: The constitutional theory of legislative organization.

Can the President or the Senate affect the balance of power in the House? I find that they can. The reason is Article I, Section 7 of the U.S. Constitution, which requires the House to build lawmaking coalitions with the Senate and/or the President. I show how changes in the Senate or President reshape the set of achievable legislative outcomes which in turn, alters the bargaining power of House members. This alteration affects the extent to which the median member of the House, majority party leaders, or other House members control the legislative agenda. As a result, strategic legislators consider the broader bargaining environment when making decision about policy-relevant rule changes. First, I argue that there are two types of rule changes in the House: those that alter the distribution of power within the House and those that modify the procedural posture of the House vis-a-vis the Senate and the President. Second and most important, I argue that the timing and direction of changes arise from the shifting preferences of the House's constitutional counterparts---the Senate and the President. These shifts affect the strategic calculations different House factions make about policy outcomes. Third, I claim that of crucial importance is the change in policy stance of the Senate and the President relative to the minority faction of the Majority Party (MNF). I maintain that the pivotal actor in determining rule changes that alter the distribution of power within the House and the procedural posture of the House vis-a-vis the other branches is not the Majority or the Minority Party per se, but a pivotal minority faction within the Majority Party. When the preferences of this faction diverge from those of the Senate and the President, the MNF has incentives to coalesce with the Minority Party to support a decentralization of House internal agenda setting powers. My work shows that constitutional requirements can induce House members to make different power-sharing arrangements than they would if they were, as commonly represented in existing theories, unaware of the Senate and President.Ph.D.Political scienceSocial SciencesUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/126969/2/3287633.pd