| dc.description |
This paper examines the impact of increasingly common congressional committee jurisdictional
turf wars on policy outcomes. It develops a theoretical model that shows how legislators balance
the benefits of expanded committee jurisdiction against preferred policy outcomes, yielding
predictions that are different from the traditional committee-dominance theories. The theory
predicts that a) senior members, and members who are in safe districts are most likely to challenge
another committee's jurisdiction; b) policy proposals may be initiated off the proposer's ideal
point in order to obtain jurisdiction over an issue; c) in many cases, policy outcomes will be more
moderate with jurisdictional fights than they would be without these turf wars. The paper tests the
implications of the theory examining proposed Internet intellectual property protection legislation
to reform electronic database law in the 106th Congress. |
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