Fighting fire with water: Partisan procedural strategies and the senate appropriations committee
While White (1989) thoroughly examined the House Appropriations Committee after the congressional reforms of the 1960s and 1970s, we begin to offer an updated picture of the counterpart committee in the Senate. We find that there has been considerable change in the behavior of appropriators in the postreform era. Specifically, partisanship within the Senate has increased substantially, but even more interesting is the rise of partisanship within the Appropriations Committee itself. Table motions have become an increasingly partisan device used by the majority party to inhibit minority amending challenges. Indeed, table motions have clearly become the preferred strategy to defend appropriations legislation from attacks on the floor. In spite of the partisan conflict within the Appropriations Committee, we continue to find that committee members retain considerable institutional advantages in relation to nonmembers in affecting funding decisions on the Senate floor. © 1999 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.
