Scholars who compare political parties invariably conclude that American parties are much weaker than their European counterparts: they are much less cohesive on legislative votes; their influence over the flow of legislation is less complete; they control but a small fraction of campaign money; they exercise almost no control over nominations; the list could go on. Within the American context, observers have commonly concluded that parties influence legislators less than pressure groups, political action committees, or constituents. Much of the literature of the 1970s and 1980s, moreover, was devoted to the thesis that American parties were declining--both in the electoral and the legislative arenas.

If parties are so weak, then what are the organizing principles of American politics? The literature provides a ready stock of answers: In the electoral arena, it is the individual candidates who have the most powerful organizations, who collect the most money, and who define the course of electoral campaigns. In the legislative arena, it is above all the standing committees of Congress--and, in the 1970s and 1980s, their subcommittees--that are the centers of power. The standard wisdom on the postwar Congress was that it had been an exercise first in "committee government," then in "subcommittee government." Party government usually received mention only as something conspicuously absent.

This study reevaluates the role of parties and committees, and the interactions between them, in the post-World War II House of Representatives. Our view is that parties in the House--especially majority parties--are a species of "legislative cartel." These cartels seize the power, theoretically resident in the House, to make rules governing the structure and process of legislation. Possession of this rule-making power leads to two main consequences. First, the legislative process in general--and the committee system in particular--is stacked in favor of majority party interests. Second, because members of the majority party have all the structural advantages, the key players in most legislative deals are members of the majority party and the majority party's central agreements are facilitated by cartel rules and policed by the cartel's leadership.

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