The motion to recommit (MTR), a procedure sometimes used in the House, is the subject of recent debate, regarding whether the motion undermines the majority party’s ability to manipulate outcomes in the House (Krehbiel and Meirowitz 2002; Kiewiet and Roust chapter 20; Wolfensberger 2003; Roberts 2004). Most works in this debate suggest at least implicitly that the ability to use the motion confers some advantage on the minority party that it would not otherwise enjoy. Some of these works treat MTR’s primarily as dependent variables whose use is to be explained (Wolfensberger 1991, 2003; Roberts 2004). Consequently, they are heavy on analysis of the minority’s ability to offer (successful) recommital motions; for the most part, however, they imply that the ability to offer MTR’s benefits the minority party, without spelling out the nature of the benefit. Krehbiel and Meirowitz (2003) are an exception, arguing explicitly that the benefit that the minority party gains via MTR’s is the ability to exert significant influence upon the shape of legislative decisions.

To the extent that these studies of the motion’s significance find that it weakens the majority party, they rely largely on theoretical arguments and anecdotal evidence to back up their claims. We examine various data in a more rigorous empirical evaluation than has heretofore been conducted of hypotheses following from the view that the MTR empowers the minority party to affect policy.1 We show that these predictions are at sharp odds with observed behavior, suggesting that the MTR does not undermine the majority party as has been argued.

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