A mathematical study of the US House of Representatives reveals clear partisanship 鈥� including stacked committees 鈥� within the House.
While this may not surprise political analysts, the objective analysis contradicts the US Code, which outlines US laws and suggests a just system in which all legislation receives a fair hearing from politicians who put the country鈥檚 interests ahead of their political party鈥檚. The words 鈥渘on-partisan鈥� and 鈥渦nbiased鈥� appear frequently in the code.
Among the study鈥檚 findings is that the membership of the Select Committee on Homeland Security, formed after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, is closely tied to the House Rules Committee, a powerful group involved in the regulation of all committees and House members. But, contrary to expectation, the Homeland Security committee does not have many members in common with the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
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The paper identifies the House Rules, Judiciary, and Homeland Security committees as being the most partisan while the Intelligence committee is one of the least partisan.
The analysis also identifies the House鈥檚 most partisan members. They include Republican representatives Tancredo, Shadegg, Ryun, and Schaffer, and Democrat representatives Schakowsky, McGovern, Solis, Pelosi, and Woolsey.
Pure mathematics
All the conclusions emerge solely from mathematical data, and not from any particular political viewpoint, according to mathematicians Mason Porter, and Peter Mucha, at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, US, and colleagues.
Porter鈥檚 team first constructed a model of how the House would operate if committee members were chosen on a random basis. They then compared this with the actual membership of the committees. They also created a chart showing the ties between the committees based on how many common members they had.
The researchers discovered committee member selection was not random, but instead was stacked. For example, they discovered that a bipartisan subcommittee of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence first handled homeland security, 鈥測et none of the members of that subcommittee ended up on the Select Committee on Homeland Security鈥�, Porter told New 杏吧原创. 鈥淎nd this was despite established protocol for assigning Representatives to these things,鈥� he added. This select committee ended up with a very partisan membership.
Connection king
James Fowler, a political scientist at the University of California, Davis, US, agrees with the findings. He recently conducted network research that concluded Senator John McCain is the most connected member of the current Congress.
Fowler told New 杏吧原创 that political analysts 鈥渉ave known for a long time that there is a great deal of partisanship in the House. Some voters will benefit from partisanship. For example, strong Republicans are happy the Republican majority is currently voting together to pass many Republican policies. Others will not be happy, such as the moderates who believe both parties are too extreme.鈥�
The researchers hope similar methods will be used in future to provide additional insights into the working of the US government, and other political bodies.
Journal reference: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0500191102)