Replication data for: Limited Party Government and the Majority Party Revolution in the Nineteenth-Century House

Though we know much about majority party agenda control in the House of Representatives during the “modern” period from the 1890’s forward, far less is known about agenda control prior to that time. There are numerous reasons to suspect that the majority party lacked agenda control during most of the 1800’s. This suggests that we may have missed the greatest variation in majority party agenda control; it also leads to the main question of my dissertation: when and how did the majority party gain control over the legislative process? I argue that, unlike modern House majorities, nineteenth century House majorities did not control the agenda. By the 1880’s, massive increases in the House’s workload, as well as reduced ideological divisions within the majority party, led party members to revolutionize the legislative process in ways that allowed a bare majority to effectively decide which bills the House would pass. In so doing, they boldly stripped the minority party of many powers that it had enjoyed until tha t time. To show this, I first map out the legislative process in the early 1800’s, showing that it differed radically from the modern process, and that it provided limited opportunities for agenda control. After showing that this process repeatedly produced outcomes that most majority party members disliked, I map out changes in the process that occurred across the nineteenth century. I then argue that an acute scarcity of floor time led majority party members to support strong ma jority party agenda control by 1890. I offer evidence to support this claim, as well as evidence showing that, after 1890, legislative outputs changed in ways that reflect majority party agenda control. This has major implications regarding parties’ roles in the contemporary House. The changes of the 1880’s remain in place, and the majority party continues to wield the powers that it seized at that time. From this perspective, variation in majority party agenda control that has occurred since 1890 is minor compared to the revolutionary changes of the late 1800’s, and the majority has wielded a constant high level of agenda influence across the modern era.尽管学界对19世纪90年代以来"现代"时期美国众议院（House of Representatives）的多数党议程控制权（agenda control）已有较多研究，但对该时期之前的议程控制权却知之甚少。 有诸多理由可推断，19世纪大部分时段内多数党并不具备议程控制权。 这意味着我们可能忽略了多数党议程控制权的最大波动区间；同时也引出了我博士论文的核心问题：多数党是在何时、以何种方式获得立法过程控制权的？ 我认为，与现代众议院多数党不同，19世纪的众议院多数党并未掌控议程。 到19世纪80年代，众议院工作量大幅攀升，同时多数党内部的意识形态分歧有所减少，这促使议员们对立法流程进行革新，使得微弱多数党能够有效决定众议院将审议通过哪些法案。 通过此举，他们大胆剥夺了少数党此前一直享有的多项权力。 为论证这一点，我首先梳理了19世纪早期的立法流程，指出其与现代流程存在根本性差异，且仅为议程控制权提供了有限的施展空间。 在证明该流程反复产生多数党多数成员所反感的结果后，我梳理了19世纪期间立法流程的历次变革。 随后我提出，到1890年，全院议事时间的严重匮乏促使多数党议员支持强化本党的议程控制权。 我为此提供了实证支撑，同时也证明1890年后的立法产出变化反映了多数党的议程控制权情况。 这一研究对理解当代众议院中的政党角色具有重要意义。 19世纪80年代的变革沿用至今，多数党仍掌握着当时攫取的各项权力。 由此来看，1890年以来多数党议程控制权的波动与19世纪末的革命性变革相比微不足道，且在整个现代时期，多数党始终保持着较高水平的议程影响力。