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Replication data for: The Motion to Recommit in the U.S. House of Representatives

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Title Replication data for: The Motion to Recommit in the U.S. House of Representatives
 
Identifier https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/94KWCH
 
Creator Gary W. Cox
Chris Den Hartog
Mathew D. McCubbins
 
Publisher Harvard Dataverse
 
Description 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 (Wolfe
nsberger 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 d
ecisions.


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, suggestin
g that the MTR does not undermine the
majority party as has been argued.
 
Date 2006