Discharge petitions and the conditional nature of agenda control in the U.S. House of Representatives

摘要: While complementary in many ways, the cartel and conditional party government (CPG) theories of legislative power have disparate expectations for stability majority party’s negative agenda control. Cartel theorists contend that control is relatively constant over time, while CPG proponents suggest this type veto varies with intra-party preference cohesion inter-party distinction. In article, we enter debate by considering an alternative under-explored indicator control: participation discharge petition efforts. Our findings demonstrate instability ability to efforts, (co)sponsors showing a significantly greater likelihood ‘waffling’ during periods stronger unity more vigorous leadership power.