where a bill is passed by one house and amended in the other, is to appoint a special conference committee, composed of the leading members of the regular standing committees having jurisdiction over the bill in each house, to agree on a compromise measure and report it in identical form to each house. These reports are always privileged, and receive immediate consideration regardless of the regular order. If they are made towards the close of the session the two houses must adopt them as made, or accept responsibility for the defeat of the legislation. Where the leaders wish to control the action of the legislature on a measure, a favorite plan is to procure the adoption of conflicting committee reports in each house and the reference of the measure to a conference committee. The latter committee they are sure to control and they are consequently able to rewrite the measure, if they wish, and to bring it to pass that it shall be adopted, if at all, on terms satisfactory to themselves. In some legislatures where there is a time limit, a special committee on the revision of the calendar (that is, the list of pending measures in their regular order) is appointed towards the close of the session. The membership of this committee is, of course, dictated by the "organization," and it determines what measures shall thereafter be considered, and the order of consideration. Such a committee, consisting as a rule of not more than five members of the lower house and three of the upper, practically controls the business of the legislature for the rest of the session. It is in itself a bicameral legislature in miniature, in favor of which the larger body abdicates its constitutional powers.

A specimen of this type of procedure at its worst is afforded by the rules of the Illinois legislature. There are in the house sixty-eight committees, the largest, the committee on finance, having forty-four members. Few of the committees have less than fifteen members. Members of the house serve on the average on more than twelve committees each. There are in the senate forty-four committees, having on the average twenty members each. Some members serve on more than twenty different committees. "The committee system of Illinois makes normal legislative action all but impossible. The natural result is that political ringsters find a fertile field for their work. To push legislation through, power must be concentrated in the

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hands of a few, who are governed by no rules and cannot be held responsible by the honest but unorganized majority. Business cannot be carried on under the rules, so it is rushed through under suspension of the rules,' and the actual procedure even at other times bears only a faint resemblance to that pictured by the regulations." In at least three-fourths of the states the legislative committees are too large and too numerous. Under such circumstances it is difficult, even when an honest majority are trying to control legislative proceedings, to secure a full attendance at committee meetings and prompt action. Almost universally the actual work of committees is done in secret or "executive" session, and there is no provision for roll-calls on contested measures, or for any record of committee proceedings. In those states where the committees are not required by standing rule, and cannot easily be required by special order, to report all bills, a bill may be killed in committee, and every man in the legislature could claim to have supported it. Nothing to the contrary could be shown from the record. A more irresponsible procedure could not be devised.2

This system of procedure, which may be described as the normal system because it exists in the greater number of states, substitutes the rule of the committees for the rule of the majority. This result was first clearly pointed out by the distinguished author of the brilliant study in American politics, entitled Congressional Government, written thirty years ago, when the system prevailed in Congress as well as in most of the states. “I know not how better to describe our form of government in a single phrase," he wrote, "than by calling it a government by the chairmen of the standing committees. . . This disintegrate ministry .. has many peculiarities. In the first place, it is made up of the elders of the assembly, for by custom seniority in... service determines the bestowal of the principal chairmanships; in the second place, it is constituted of selfish and warring elements, for chairman fights against chairman for use of the time of the assembly. ; in the third place, . . . it consists of the dissociated heads of forty-eight 'little legislatures'

1 C. L. Jones, Statute Law Making in the United States, pp. 18-19.

2 See Nebraska Legislative Reference Bureau, Bulletin No. 3, Legislative Proredure in the Forty-Eight States, pp. 16-17.

(to borrow Senator Hoar's apt name for the committees); and in the fourth place it is instituted by appointment from Mr. Speaker. . . . It is highly interesting to note the extraordinary power accruing to Mr. Speaker through this pregnant prerogative of appointing the standing committees of the house. . . . The most esteemed writers upon our constitution have failed to observe, not only that the standing committees are the most essential machinery of our governmental system, but also that the speaker of the house of representatives is the most powerful functionary of that system. So sovereign is he within the wide sphere of his influence that one could wish for accurate knowledge as to the actual extent of his power. But Mr. Speaker's powers cannot be known accurately, because they vary with the character of Mr. Speaker." 1

THE NEW YORK COMMITTEE SYSTEM

The

Since the publication of Congressional Government a striking change has taken place in the operation of the committee system in Congress, and a similar change has taken place in a few of the states. In Congress the power of the speaker grew steadily greater, until at last, in 1910, it had become so great that it was insupportable. The chief source of the increased power of the speaker was his control of the committee on rules, and the gradual extension of the highest privileges to this committee. The speaker controlled the committee on rules because he was the chairman of the committee and held the decisive vote. other four members were evenly divided between the two major parties. The committee on rules had become highly privileged because, with the increase in the membership and business of Congress, party exigencies demanded an increase in the power to control its deliberations. The power which had once been distributed among a number of semi-independent committee chairmen needed to be centralized. The committee on rules was accordingly privileged to meet at any time, even during the sittings of the house, to report at any time, interrupting the consideration

1 Woodrow Wilson, Congressional Government (ed. of 1900), pp. 102-104. For an account of the origin of the committee system in American legislatures, see J. F. Jameson, "The Origin of the Standing Committee System in American Legislative Bodies, Pol. Sci. Quart., ix, 2.

of the regular order, and to obtain immediate consideration for its reports. The committee was granted exclusive jurisdiction over all proposals to change the rules or to adopt any special order of business, and was authorized to bring in a special rule at any time without waiting for a proposal for such a rule to be referred to it by the house. Special rules reported by the committee were made effective, if adopted by a majority of the house, but without a special report from the committee the house could not depart from the regular order except by a two-thirds vote. Thus the committee on rules practically controlled the order of business, at least so far as contentious matters were concerned. Non-contentious matters, usually disposed of, if at all, by unanimous consent, could be controlled by the speaker alone. In short, the combination of the power of recognition, appointment, and control of the committee on rules made the speaker a veritable dictator in the house of representatives. A similar development in the influence of the speaker took place in those states where business was heavy, where members were numerous, where time was short, and where party lines were closely drawn. This was notably the case in the state of New York.

The dictatorial power of the speaker became objectionable in Congress for three reasons. First, because it menaced unduly the interests of the minority party. The minority leaders found that, under the operation of special rules reported by the committee on rules for the purpose of rushing party measures through their several stages to enactment, they were deprived of adequate facilities for criticism of the majority's measures and for exposition of their own. Secondly, it was oppressive to the unprivileged members of the majority party. Insurgent members in particular found that the means of coercion in the hands of the speaker were so effective as to reduce them to impotence unless they supported the party program. Thirdly, it threatened to destroy the liberty of ordinary members, without regard to their party affiliation, with respect to the promotion of private and local measures. In 1910 the speaker was removed from the committee on rules, the committee was enlarged, and the members were elected by the house itself. In 1911 the power of appointment was taken from the speaker and conferred upon the committee on ways and means. The majority party members of this com

mittee were chosen by the party caucus, and the caucus adopted the practice of considering the more important pieces of proposed legislation before they were reported out of committee, and instructing the party leaders what action should be taken. These reforms accomplished little for the protection of the minority party and the individual members, but they transferred the control of the legislative machinery from the speaker to the party caucus. The reform of the rules in the national house of representatives stimulated the reform of procedure in the state legislatures, but no state went so far as Congress in curbing the power of the speaker and in developing the authority of the party caucus. In New York the speaker remains chairman of the committee on rules. In that state the congressional system, as it existed prior to the reform of 1910-11, still holds sway.

WORKING OF METHODS OF PROCEDURE

The normal system of legislative procedure and what may now be described as the New York system have much in common. Under either system the speaker is the dominant personality in the business of legislation. Under either system a handful of privileged members outweigh all the rest. Under either system the unprivileged member finds himself a mere cog in a machine, so far as the enactment of legislation is concerned. The more mechanically he performs the duties required of him by the legislative leaders, the more successful he can hope to be in serving the special interests of his own district. A new member especially (and a substantial portion of the membership of every legislative body is always new) is helpless without the favor of the "organization." As former Speaker Smith of the New York assembly once candidly confessed: "Unquestionably no matter how able he may be, he cannot possibly understand the rules. . . in one year. " It is not surprising that under such circumstances members seem to be chiefly interested in special rather than in general legislation. Elihu Root declared in his valedictory address to the New York constitutional convention of 1915: "We found that the legislature of the state had declined in public esteem, and that the majority of members of the legislature were

1 New York Constitutional Convention of 1915, Record, p. 1213.