Remodeling the U.S. House - Koopman 1
Summary : This new book, Remodeling the U.S. House: Republican Control of the House of
Representatives will be ready for the publisher in May 2001. It will present a theoretically distinct, timely, and thorough look at the changes Republicans have wrought in the U.S. House of
Representatives since their taking control after the elections of 1994. Theoretically distinct, because it will place the role and functions of the national legislature in a larger constitutional, political, and social context. Timely, because the 2000 elections will either mark the end of
Republican control of the House, or prove the GOP's successful transition to a "post-Gingrich" era. Thorough, because sufficient time will have passed to fairly evaluate Republican changes to, or preservation of, the institutions and processes of the House since the GOP took the majority in
1994.
The title's inclusion of the word model has an intentional double meaning. The first implies a need to develop a better analytical model of the role of the legislature in the national governmental system based on the views and actions of Republicans. The second meaning implies that Republican control changed but did not fundamentally restructure the U.S. House, much like remodeling a house is a middle way between demolishing and rebuilding it, or leaving it untouched.
A.
Rationale for the work
Subject matter : This book will be a comprehensive look at the changes made by Republicans in the institutions and processes of the Congress, focusing on the House but with some attention to support agencies and joint offices or functions with the Senate.
Distinctiveness : There have been a number of scholarly books that consider to some extent changes made by Republicans to the House. In the first years of the Republican House, scholars were busy simply identifying the new cast of characters, cataloging the numerous institutional and procedural changes, and providing short-term comparisons to previous Democratic rules and practices (Bader 1996; Gimpel 1996, Fenno 1997; Loomis 1996, 1998; Sinclair 1997). These changes are now starting to be put in a broader context (Moen and Copeland 1999, Rae and
Campbell 1999, Wiesberg and Patterson 1998, Barnett 1999). More popular books written soon after the Republican takeover generally overestimated the power of Republicans to change the institution and the political culture of Washington (Balz and Brownstein 1996, Gingrich 1995).
There are several limitations to the current literature. First, the current literature usually contains hidden or at least unclear assumptions that conform to a particular view of the House as it developed under Democratic control from 1954 to 1994. To the extent that Republicans have different but equally legitimate views of the role and functions of Congress, current literature does not do them justice. Remodeling the U.S. House will present an argument by which these hidden assumptions are made explicit and therefore part of the analysis of Congress. Second, many of these works emphasize one or a few aspects of congressional reform, and all of them overlook important institutional management changes that were a critical part of the Republican agenda as the party took control of the House in 1995. Remodeling the U.S. House will include detail on these changes.
As a result of the limited analysis, the scholarly community's assessment of the Republican
House illustrates the community's uncertainty over precisely what to look for and how to evaluate it. There is nothing close to consensus on Republican changes, or even which changes are important. Some scholars are mostly critical of what Republicans have done. Fenno (1997) harshly judged House Republicans in their first two years of control, arguing that they went "too far, too fast" in restructuring the House, misinterpreting the 1994 election mandate, and pushing

Remodeling the U.S. House - Koopman 2 through a legislative agenda. Oppenheimer (1997) has been critical of several aspects of early
Republican reforms. Limiting the terms of committee chairs and the Speaker limits the power and prestige of the House in negotiating with executive branch, and cutting total committee staff numbers by one-third makes oversight more difficult and makes Congress rely on lobbyists and executive branch officials. Legislative changes, especially enhanced rescission, (more popularly if incorrectly know as "line-item veto") ceded too much power to the presidency. Evans and
Oleszek (1997) gave diverse assessments to selective aspects of congressional operations. They supported Republican moves to increase leadership authority, but were cautious about changes that reined in committees and reduced their staff and resources. They were also disappointed that floor deliberations were opened up only slightly, and mostly glossed over Republican changes to restore congressional integrity by privatizing and contracting out services. Edited volumes such as Rae and Campbell 1999 also provide decidedly mixed reviews.
Other scholars are more positive. Gimpel (1996) wrote favorably of the "Contract with
America" period and asserted that it showed the House could be more forceful in setting the national agenda. Rae (1998) was quite sympathetic to the motives and actions of House
Republicans, and provided a generally positive assessment of their attempts to make the House, at least temporarily, more dominant in national agenda setting. Some argued that (now former)
Speaker Gingrich's charismatic "transformational" approach to leadership centralized accountability and responsibility (Stid 1996; Owens 1997), making congressional dominance of the president possible and effective. Others saw a widespread increase in procedural fairness with the Republican takeover (DeGregorio 1998). Barnett (1999) has seen a largely positive influence of the large 1994 Republican class in the Congress, but his interest is far more on the side of improving current theories of legislative behavior.
To try to clarify some of the resulting confusion, Remodeling the U.S. House will first present a list of criteria over how to best evaluate legislatures, hoping to construct a clear and defensible set of principles by which a more consistent and comprehensive evaluation can take place. It will begin this task by summarizing and extending recent research that has largely focused on comparative state legislative systems. To expand further, one promising set of criteria was proposed in a recent APSA Legislative Studies Section Newsletter (Loomis 1998). The generally advanced criteria, most of which were set out by Rosenthal (1998) were:

Capacity : the resources and wherewithal to act as a legislature in terms of time in session, size of professional staff, and adequacy of facilities and technology.

Institutionalism: individual legislators' identification with the legislature, and dedication to make it a legitimate partner in government with the executive and judiciary.

Balanced power : sufficient independence from the executive to initiate policy proposals and to substantially modify those offered by the executive.

Representational quality : a complex factor including substantial political equality of electoral districts, descriptive representation of societal groups within the legislature, substantive representation of widely-shared public views, adequate constituent service capabilities, citizen and group access, civic educational capacity, and the responsiveness of laws to public views.

Lawmaking quality : participation in budget-making and oversight, relatively dispersed power, strong leadership, majority party policymaking power with minority rights in

Remodeling the U.S. House - Koopman 3 deliberation, and a match between stated problems and the content of legislation.

Workload rationality . A companion article by Evans and Oleszek (1998, 12) added an additional criterion for committees, what could be called "workload rationality," that
"[l]egislative responsibilities… be distributed fairly evenly across different panels," and issues "organized within jurisdictions so that competing interests are induced to confront each other's policy arguments as early as possible in the legislative process."
The first three criteria are three aspects of the foundational requirement of a legislature -- that it have enough power, resources and competent members to operate as an independent co-equal branch of the relevant government of which it is a part. These criteria can be seen as defining the legislature's strategic position versus other important political actors.
The latter criteria are a slightly modified restatement of the established notion that there are three main legislative functions -- representation, lawmaking, and oversight -- and that a good legislature should excel in these functions (Keefe 1988; Rieselbach 1995; Ripley 1988).
These two sets of criteria are relevant to the U.S. Congress, because they raise important issues in evaluating the Congress, particularly the House of Representatives, during times of more radical change. Remodeling the U.S. House will first seek to evaluate Republican changes to the House according to these or similar criteria.
Unique perspective . I bring several unique, or at least unusual, perspectives to this project.
First, I have a great concern for the institutional and management issues involved in running the House because of my academic interests and my work on Capitol Hill in various administrative and legislative positions in the last fifteen years of Democratic control of
Congress (see enclosed vita). Second, I have good personal connections with many members and key staff persons of the current majority party, giving me almost unparalleled access to and knowledge of most of the key actors in the Republican House. Third, my previous book on the House, Hostile Takeover , correctly and perceptively described the range of Republican attitudes toward the House and its functions, and anticipated many of the internal tensions the new majority party has experienced since 1994.
Market . This book is mostly for the college market, particularly graduate or undergraduate courses in Congress. It would also be of interest to the media and to an educated public audience with interest in Congress.
Timeliness and timeline (see plan of the work below). I would plan to complete the introductory and theoretical chapters during the summer and fall of 2000. I have already conducted one round of interviews with key members and staff on this subject (in the summer of 1998). These interviews will form the basis for a rough draft of the entire book, which I will complete by January 2001. I plan to do another round of personal interviews with key staff and members, and possibly a written questionnaire, during January - May 2001 when I am in Washington, D.C. supervising our college's semester in Washington, DC program.
These interviews will provide the basis for a concluding chapter or chapters, and provide fresh evidence to add throughout the book.
B. Plan for the work, or basic structure or chapters
Introduction : The introduction (probably a foreword plus an introductory chapter) will include a critique of the current study of Congress and Republicans. It will start with re-examining the charge of Republican "congress bashing" during the years of the Democratic majority, pointing

Remodeling the U.S. House - Koopman 4 out that there is a distinction between being critical of Congress generally and being critical of the way in which the majority party managed Congress. Second, it will develop a list of criteria that will result in several "models" of possible congressional functions, especially its relationship with the president and the states. Third, it will develop theory on those issues in congressional research that are important but often overlooked, the strategic context issues mentioned above, and the issues of House management.
The Republicans . This section (probably a chapter) would review the key players in the
Republican House, and outline how these key players might be distinct from other Republican factions in the House and, more significantly, the previous Democratic regime. Particular attention will be paid to how these key Republicans viewed the strategic context and management issues described in the introduction.
Institutional reform . This section, probably two chapters, will outline my view of institutional reform, with these specific elements. One, that reform is a "nested" process in that one cannot separate institutional and management reforms from the more directly legislative process and committee organizational reforms. Two, reform is an ongoing process that attempt to respond both to outside pressures and to prior internal experience with old or reformed structures and processes. Thus one could expect both continuities and discontinuities in reform efforts when the
Republicans became the majority. Three, reform is a partisan and ideological process, and scholars must present fairly the partisanship and ideology of the majority party and the consequences for congressional organization and process that these views imply.
The discussion will be divided into these reform areas (not necessarily in this order):
 legislative process reforms
 committee structure reforms
 non-legislative staff reforms
 management reforms
Issue agenda and direction . This section (probably one chapter) will examine some of the key policy changes advocated and (sometimes) made by the Republican Congress. It will begin by reiterating the differing strategic position or framework of a Republican House, and then examine key issue areas in turn:
 federalism
 budget: total spending, type of spending (defense, non-defense discretionary, entitlements, etc), budget balancing and other macroeconomic issues, and "pork"
 foreign and defense policy: interfering with the executive
Summary/speculation . This final section (probably one chapter) will summarize Republican control of Congress, and speculate on its implications for a particular model of congressional organization and process and its appropriateness for the 21 st century. It has two basic parts:
 a summary, reviewing the extent of change: a "remodeled" but neither demolished, rebuilt, or untouched House of Representatives.
 some speculation on estimating the appropriateness of change: is the House now in greater or lesser conformity with expectations and possibilities of legislatures in the new 21 st century?
C.
Sample materials
Enclosed with this prospectus is a copy of my April 1999 Midwest Political Science Association paper. It expands on some of the themes presented here. Portions of that paper serve as the

Remodeling the U.S. House - Koopman 5 starting point for some of the chapters/sections of this proposed book. Also enclosed is a copy of a summer 1999 book review of Nicol Rae and Colton Campbell's New Majority or Old
Minority?: The Impact of Republicans on Congress , which presents my reading of the state of the academic literature the Republican House.
D. My background
Enclosed is a current curriculum vita . As it states, I am now an associate professor at Calvin
College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, teaching mostly in the American government field. This is my fifth year of teaching. Prior to teaching here, I worked on Capitol Hill for fifteen years, contemporaneously earning my doctorate in politics from the Catholic University of America. I have written a book on the Congress, and numerous papers.
E. Timeframe for completing the book.
I am quite sure I can have a full manuscript available in late spring 2001. The publication date of
Remodeling the House will be the opportune time to re-ask the question about a "good" House of
Representatives because, as stated above, it will either mark the end of Republican control of the
House, or the successful transition of House Republicans to the "post-Gingrich era.
Enclosures:
MPSA paper
Book review
Curriculum vita

Remodeling the U.S. House - Koopman 6
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