Herbert B. Asher

The Learning of Legislative Norms

The paper focuses on the learning of legislative norms on the part of freshman members elected to the United States House of Representatives in November, 1968. Since a research interest in learning is a longitudinal concern, a two-page panel design was employed, the first set of interviews conducted in late January and February of 1969 and the second set the following May. As the concept of a norm involves the notion of shared expectations, a sample of the nonfreshman members of the 91st Congress was also interviewed. The main finding of the paper is that the amount of norm learning was surprisingly low; it appeared that freshmen largely knew the general House norms prior to entering Congress. And the extent of attitude change toward the norms once in office was minimal. Freshmen and nonfreshmen generally expressed similar attitudes toward the norms. Support for the norm of apprenticeship was found to be weak, suggesting the need to revise the traditional image of the freshman representative.

Some Consequences of Measurement Error in Survey Data

Using the 1956-1958-1960 SRC American panel data and the 1965 Jennings-Niemi socialization data, this paper first presents some estimates of the extent of measurement error in several standard face sheet items. After the presence of measurement error is demonstrated, two techniques involving multiple indicators and observations over time are employed to estimate the effects of measurement error on bivariate correlation coefficients with party identification providing the substantive vehicle of the analysis. In general, the analysis suggests that random measurement error may have a major impact on our coefficients and thereby result in misleading inferences.

Committees and the Norm of Specialization

The need for congressmen to specialize and acquire expertise in a limited number of policy areas is so universally conceded as to be labelled a norm of legislative behavior. Specialization is intimately tied to the ability of Congress to make informed voting decisions on a wide range of issues; congressmen often rely upon expert colleagues for information and advice on bills beyond their own expertise. More importantly, specialization, especially as facilitated by the committee system, is an adaptive response to the resource advantages possessed by the executive branch; specialization facilitates congressional performance of the oversight function. In order to determine why and in what areas a congressman will specialize, attention must be given to the members goals, personal and professional background and electoral situation. Levels of specialization differ across the House and Senate, between national and state legislatures, across committees, and over time. Specialization, particularly as manifested through the committee and subcommittee systems, has both intended and unintended consequences. Foremost among the latter is the differential access to government specialization provides various groups. Finally, the extent of specialization will be affected by changes in the committee system.