Community Structure in the United States House of Representatives

We investigate the networks of committee and subcommittee assignments in the United States House of Representatives from the 101st--108th Congresses, with the committees connected by ``interlocks'' or common membership. We examine the community structure in these networks using several methods, revealing strong links between certain committees as well as an intrinsic hierarchical structure in the House as a whole. We identify structural changes, including additional hierarchical levels and higher modularity, resulting from the 1994 election, in which the Republican party earned majority status in the House for the first time in more than forty years. We also combine our network approach with analysis of roll call votes using singular value decomposition to uncover correlations between the political and organizational structure of House committees.Comment: 44 pages, 13 figures (some with multiple parts and most in color), 9 tables, to appear in Physica A; new figures and revised discussion (including extra introductory material) for this versio

Institutional theory and legislatures

Institutionalism has become one of the dominant strands of theory within contemporary political science. Beginning with the challenge to behavioral and rational choice theory issued by March and Olsen, institutional analysis has developed into an important alternative to more individualistic approaches to theory and analysis. This body of theory has developed in a number of ways, and perhaps the most commonly applied version in political science is historical institutionalism that stresses the importance of path dependency in shaping institutional behaviour. The fundamental question addressed in this book is whether institutionalism is useful for the various sub-disciplines within political science to which it has been applied, and to what extent the assumptions inherent to institutional analysis can be useful for understanding the range of behavior of individuals and structures in the public sector. The volume will also examine the relative utility of different forms of institutionalism within the various sub-disciplines. The book consists of a set of strong essays by noted international scholars from a range of sub-disciplines within the field of political science, each analyzing their area of research from an institutionalist perspective and assessing what contributions this form of theorizing has made, and can make, to that research. The result is a balanced and nuanced account of the role of institutions in contemporary political science, and a set of suggestions for the further development of institutional theory

The Shrinking Center: When Are Centrists More Effective Lawmakers?

Legislative effectiveness is an inherently amorphous -- even subjective -- concept. Yet, arguably, it is among the most important considerations when evaluating the performance of members of Congress. Using Volden and Wiseman\u27s index, the Legislative Effectiveness Score (LES), I evaluate when ideology informs or predicts effectiveness in passing laws, which I conceptualize as the fundamental role of legislators. In particular, I assess the extent to which centrists are more or less effective than their more partisan peers. I find that, while the number of centrists has declined precipitously, their ideology does not -- at least at the broadest level -- predict their effectiveness in passing legislation. Future research will dig deeper into the underlying question of when centrists are more or less effective, looking at particular Congresses and speakerships to analyze the extent to which centrists\u27 declining numbers result in declining (or perhaps enhanced) effectiveness

Chronology: MSFC Space Station program, 1982 - present. Major events

The Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) maintains an active program to capture historical information and documentation on the MSFC's roles regarding Space Shuttle and Space Station. Marshall History Report 12, called Chronology: MSFC Space Station Program, 1982-Present, is presented. It contains synopses of major events listed according to the dates of their occurrence. Indices follow the synopses and provide additional data concerning the events listed. The Event Index provides a brief listing of all the events without synopses. The Element Index lists the specific elements of the Space Station Program under consideration in the events. The Location Index lists the locations where the events took place. The indices and synopses may be cross-referenced by using dates

Videoconferencing via satellite. Opening Congress to the people: Technical report

The feasibility of using satellite videoconferencing as a mechanism for informed dialogue between Congressmen and constituents to strengthen the legislative process was evaluated. Satellite videoconferencing was defined as a two-way interactive television with the TV signals transmitted by satellite. With videoconferencing, one or more Congressmen in Washington, D. C. can see, hear and talk with groups of citizens at distant locations around the country. Simultaneously, the citizens can see, hear and talk with the Congressmen

Congress' Wicked Problem: Seeking Knowledge Inside the Information Tsunami

The lack of shared expert knowledge capacity in the U.S. Congress has created a critical weakness in our democratic process. Along with bipartisan cooperation, many contemporary and urgent questions before our legislators require nuance, genuine deliberation and expert judgment. Congress, however, is missing adequate means for this purpose and depends on outdated and in some cases antiquated systems of information referral, sorting, communicating, and convening. Congress is held in record low esteem by the public today. Its failings have been widely analyzed and a multitude of root causes have been identified. This paper does not put forward a simple recipe to fix these ailments, but argues that the absence of basic knowledge management in our legislature is a critical weakness. Congress struggles to make policy on complex issues while it equally lacks the wherewithal to effectively compete on substance in today's 24 hour news cycle.This paper points out that Congress is not so much venal and corrupt as it is incapacitated and obsolete. And, in its present state, it cannot serve the needs of American democracy in the 21st Century.The audience for this paper is those who are working in the open government, civic technology and transparency movements as well as other foundations, think tanks and academic entities. It is also for individuals inside and outside of government who desire background about Congress' current institutional dilemmas, including lack of expertise

Development Challenges of Secondary and Small Airports in California, Research Report 11-21

This study investigates the development of secondary and smaller airports in California. Low-Cost Carrier (LCC) business is growing at these airports because they offer reduced operating costs, and they have adequate capacity to help LCCs avoid battling with incumbent airlines at the large hubs for limited resources, such as gates. However, increased LCC aircraft operations at the secondary airports have led to significant noise impacts on the surrounding communities and this has been a challenge for the secondary airport operators. They have imposed operational curfews to limit the noise impacts, but this approach constrains the resident airlines that want to increase their traffic. As a result, some LCCs have begun to initiate flights out of the large hubs. Statistics from this study show that the LCCs have replaced the legacy airlines as the dominant air provider in the state. With their growing dominance, the LCCs will become more attractive to the large hub airports, and the secondary airports will face increased competition in retaining them. To retain those LCCs, the secondary airports must better understand how LCCs make investment decisions related to airport development. At the same time, they must better educate the LCCs about their airport needs

Community Structure in Congressional Cosponsorship Networks

We study the United States Congress by constructing networks between Members of Congress based on the legislation that they cosponsor. Using the concept of modularity, we identify the community structure of Congressmen, as connected via sponsorship/cosponsorship of the same legislation, to investigate the collaborative communities of legislators in both chambers of Congress. This analysis yields an explicit and conceptually clear measure of political polarization, demonstrating a sharp increase in partisan polarization which preceded and then culminated in the 104th Congress (1995-1996), when Republicans took control of both chambers. Although polarization has since waned in the U.S. Senate, it remains at historically high levels in the House of Representatives.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures (some with multiple parts), to appear in Physica A; additional background info and explanations added from last versio