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The rediscovery of rules & procedures as an important element for understanding legislative decision making has become very apparent in recent summaries of research on Congress & European Parliaments. Institutional factors are now seen as critical factors that structure & restrict how individual legislators can go about their decision-making responsibilities. The goal of this article is to provide a landscape of the evolution of committee system structure in US state legislatures so that future research will be able to test current theories of institutional change. The major conclusion of this research is that US state legislatures have formalized the structure of their committee systems over the course of the twentieth century & that many similarities & few differences exist in committee system structure between US state legislative upper & lower chambers. Further, this article discovers that four distinct dimensions -- property rights, codification of basic structure, internal democracy & minority party rights -- of committee system structures exist in US state legislative chambers. 1 Table, 6 Figures, 1 Appendix. Adapted from the source document.

DECISION MAKING IN POLITICAL EXECUTIVES IS AN ODDLY NEGLECTED SUBJECT IN POLITICAL SCIENCE. THE ROLES PLAYED BY BOTH FORMAL INSTITUTIONS AND LESS FORMAL MECHANISMS IN ARRIVING AT DECISIONS IN POLITICAL EXECUTIVES ARE SURPRISINGLY UNDERSTUDIED. THERE HAVE BEEN SOME IMPORTANT COMPARATIVE STUDIES OF POLITICAL EXECUTIVES BUT THESE HAVE TENDED TO FOCUS ON THE FOLE OF THE HEAD OF THE POLITICAL EXECUTIVE - THE PRESIDENT OR PRIME MINISTER.1 THE DISTINCTIVE NATURE OF CABINET SYSTEMS AS AGAINST PRESIDENTIAL SYSTEMS HAS BEEN WELL BROUGHT OUT BUT A COMPARATIVE FRAMEWODK FOR THE ANALYSIS OF VARIATIONS AMONG CABINET SYSTEMS IN THE ROLE OF DECISION ARENAS OTHER THAN THE FULL CABINET HAS NOT BEEN DEVELOPED. BLONDEL IN HIS WIDE-RANGING SURVEY OF GOVERNMENT STRUCTURES GIVES ONLY A PASSING MENTION TO CABINET COMMITTEES. ACCORDINGLY, IN SEEKING TO PLACE THE ROLES OF CABINET COMMITTEES IN PERSPECTIVE, WE HAVE FOUND IT NECESSARY TO DEVELOP OUR OWN FRAMEWORK OF DECISION ARENAS IN CABINET SYSTEMS.

The decision of a committee is determined jointly by the voting process it adopts & the composition of its membership. The paper analyzes the process through which committee members emerge from the eligible population, & traces the consequences of this for the decisions of the committee. It is shown that the equilibrium committee will be composed of representatives from the extremes of the taste distribution. These extremes balance each other, & the committee reaches a moderate decision. However, this mutual negation by the extremes is a socially wasteful use of time. Data from the UK House of Lords are used to illustrate these results. 2 Tables, 1 Appendix, 7 References. Adapted from the source document.