Has power shifted back to the defense committee chairmen?
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Authors
Langdon, Todd Gordon
Subjects
Congress
Senate
House of Representatives
Chairmen of the Armed Services Committees
Chairmen of Defense Appropriation Subcommittees
Defense Authorization and Appropriation bills
Senate
House of Representatives
Chairmen of the Armed Services Committees
Chairmen of Defense Appropriation Subcommittees
Defense Authorization and Appropriation bills
Advisors
Stockton, Paul
Date of Issue
1992-12
Date
December 1992
Publisher
Monterey, California. Naval Postgraduate School
Language
en_US
Abstract
This thesis argues that the chairmen of the defense-related committees in the House and Senate continue to wield enormous power over defense legislation. This theory is based on a detailed empirical analysis of the fate of amendments offered to the defense authorization and appropriation bills from 1981-1992. To measure the power of the chairmen, the thesis assesses how often their positions were sustained on floor amendments. Data also is analyzed on which members tended to offer amendments, whether the passage rate was higher for amendments that did not alter defense spending, and a variety of related issues. It was found that 95.53% of amendments offered to defense authorization bill in the Senate and 95.1% in the House, the full Senate and house voted in accordance with the preference of the chairmen of their respective Armed Services Committees. An even higher percentage of victory (96.1) was achieved by the chairmen of the House and Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittees. Data analysis shows that when amendments are offered to defense legislation, committee chairmen still call the shots.
Type
Thesis
Description
Series/Report No
Department
National Security Affairs (NSA)
Organization
Naval Postgraduate School
Identifiers
NPS Report Number
Sponsors
Funder
Format
118 p.
Citation
Distribution Statement
Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited.
Rights
This publication is a work of the U.S. Government as defined in Title 17, United States Code, Section 101. Copyright protection is not available for this work in the United States.