50
Used, New, and Out of Print Books - We Buy and Sell - Powell's Books
Cart |
|  my account  |  wish list  |  help   |  800-878-7323
Hello, | Login
MENU
  • Browse
    • New Arrivals
    • Bestsellers
    • Featured Preorders
    • Award Winners
    • Audio Books
    • See All Subjects
  • Used
  • Staff Picks
    • Staff Picks
    • Picks of the Month
    • Bookseller Displays
    • 50 Books for 50 Years
    • 25 Best 21st Century Sci-Fi & Fantasy
    • 25 PNW Books to Read Before You Die
    • 25 Books From the 21st Century
    • 25 Memoirs to Read Before You Die
    • 25 Global Books to Read Before You Die
    • 25 Women to Read Before You Die
    • 25 Books to Read Before You Die
  • Gifts
    • Gift Cards & eGift Cards
    • Powell's Souvenirs
    • Journals and Notebooks
    • socks
    • Games
  • Sell Books
  • Blog
  • Events
  • Find A Store

Don't Miss

  • Scientifically Proven Sale
  • Staff Top Fives of 2022
  • Best Books of 2022
  • Powell's Author Events
  • Oregon Battle of the Books
  • Audio Books

Visit Our Stores


Harper C.: Five Book Friday: Uncanny Graphic Novels (0 comment)
We are in the thick of winter here in the Pacific Northwest, which means it's dark, damp, and chilly. Rather than escaping to stories with warmer, brighter climates, I personally want nothing more than to dive deep into gothic and uncanny fiction as the wind rattles my windows at night...
Read More»
  • Powell's Staff: New Literature in Translation: December 2022 and January 2023 (0 comment)
  • Kelsey Ford: From the Stacks: J. M. Ledgard's Submergence (0 comment)

{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##

The Speaker of the House: A Study of Leadership

by Matthew N. Green
The Speaker of the House: A Study of Leadership

  • Comment on this title
  • Synopses & Reviews

ISBN13: 9780300153187
ISBN10: 030015318X
Condition: Standard


All Product Details

View Larger ImageView Larger Images
Ships free on qualified orders.
Add to Cart
0.00
List Price:0.00
Trade Paperback
Ships in 1 to 3 days
Add to Wishlist

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments

The 2009 financial stimulus bill ran to more than 1,100 pages, yet it wasnandrsquo;t even given to Congress in its final form until thirteen hours before debate was set to begin, and it was passed twenty-eight hours later. How are representatives expected to digest so much information in such a short time.

The answer? They arenandrsquo;t. With Legislating in the Dark, James M. Curry reveals that the availability of information about legislation is a key tool through which Congressional leadership exercises power. Through a deft mix of legislative analysis, interviews, and participant observation, Curry shows how congresspersonsandmdash;lacking the time and resources to study bills deeply themselvesandmdash;are forced to rely on information and cues from their leadership. By controlling their rank-and-fileandrsquo;s access to information, Congressional leaders are able to emphasize or bury particular items, exploiting their information advantage to push the legislative agenda in directions that they and their party prefer.

Offering an unexpected new way of thinking about party power and influence, Legislating in the Dark will spark substantial debate in political science.

Review

". . . a very fine book. Anyone interested in legislative leadership should read this book."and#8212;David T. Canon, Congress and the Presidency

Review

and#160;Finalist for the 2013 D. B. Hardeman Prize, given by the Lyndon Baines Johnson Foundation.

Review

andldquo;Curry brings fresh insight and a breadth of evidence to bear on the role of information in lawmaking, including extensive interviews with legislators and staff and in-depth case studies of several pieces of legislation. Engagingly written, the book will enhance our understandings of congressional lawmaking and leadership and will be of interest to scholars of legislative studies and public policy.andrdquo;

Review

andldquo;It has been a fair amount of time since such an important and innovative book on Congress has appeared on the scene, and Legislating in the Dark will do much to inspire new research.andrdquo;

Synopsis

Matthew N. Green provides the first comprehensive analysis of how the Speaker of the House has exercised legislative leadership from 1940 to the present. Green finds that the Speakerand#8217;s party loyalty is tempered by a host of competing objectives, including reelection, passage of desired public policy laws, handling the interests of the president, and meeting the demands of the House as a whole.

Synopsis

Much of the current work on party power and influence in Congress focuses on the ability of leaders to control the legislative agenda or to dole out pork or other incentives. Yet, another school of thought argues that legislative leaders have relatively little sway over their rank-and-file. James M. Curry argues that we have been overlooking a key source of the power held by congressional leaders: their ability to withhold or provide information from and to their rank and file. By focusing the attention of lawmakers on certain informationand#151;or making that information difficult to obtainand#151;leaders attempt to move them to support the positions of their party and their committee chairs. Typically, members of Congress lack the time and resources necessary to study or become deeply involved in most bills and have to rely on information and cues from others in deciding whether to support or oppose legislation. Having those resources, legislative leaders can open or close the informational tap, as it were, to suit their purposes. Take, for example, the Democratic leadershipand#8217;s handling of the final version of the financial stimulus bill in 2009. Although the bill was over 1,100 pages, Congress was given only 13 hours to study it before debate was to begin. Curry explains how this strategy was designed as much to keep Democrats in the dark, as it was Republicans. Democratic leaders knew that if they could avoid losing individual members over whatever details of the act might attract attention, the bill would pass on a straight party-line vote. By becoming the font of information for a bill that nobody had (been given) time to read, they could selectively highlight or bury pertinent items. The bill was passed four days later. Ultimately, Curry shows that, far from an aberration, the process by which the stimulus bill was considered and passed is no more than a common example of leadership-driven lawmaking in the U.S. House of Representatives today.

About the Author

James M. Curry is assistant professor of political science at the University of Utah. In 2011 and 2012, he was an APSA Congressional Fellow in the office of Illinois congressman Daniel Lipinski.

What Our Readers Are Saying

Be the first to share your thoughts on this title!




Product Details

ISBN:
9780300153187
Binding:
Trade Paperback
Publication date:
05/25/2010
Publisher:
Yale University Press
Language:
English
Pages:
304
Height:
.90IN
Width:
6.00IN
Thickness:
.75
LCCN:
2009037085
Number of Units:
1
Illustration:
Yes
Copyright Year:
2010
Author:
Matthew N Green
Author:
Matthew N. Green
Author:
Matthew N.Green
Subject:
Political leadership -- United States.
Subject:
Politics-United States Politics
Subject:
United States - Speakers

Ships free on qualified orders.
Add to Cart
0.00
List Price:0.00
Trade Paperback
Ships in 1 to 3 days
Add to Wishlist
Used Book Alert for book Receive an email when this ISBN is available used.
{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Pinterest
  • Instagram

  • Help
  • Guarantee
  • My Account
  • Careers
  • About Us
  • Security
  • Wish List
  • Partners
  • Contact Us
  • Shipping
  • Transparency ACT MRF
  • Sitemap
  • © 2023 POWELLS.COM Terms

{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##