Coordinating the Congress: Explaining Caucus Persistence in the United States House

This paper represents a first-cut look at a new dataset of the compete membership of legislative caucuses in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1993-2010 (103rd-111th Congresses). We develop a theory that describes the conditions under which caucuses should be expected to persist over time, based on the benefits caucuses are known to provide to their members. We ask and answer questions about whether caucuses persist more when there is greater diversity in its party and committee representation, when the caucus members are more active in terms of sponsorship and cosponsorship of bills, when the caucus co-chairs represent both parties, and when the caucus is large. Our findings suggest that caucuses play a strong role in helping legislators to coordinate legislative activities, but provide almost no support for the idea that causes serve only as a weak signaling mechanism to constituents.