Turf Wars: How Congressional Committees Claim Jurisdiction
University of Chicago Press, 1997. First Edition. Trade Paperback. Item #217307
ISBN: 0226436241
207 pages. First edition (first printing). A fine copy in wrappers (paperback). Inscribed by the author, 'Professor Gould, Thank you for helping my ideas evolve. David King, March '99.' From the Harvard office library of the paleontologist and leading advocate for evolution, Stephen Jay Gould, with a posthumous tipped in bookplate indicating the provenance. *** Intellectually, Gould understood the true nature of these bookplates, but the book collector in him appreciated them. In his essay 'A Seahorse for All Races' Gould writes about one of his prized possessions, a book from Charles Dickens' library: 'Dickens made no annotations, but a bookplate on the cover, presumably inserted as a come-on for a sale after Dickens' death in 1870, does prove that [he] kept and shelved the book.' *** We offer our Gould bookplates, printed letterpress in two colors, in the same spirit.
For most bills in American legislatures, the issue of turf--or which committee has jurisdiction over a bill--can make all the difference. Turf governs the flow and fate of all legislation. In this innovative study, David C. King explains how jurisdictional areas for committees are created and changed in Congress. Political scientists have long maintained that jurisdictions are relatively static, changing only at times of dramatic reforms. Not so, says King. Combining quantitative evidence with interviews and case studies, he shows how on-going turf wars make jurisdictions fluid. According to King, jurisdictional change stems both from legislators seeking electoral advantage and from nonpartisan House parliamentarians referring ambiguous bills to committees with the expertise to handle the issues. King brilliantly dissects the politics of turf grabbing and at the same time shows how parliamentarians have become institutional guardians of the legislative process. Original and insightful, Turf Wars will be valuable to those interested in congressional studies and American politics more generally.
Price: $20.00