Committees in Congress

This completely updated, third edition provides a comprehensive examination of the origins, development, and current status of the committee and subcommittee systems of the Senate and the House of Representatives. Reform failures of the 103rd Congress; new rules and structural changes; and dramatic events surrounding the first Republican Congress in 40 years are covered.

Christopher J. Deering is professor of political science at George Washington University. He served as an APSA congressional fellow from 1984 to 1985 and is a former Brookings Institution research fellow. The author of numerous articles and contributed essays on congressional politics, he is the editor of Congressional Politics (1989).

Steven S. Smith is professor of Political Science at Washington University in St. Louis. He has taught at the University of Minnesota, Northwestern University, and George Washington University and has served as a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. His research interests include American politics, congressional politics, Russian politics, positive theories of politics, and theories of institutional development. He is author or coauthor of Politics or Principle: Filibustering in the United States (1997), Committees in Congress, 3e (1997), The American Congress (1995), Call to Order: Floor Politics in the House and Senate (1989), Managing Uncertainty in the House of Representatives (1988), and The Politics of Institutional Choice: The Formation of the Russian State Duma (forthcoming).