The oft-criticized committee system in the U.S. House of Representatives resists change because it serves its members well, according to a University of Colorado at Boulder political science professor.
Advocates of congressional reform often point to the House committee system as an outmoded relic that could benefit from changes to make it more efficient and accountable. But since the late 1940s the system has changed little.
The reason, Assistant Professor Scott Adler argues in "Why Congressional Reforms Fail: Reelection and the House Committee System," published this month by the University of Chicago Press, is that it serves a primary interest of members of Congress: re-election.
On one level, that's a good thing, Scott said.
"If we don't have legislators who are motivated by re-election we don't have a democratic process," he said. "If they're not thinking about their districts, if they're not thinking about their constituents -- they're not doing their jobs."
But there are drawbacks, he acknowledges. The primary one may be that legislators have less concern about the overall size of the U.S. budget as long as increased spending benefits their home districts. But the costs of so-called "pork barrel" spending are overestimated in Adler's opinion.
Pet projects do not pervade congressional policymaking, he said. Furthermore, they are usually supported by people in the districts in which they occur and often benefit other districts as well.
"The conventional wisdom is a misperception," he said. "Sometimes they are fighting for what their districts need."
The House committee system of today looks very similar to the way it did 50 years ago, said Adler. Reforms have been attempted at various times -- particularly in the 1940s, 1970s and 1990s -- but with little success.
Opposition to reform often crosses party lines because interest in re-election crosses party lines, he said. Therefore, not much has changed because the same factors that influenced House members 50 years ago are still in place today.
"The current system enables members to accomplish the things that help them get re-elected," he said.
Other scholars have suggested that the motivation for maintaining the current institutional structure of the House has changed due to members becoming more partisan and ideological, but Adler doesn't buy it.
And the outlook for House committee reforms in the future?
"Drastic changes in the committee system are unlikely," he says.