The House Freedom Caucus and Amendment Activity

• In Event: Party Politics in the U.S. Congress

Abstract

We explore the extent to which the House Freedom Caucuses (HFC) succeeded in shifting policy outcomes rightward by adding conservative amendments to measures that later passed the House. We do so by focusing primarily on data from the 114th through the first session of the 118th Congresses (2015-2024). We tabulate the frequency with which the HFC offers amendments and how often the House agrees to those amendments. Our primary objective is to assess whether the HFC utilizes the amending process as a means to shift policy outcomes rightward or whether amendments serve as position-taking opportunities for them. We utilize spatial measure to assess the ideological content of these proposed amendments. We next proceed to explore how the House leadership and House Republicans respond to HFC amendments.

Authors

• Chris Den Hartog, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo

• Timothy P. Nokken, Texas Tech University