At least since Woodrow Wilson’s observations about the centrality of committees to Congressional Government (1885), the conventional wisdom among political scientists has been that floor proceedings are essentially “Congress on exhibition.” While popular portrayals of the Congress – from Mr. Smith Goes to Washington to House of Cards – may focus on dramatic showdowns on the floor of the House or Senate, the scholarly consensus has long held that the real action is elsewhere, either in committees (or subcommittees) or party caucuses. In The Floor in Congressional Life, Andrew J. Taylor challenges us to reconsider that conventional wisdom, arguing that the floor both is and should be more important to our understanding of congressional politics.

At the heart of Taylor’s analysis are two interwoven comparisons: the House of Representatives versus the Senate, and each chamber versus its own historical development. Both comparisons are driven by Taylor’s normative conceptions of what legislative politics should be all about. He outlines much of his normative concern in chapter 1, which attempts to place the chamber floors theoretically “in time and space” (pp. 14-15). Taylor conceptualizes two relevant dimensions of floor politics: power (“the floor’s ability to influence legislative product”) and rights (“how strong or weak individual members’ floor rights are”). From the author’s perspective, more extensive power and more equal/robust individual rights represent a “natural” pole, while curtailed floor power and unequal/limited legislator rights constitute a “restrictive” pole. While Taylor borrows the terminology in part from Gary Cox (“The Organization of Democratic Legislatures,” in The Oxford Handbook of Political Economy, 2005), he gives the word “natural” a considerably more sanguine spin than the “legislative state of nature” described in Cox’s portrayal. After noting that the Senate is a substantially more natural legislature than the House, Taylor concludes the introductory chapter by outlining three major factors (chamber size, workload, and party preferences) and several minor factors (e.g., length of terms, constituency size) that might account for these inter-chamber differences.

Chapters 2 and 3 are devoted to quantitative and (largely) qualitative examinations, respectively, of the factors that led to different developments in the House and Senate. In the main, the findings are not surprising. Growing chamber size and workload are associated with more restrictions in the House on both individual legislators and the impact of the floor. Conversely, the influx of more freshman legislators and a more tenuous majority party are associated with greater equity among legislators and a broader scope for floor influence on legislation. While the findings are hardly shocking, the data that Taylor has assembled for chapter 2 and the story he tells in chapter 3 are both useful to scholars in fleshing out our understanding of how and why the House and Senate developed over time, particularly in the ante-bellum period when they began to grow apart as institutions. While many are familiar with Reed’s Rules from the 1890s dealing with the issue of the “disappearing quorum,” fewer of us are acquainted with the historical development of such procedures as the previous question or the germaneness requirement. Taylor’s detailed analyses adds to the limited existing accounts such as Sarah Binder’s (1997) Minority Rights, Majority Rule and Gregory Koger’s (2010) Filibustering.

The second section of the book, chapters 4 and 5, examines floor proceedings more deeply in both chambers. Chapter 4 begins by laying out the two hypotheses that Taylor will test: the claim that Senate proceedings are superior to those of the House and the assertion that the quality of floor proceedings in both chambers have deteriorated over time. The chapter concludes with the author’s attempts to describe eight characteristics (quantity of floor activity, transparency, civility, participation, equality, interaction among legislators, appeals to public good, and quality of reasoning) he intends to examine and how he operationalizes these concepts at the macro/congressional level and/or the more micro level (defined as congressional action on presidential impeachment, declarations of war and “analogous decisions authorizing presidential use of force,” and “critical trade legislation”) (p. 133). In part, these operationalizations draw upon the work of others; in part, they reflect new data compiled by the author, often across impressive time series (e.g., samples from the 32^nd – 107^th Congresses).

The highly normative – and controversial – nature of Taylor’s project is obvious here; while few might argue with the value of sophisticated reasoning or civility in floor activity, the values of quantity, equality, participation, and even transparency lie much more in the eyes of the beholder. Even on relatively non-problematic dimensions such as reasoning, however, the operationalization can be “particularly tricky.” While the author acknowledges this, he does little to assuage the concerns of skeptical readers. First, he limits its scope to “debates surrounding presidential impeachment in the House,” which takes us far from the ordinary business that occupies most of the House calendar. Second, in a lengthy footnote, he explains to readers what he does not use to measure reasoning (i.e., the “discourse quality index” developed for use in European parliaments), but does little to describe his method other than to characterize it as “impressionistic” (p. 141).

Chapter 5 presents the results of Taylor’s analyses of his hypotheses. As the author recognizes, the results are “not completely unambiguous.” There is somewhat more support in the author’s data for the Senate-superior thesis than for the worsen-over-time hypothesis, though null findings are almost as common as corroborative ones even for the inter-chamber analysis. In terms of the longitudinal investigation, the findings are all over the map. Only two of the 20 tests show unequivocally positive results, compared to five that show results opposite to expectations and 13 whose results were either null, inconsistent between chambers, or “straddled two different outcome types” (see Table 5.1, p. 177). The author strains the carrying capacity of his limited findings when he uses them to conclude that there is “considerable evidence” of deterioration in the “substance of proceedings” among legislators.

In a concluding chapter, Taylor revisits his normative concerns and lays out an array of reforms he would like to see implemented in Congress. Skeptical readers will find it difficult to accept the need for reform, much less the value of the specific changes Taylor endorses. Indeed, the author himself acknowledges (both here and in the opening chapter) that in cross-national perspective both chambers of the U.S. Congress already are on the “natural” end of the legislative spectrum he uses. In terms of specifics, many of the reforms suggested – longer sessions, super-majority requirements for use of restrictive rules, enhanced substitute powers in the hands of the minority party, reduced use of conference committees, reduced use of holds in the Senate, implementation of Oxford Union or Lincoln-Douglas style debate practices on the floor, limitations on viva voce votes, requiring “plain and accessible language” for bills (p. 194), reduction in the use of omnibus bills, establishing a “bipartisan and independent monitoring organization to evaluate floor remarks for their accuracy” (p. 195) – seem at odds with political reality, the interests of the parties needed to implement them, the significant and often competing demands faced by legislators, and the limited interest displayed in such matters by the general public.

At the end of the day, I find this to be a mixed work. The data collected and analyzed by the author are (by and large) impressive. But I suspect that the overall nature of Taylor’s argument will do little to sway readers, who are likely to finish the book with their priors fully intact. For those who long for comprehensive congressional reform, there is much here to fuel their fancies. Conversely, those of a more skeptical bent will find adequate holes in the data and limitations in the analyses to support the conclusion that Taylor’s proposed reforms are fanciful.