Conclusion
Without the imposition of some institutional structure, a legislature is a non-exclusive resource, and legislators will have a tendency to overuse the resource and reduce its productivity. The committee system is a method for granting property rights over the legislature's agenda by subdividing the agenda and assigning each committee rights over a portion of the agenda. Just as common grazing ground could be more productive if it were subdivided and assigned to individual owners, the legislature is more productive if access to the agenda is subdivided and assigned to committees.
Ownership rights to committee assignments are allocated based on seniority because this makes the rights more secure and therefore more valuable to their owners. In the United States Congress, the seniority rule replaced a system in which assignments were made at the discretion of party leaders. In the former system, legislators needed to expend effort to retain their assignments, which diminished their ability to use their assignments productively. Because individuals can use resources more productively if they do not have to be concerned about protecting their ownership interest, the seniority system enables the legislature to be more productive in producing legislation.
Viewing the legislature in this property rights framework sheds some light on two controversial issues in public choice. The question about legislators voting based on ideology rather than constituent interests is an example of discretionary behavior on the part of a legislator who is spending political capital. A legislator engaged in a very competitive battle for reelection will have little room for discretion, but surely the candidate is motivated by more than just the selfless desire to further constituent interests. Where there are barriers to entry, legislators build majorities capable of producing political capital. This political capital can be spent through discretionary behavior — including ideological voting — by the legislator (Parker, 1989). The other issue is stability under majority rule. By observing that the legislature is a valuable resource that can be used by legislators to further their own interests, it is clear that they have an incentive to manage the resource to be as productive as possible, which produces institutions that generate output valuable to the legislators rather than cycles.
Economic theory suggests that when a small number of individuals are sharing a non-exclusive resource, they should be able to negotiate a rights structure that maximizes the value of the resource to those individuals. The committee system, with assignments protected by the seniority system, assigns rights to produce legislation in such a way as to maximize the value of the legislature to the legislators.
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Holcombe, R.G., Parker, G.R. Committees in legislatures: A property rights perspective. Public Choice 70, 11–20 (1991). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00239341
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00239341