Joseph G. Cannon: Majoritarian from Illinois

Congressional scholars regularly identify Speaker Joseph G. Cannon as the p ersonification of centralized authority and partisan strength in the United States Congress. This paper assesses the conventional wisdom on Cannonism by employing the Groseclose-Stewart (1998) method for estimating values of committee seats to study variation in member-specific committee portfolio v alues. The data are useful both for reassessing the historical thesis of Ca nnon as tyrant and for testing more recent political science hypotheses abo ut the underpinnings of a strong majority party. The findings fail to corro borate the notions of majority party power and Cannon as tyrant, and, if an ything, support a new portrait of Cannon as a majoritarian.