Subverting the Organizational Cartel: Explaining Cross-Party Leadership Selection in U.S. State Houses

In the U.S. House of Representatives, the majority party constitutes an organizational cartel that monopolizes the selection of chamber leaders. But in state legislatures, that cartel power is sometimes circumvented by a bipartisan bloc that outvotes the leadership preferences of a majority of the majority party. Drawing from an original data set of instances of cross-party organizational coalitions at the state level, I use statistical analysis to test various hypotheses for when these coalitions are more likely to form. The analysis reveals that party ideology does not adequately explain the violation of these cartels; rather, violations depend on the costs associated with keeping the party unified and the benefits that come from selecting the chamber’s top leadership post. This finding underscores the potential vulnerability of organizational cartels and suggests that governing parties are strategic when deciding how fiercely to defend their cartel power.