What About Institutions? The Polarizing Effect of Reforms on the House of Representatives' Amendment Process

Amending bills on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives is an inherently partisan process that greatly a ffects the level of observed polarization. In this paper, I argue that the suite of reforms in the 1970s resulted in flooding the House with amendments that not only instigated procedural polarization later but contributed to polarization in their own right. By "fighting fire with fire", the amendment process that resulted from the reforms, which opened up the door to minority party and junior members, began the steady rise in party polarization we observe today. I conclude by speculating on the causal relationship between the proportion of votes in the House that are amendment votes and income inequality