TY  - JOUR
AU  - Alston,Lee J.
AU  - Jenkins,Jeffery A.
AU  - Nonnenmacher,Tomas
TI  - Who Should Govern Congress? Access to Power and the Salary Grab of 1873
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 11908
PY  - 2005
Y2  - December 2005
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w11908
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w11908.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Lee J. Alston
Institutions Program
Institute of Behavioral Science
Department of Economics
University of Colorado at Boulder
Boulder, CO  80309-0483
Tel: 303/492-4257
Fax: 303/492 2151
E-Mail: Lee.Alston@colorado.edu

Jeffery A. Jenkins
Department of Political Science
Northwestern University
601 University Place
Evanston, IL 60208
Tel: 847/491-2703
Fax: 847/491-8985
E-Mail: j-jenkins3@northwestern.edu

Tomas Nonnenmacher
Department of Economics
Allegheny College
Meadville PA 16335
E-Mail: tnonnenm@allegheny.edu
AB  - We examine the politics of the %u201CSalary Grab%u201D of 1873, legislation that increased congressional salaries retroactively by 50 percent. A group of New England and Midwestern elites opposed the Salary Grab, along with congressional franking and patronage-based civil service appointments, as part of reform effort to reshape %u201Cwho should govern Congress.%u201D Our analyses of congressional voting confirm the existence of this non-party elite coalition. While these elites lost many legislative battles in the short-run, their efforts kept reform on the legislative agenda throughout the late-nineteenth century and ultimately set the stage for the Progressive movement in the early-twentieth century.
ER  -