recently published guides to the House and Senate records housed at the National Archives. These reference works would be essential resources for the Documentary History project. The initial work of the Documentary History would also benefit from association with the "Encyclopedia of Congress Project" (recently funded through the Commission on the Bicentennial of the Constitution), which will complete a two-volume reference work by 1993.

The completed documentary series would be the first systematic effort to outline the institutional development of Congress over the past 200 years and establish the historical context of changes within the two bodies of the legislative branch of government. A joint project of the House and Senate historical offices, drawing on the expertise of staff at the Library of Congress and the National Archives, would be able to complete a comprehensive research project that no individual could achieve in a lifetime. The volumes would make available for a wide audience the essential records for understanding the workings of Congress today and throughout its history.

4.

ELECTIONS TO THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

House Series, Volume One

I. The debate on popular election
A. Elections practices in the colonial and state

legislatures
B. The Constitutional Convention and ratification

III.

Congressional regulation of House elections
A. Mandating district elections
B. Establishment of uniform election dates
c. Suffrage regulations

1. The Reconstruction amendments
2. Women's suffrage
3. Lowering the voting age

IV.

Contested elections and seating controversies
A. The development of House procedures
B. Determining vote fraud and Members' qualifications

REAPPORTIONMENT AND REDISTRICTING

House Series, Volume Two

I. Traditional forms of representation in Great Britain and the

colonies
A. Territorial
B. Population
c. Representation in the continental Congress and the

Federal Convention

II.

Constitutional order of representation
A. First apportionment and the Federal Census
B. Proposed amendments for district size

III.

The House's role in reapportionment and redistricting
A. Expansion of House seats
B. Methods of apportionment

IV.

Court Action on reapportionment
A. Early appeals to the Supreme Court
B. Baker vs. Carr and the decisions of the 1960s

V.

Congress and the regulation of state districts
A. Regulating state districting practices
B. The elimination of at-large seats

COMMITTEE ORGANIZATION IN THE

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
House Series, Volume Three

I. Historical sources

A. Committees in the British Parliament
B. Reliance on committees in the colonial legislatures
C. Committees of the Continental Congress

II.

Origins of Congressional Committees
A. Use of select committees
B. Function of the Committee of the whole
C. The first standing committees

III.

The Rise of the Standing Committees
A. Expansion of the committee system, 1800-1840
B. Reliance on committees for consideration of legislation
c. Proliferation of committees following the Civil War

IV.

The Challenge of Committee Organization
A. Progressive reform
B. Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946
C. The reforms of the 1970s

1. The growing influence of subcommittees
2. Procedural changes

V.

Committee Chairmen
A. From Clay to Cannon--The Speakers' domination of

committees
B. The Seniority System
C. The Modern Chair

VI.

Committee Membership
A. Early assignment procedure
B. The rule of Ways and Means
C. Assignments in the wake of the reforms of the 1970s

PARTY ORGANIZATION AND LEADERSHIP

House Series, Volume Four

I.

Origins of congressional parties
A. Fiscal and foreign policy divisions in the 1790s
B. Organization of the First Party System
C. The reign of the caucus

Parties in the nineteenth-century House
A. Party organization in an age of sectional conflict
B. Party divisions and shifting power in the Gilded Age

III.

The reinvigoration of congressional parties
A. Speaker Reed and party loyalty
B. Party roles in the aftermath of the revolt against

Speaker Cannon

1. The fate of the caucus and conference c. Party structure in the modern House

IV.

The Speaker of the House
A. Evolution of the office

1. Colonial precedents for an active legislator
2. Henry Clay and the potential for leadership

3. The "czars" of the House
B. The Speaker's authority in the twentieth century
C. The Speaker as party leader