October 17, 1995
 
Harvard Political Scientist Examines Washington "Turf Wars" in Lawrence Lecture
 
 
	APPLETON, WIS.  The battles over who gets to decide what in
Washington, D.C., will be the focus of a Lawrence University Main Hall Forum
Friday, October 27 featuring David King of the Kennedy School of Government at
Harvard University.  KingUs address, "Turf Wars on Capitol Hill," will be held
at 4:15 p.m. in Main Hall Room 109 and is free and open to the public.
	A specialist in congressional committee jurisdiction and a 1985
graduate of Lawrence, King will discuss the two types of "turf" battles that
are common in Washington.  The first involves one committee trying to take
jurisdiction away from another committee, such as civil rights legislation, an
area often fought over by both the commerce and the judiciary committees.  The
second battle occurs when several committees fight for control over new, or
relatively undefined, pieces of "turf," such as consumer protection in the
1960s, or more recently, the concept of industrial competitiveness.  King
argues that turf wars are generally good for the country and by having flexible
committee boundaries Congress can absorb new social problems.
	King, an assistant professor of public policy at Harvard since 1992, is
the author of the book, "Turf Wars: How Congressional Committees Claim
Jurisdiction," which will be published next year by the University of Chicago
Press.  He earned his masterUs degree and Ph.D. in political science from the
University of Michigan and was honored in 1992 by the American Political
Science Association with the E.E. Schattschneider Award for the countryUs best
doctoral dissertation in American politics.  
 

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