AbstractBargaining among sectional cotton interests in Congress was particularly intense in 1953–54, when a substantial reduction had to be made in the national allotment and then allocated to the various cotton‐producing states. Due largely to congressional constraints on committees to achieve some mutually satisfactory aggregation of preferences, this event can be treated as a two‐person, mixed‐motive bargaining game between eastern and western cotton interests. Through a series of offers and counteroffers, a final solution was reached such that each 1‐percent acreage reduction in the east was accompanied by a 2‐percent reduction in the west. Furthermore, these final “terms of trade” are the same as were reached in a similar instance of bargaining among cotton interests in 1949, implying some stability in the congressional bargaining process through the course of time.