The Concentration of Legislative Effectiveness in the American States

Wednesday, November 13

In this Center for Effective Lawmaking (CEL) working paper, Professor Todd Makse of Florida International University and Jacob Lollis of the University of Virginia examine how effective lawmaking is distributed among legislators within a chamber. While legislative effectiveness scores for individual lawmakers are often emphasized, this paper highlights the frequently overlooked importance of evaluating how effectiveness is spread across all members of a legislative body. Through analyzing legislative effectiveness data, the authors develop new measures to assess the concentration and dispersion of policymaking success within legislative chambers, uncovering substantial variation across different states. Their findings suggest that smaller chambers and limits on bill introductions are linked to more egalitarian distributions of legislative effectiveness, while centralized powers do not significantly impact this dispersion. Additionally, they observe that policymaking success is highly concentrated among legislators working on the most substantively significant bills, indicating that while many lawmakers contribute effectively, success on key legislation remains within a narrower group.

To learn more, read the full report here.

Photo: “US state abbrev map” is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.