Effective Lawmaking Behind the Scenes
In this Center for Effective Lawmaking (CEL) working paper, Co-Directors Craig VoldenAlan Wiseman (Vanderbilt University), and Faculty Affiliates Mary Kroeger (University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill), Erinn Lauterbach (Villanova University), and Kelsey Shoub (University of Massachusetts-Amherst) demonstrate how behind-the-scenes lawmaking has become much more common in the U.S. Congress in recent years, with numerous bills embedded in must-pass legislation. Building on previous political science research, they offer a methodology to identify all bills that are substantially embedded in all laws in both the House and Senate over the past 30 years. They then create a revised version of Legislative Effectiveness Scores to examine whether such unorthodox lawmaking changes the nature of the individual characteristics, institutional positions, and behaviors associated with effective lawmaking. They find that today more bills become law through embedding in other measures than become law on a stand-alone basis, and that such patterns vary significantly across policy areas. However, they establish that the same individuals who are effective in moving forward their own legislation are effective behind-the-scenes, suggesting the robustness of prior findings on effective lawmaking.
To learn more, read the full report here.
Photo: “US Senate Building” by Larry Lamsa is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
