Dynamics of Cosponsorship

Abstract

Electoral-connection theories of legislative politics view bill cosponsorship as low-cost position taking by rational legislators who communicate with target audiences (e.g., constituents) external to the legislature. Legislative signaling games suggest a view of bill cosponsorship in which early cosponsors attempt to communicate to target audiences (e.g., the median voter) within the legislature. Using data from the 103rd U.S. House of Representatives, we show that the timing of legislators' cosponsorship decisions are more supportive of cosponsorship as intralegislative signaling than as extralegislative position taking. First, policy extremists on both sides of the political spectrum are more likely than moderates to be initial endorsers of legislative initiatives. Second, extremist-moderate differences diminish over the course of bill histories.

Legislative Success in a Small World: Social Network Analysis and the Dynamics of Congressional Legislation

“…Although the cost of cosponsorship is low (Kessler and Krehbiel, 1996), a number of scholars have provided evidence that cosponsorship contains valuable information about how well members of Congress work together. Campbell (1982) Thus, legislators themselves behave in a way that indicates they find some value in cosponsorship, suggesting that it is not merely ''cheap talk.''…”

Bill Sponsorship in Congress: The Moderating Effect of Agenda Positions on Legislative Proposals

“…This is surprising because even though bill sponsorship is a much costlier activity than cosponsorship, the latter has received a fair amount of attention (Campbell 1982;Krehbiel 1995;Kessler and Krehbiel 1996;Wilson and Young 1997). Related research has also examined how much effort or participation is devoted to legislative entrepreneurship (Bratton and Haynie 1999;Matthews 1960;Schiller 1995;Sinclair 1989;Walker 1977;Wawro 2000) but not how that effort is spent on shaping proposals.…”

“…The committee data for the 101st and 102nd Congresses are from Nelson (2005) and for the 103rd through 108th Congresses from Stewart and Woon (2005) See Kessler and Krehbiel (1996) and Wilson and Young (1997) for somewhat different perspectives on cosponsorship.…”

Candidate Selection Methods, Cooperation and Legislative Effectiveness

“…Members of Congress invest a great deal of time convincing their colleagues to sponsor their legislation (Koger, 2003;Fowler 2006). Even though sponsoring bills has no formal effect on the legislative process, the sponsorship enables legislators to take a position (Koger, 2003;Rocca & Gordon, 2010) and can have policy implications (e.g., Kessler & Krehbiel, 1996;Koger, 2003). The sponsorship of bills gives political leaders low cost information about the political gain they can achieve from legislation (Koger, 2003).…”