Sunsets and federal lawmaking: Evidence from the 110th Congress

Temporary legislation, better regulation, and experimentalist governance: An empirical study

“…First, while the limited empirical evidence that existed until now could have suggested (as explained in section 4.1) that the pervasiveness of temporary legislation may be unique to the US, this study demonstrates that this phenomenon cannot be simply dismissed as another case of "American exceptionalism" (Owens & Loomis 2006;Schiller 2016). Likewise, the two available studies until now, which indicated the scarcity of temporary legislation in the Netherlands (Veerman & Bulut 2011), as opposed to the apparent relative prevalence in the US (Fagan & Bilgel 2015), might have suggested an explanation based on the presidential/parliamentary system distinction, which is often given as the major explanation in comparative studies on lawmaking (see, e.g. Rose-Ackerman et al 2015).…”

“…308). And indeed, a recent empirical study of the US Congress found that the inclusion of a sunset provision increases the likelihood that a bill becomes law (Fagan & Bilgel ). While this has not been the focus of this study, during my in‐depth qualitative examination of the experimental or non‐experimental purposes of temporary legislation, I also uncovered some tentative anecdotal evidence suggesting that temporary legislation may indeed be used as a tool for softening parliamentary opposition (and perhaps also parliamentary scrutiny).…”

“…Likewise, the two available studies until now, which indicated the scarcity of temporary legislation in the Netherlands (Veerman & Bulut ), as opposed to the apparent relative prevalence in the US (Fagan & Bilgel ), might have suggested an explanation based on the presidential/parliamentary system distinction, which is often given as the major explanation in comparative studies on lawmaking (see, e.g. Rose‐Ackerman et al .…”

“…The problem is that because of the lack of empirical evidence, scholars are left to rely mostly on general impressions and anecdotal evidence. Even after consulting with leading experts in the field from various countries, I am aware of only four studies that provide at least partial, indirect empirical support for the argument about the scarcity of temporary legislation in a number of countries; one empirical study of the Netherlands that directly supports this claim (Veerman & Bulut ); and one empirical study that indicates that temporary legislation may be relatively more prevalent in the US (Fagan & Bilgel ) . It seems that in many jurisdictions, sustained empirical studies exploring the prevalence of temporary legislation are still missing.…”

The slippery slope of rights-restricting temporary measures: an experimental analysis

“…The present experiments are, to our knowledge, the first attempts to empirically test some of the behavioural implications of making temporary policy (for some existing behavioural but not experimental work on the topic, see Fagan & Bilgel, 2015;Zamir, 2015;Fabbri & Faure, 2018). In a series of three experiments, we investigate the effect of timeboth prospectively and retrospectivelyon the willingness to approve rights-restricting policy.…”