What Is Regular Order Worth? Partisan Lawmaking and Congressional Processes

Curry, James M.; Lee, Frances E.

doi:10.1086/706893

Cited by 8 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…rarely covers the routine of the legislative process (a newspaper is not going to spend time recounting how the process followed a legislative textbook), in part because as noted above, the media generally covers controversial or conflict action, rather than the routine and mundane. Thus, while Congress does still enact laws using traditional processes (Curry and Lee 2018), such legislative approaches do not receive coverage in journalistic outlets, and so do not merit investigation in this paper. 15.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Congressional Processes and Public Approval of New Laws

Curry

2018

Political Research Quarterly

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Does how Congress makes a law affect public approval of that law? This question has been little studied, but the rising use of unorthodox processes in Congress raises concerns about the perceived legitimacy of congressional action among the public. Utilizing two unique survey experiments, I present evidence that when people are aware of the use of unorthodox legislative processes they express lower levels of approval for new laws. This effect is especially pronounced among partisans already inclined to be in opposition to the law, further solidifying their opposition. These findings have important implications for a Congress that in recent years has increasingly turned to unorthodox legislative processes to pass legislation.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Congressional Processes and Public Approval of New Laws

Curry

2018

Political Research Quarterly

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“…10 We contend that it is important to incorporate a much wider variety of lawmaking strategies into measures of legislative productivity than bill sponsorship alone. Members of Congress are not limited to traditional methods of legislating (Curry and Lee 2020) and the story of the modern House is one of strategic adaptation as various actors seek ways to produce their favored policy outcomes (Sinclair 1998;. Metrics that do not reflect this will struggle to capture our current understanding of legislative politics.…”

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confidence: 99%

Crediting Invisible Work: Congress and the Lawmaking Productivity Metric (LawProM)

EATOUGH,

PREECE

2024

Am Polit Sci Rev

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Congressional observers have long been interested in the distinction between legislative “workhorses” and “showhorses.” However, when scholars operationalize this by measuring legislator productivity, they often neglect many realities of modern lawmaking by focusing on the traditional bill sponsorship and passage process. To better align measurement with practice, we compile widely available data on bill sponsorship, cosponsorship, and amendments; we also use text-as-data methods to credit instances of behind-the-scenes lawmaking via text reuse between bills. We weight achievements from each of these lawmaking methods to create the Lawmaking Productivity Metric for House Members of the 101–113th Congresses. Including methods of lawmaking beyond bill sponsorship provides important insights about who the congressional workhorses are. In particular, we find that traditional measures systematically undercount the legislative successes of women and likely Black Members of Congress because they disproportionately legislate in less visible ways.

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“…Thus, it represents an important focus of academic researchers’ attention. While the study of Congress has in recent decades been dominated by studies of publicly available data, there has been a recent growth in studying Congress up close, including via in‐person interviews (e.g., Crosson et al 2021; Curry and Lee 2020; Henderson et al 2021). Surprisingly, this increasing interest in qualitative interview projects has not been met with up‐to‐date, comprehensive methodological advice, leaving scholars who are new to the enterprise without adequate guidance.…”

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confidence: 99%

Conducting Interview Projects in the US Congress: Analyzing the Methods of Experts in the Field

Steiman,

Suhay

2023

Legislative Studies Qtrly

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The field of political science is seeing renewed interest in studying the US Congress via one‐on‐one interviews. Yet, the qualitative research methods literature on this topic has lagged behind, with few recent treatments available. The result is uncertainty regarding how best to access and interview Congress. In this study, we implement a novel study design, interviewing over 20 authors—who collectively represent nearly all Congressional qualitative interview studies from the past several decades—about their research practices. Whereas the existing literature focuses on lessons learned from one or two authors’ research experiences, this approach allows us to synthesize a wide range of researchers’ practices and perspectives, identifying areas of consensus and dispute and ultimately providing comprehensive advice to qualitative researchers. As interviewing Congress becomes increasingly difficult amidst growing political polarization and distrust of academics, this methodological advice comes at an opportune time for researchers studying the US Congress and beyond.

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What Is Regular Order Worth? Partisan Lawmaking and Congressional Processes

Cited by 8 publications

References 12 publications

Congressional Processes and Public Approval of New Laws

Congressional Processes and Public Approval of New Laws

Crediting Invisible Work: Congress and the Lawmaking Productivity Metric (LawProM)

Conducting Interview Projects in the US Congress: Analyzing the Methods of Experts in the Field

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