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  2. Committees and the Decline of Lawmaking in Congress

Committees and the Decline of Lawmaking in Congress

Jonathan Lewallen 2020
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The public, journalists, and legislators themselves have often lamented a decline in congressional lawmaking in recent years, often blaming party politics for the lack of legislative output. In Committees and the Decline of Lawmaking in Congress, Jonathan Lewallen examines the decline in lawmaking from a new, committee-centered perspective. Lewallen tests his theory against other explanations such as partisanship and an increased demand for oversight with multiple empirical tests and traces shifts in policy activity by policy area using the Policy Agendas Project coding scheme.

He finds that because party leaders have more control over the legislative agenda, committees have spent more of their time conducting oversight instead. Partisanship alone does not explain this trend; changes in institutional rules and practices that empowered party leaders have created more uncertainty for committees and contributed to a shift in their policy activities. The shift toward oversight at the committee level combined with party leader control over the voting agenda means that many members of Congress are effectively cut out of many of the institution's policy decisions. At a time when many, including Congress itself, are considering changes to modernize the institution and keep up with a stronger executive branch, the findings here suggest that strengthening Congress will require more than running different candidates or providing additional resources.

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Series
  • Legislative Politics and Policy Making
ISBN(s)
  • 978-0-472-13206-5 (hardcover)
  • 978-0-472-12699-6 (ebook)
Subject
  • Political Science:American Politics
  • Political Science:Governance
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  • Table of Contents

  • Resources

  • Stats

  • Cover
  • Title Page
  • Copyright Page
  • Contents
  • Preface and Acknowledgments
  • One. Committees and Congress in the Policy Process
  • Two. Myths and Realities of Congressional Lawmaking
  • Three. The Effects of Centralized Agenda Setting
  • Four. Partisanship and Committee Activity
  • Five. Demand for Committee Oversight
  • Six. The Stratified Congress
  • Seven. The Costs of Doing (Legislative) Business
  • Appendix
  • Notes
  • References
  • Index

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Panel A shows trends in the count of legislative and nonlegislative hearings in each chamber. Panel B shows trends in the proportion of hearings that are legislative.

Figure 2-2. Committee Hearing Trends, 1981-2016. Panel A: Hearing Counts

From Chapter 2

Fig. 2.2. Committee Hearing Trends, 1981–2016. (Source: Policy Agendas Project Congressional Hearings dataset, which did not include a complete list of hearings from the 115th Congress as of this writing; calculated by the author.)

Panel A shows trends in the count of legislative and nonlegislative hearings in each chamber. Panel B shows trends in the proportion of hearings that are legislative.

Figure 2-2. Committee Hearing Trends, 1981-2016. Panel B: Hearing Proportions

From Chapter 2

Fig. 2.2. Committee Hearing Trends, 1981–2016. (Source: Policy Agendas Project Congressional Hearings dataset, which did not include a complete list of hearings from the 115th Congress as of this writing; calculated by the author.)

The left panel shows the average ratio of House hearings that were legislative by committee from 1981 to 2018, ordered from highest to lowest ratio. The right panel shows the average ratio of Senate hearings that were legislative by committee from 1981 to 2018, ordered from highest to lowest ratio.

Figure 2-4. Legislative Hearing Ratio Averages, 1981-2016

From Chapter 2

Fig. 2.4. Legislative Hearing Ratio Averages, 1981–2016. (Source: Policy Agendas Project, calculated by the author. House hearing ratios are displayed in the left panel and Senate hearing ratios in the right. House Rules Committee data throughout the book only include those bills in its original jurisdiction.)

Each House committee’s trend in the ratio of hearings that are legislative from 1981 to 2016.

Figure 2-6. House Committee Legislative Hearing Trends, 1981-2016

From Chapter 2

Fig. 2.6. House Committee Legislative Hearing Trends, 1981–2016. (Source: Policy Agendas Project, calculated by the author.)

Each Senate committee’s trend in the ratio of hearings that are legislative from 1981 to 2016.

Figure 2-7. Senate Committee Legislative Hearing Trends, 1981-2016

From Chapter 2

Fig. 2.7. Senate Committee Legislative Hearing Trends, 1981–2016. (Source: Policy Agendas Project, calculated by the author.)

Trends in the average number of legislative committee hearing sessions, panels, and witnesses from 1981 to 2012.

Figure 2-10. Average Workload in Legislative Hearings, 1981-2012

From Chapter 2

Fig. 2.10. Average Workload in Legislative Hearings, 1981–2012. (Source: Policy Agendas Project Congressional Hearings dataset, compiled by the author. The 112th Congress was the last complete set of hearings when these data were collected.)

The left panel displays the average legislative hearing ratio within each Policy Agendas Project major topic code in the House. The right panel displays the same data for the Senate.

Figure 6-1. Average Legislative Hearing Ratios by Policy Area

From Chapter 6

Fig. 6.1. Average Legislative Hearing Ratios by Policy Area. (Source: Policy Agendas Project Congressional Hearings dataset, compiled by the author.)

Each policy area’s trend in the legislative hearing ratio from 1981 to 2012.

Figure 6-3. Trends in Legislative Hearings by Policy Area. Panel A: House of Representatives

From Chapter 6

Fig. 6.3. Trends in Legislative Hearings by Policy Area. Panel A: House Committees. (Source: Policy Agendas Project Congressional Hearings dataset, compiled by the author.)

Each policy area’s trend in the legislative hearing ratio from 1981 to 2012.

Figure 6-3. Trends in Legislative Hearings by Policy Area. Panel B: Senate

From Chapter 6

Fig. 6.3 (cont.), panel B: Senate committees.

The left panel displays the slope coefficients for a time trend counter from a bivariate regression on House legislative hearing ratios in each policy area. The right panel displays the same data for Senate legislative hearing ratios.

Figure 6-5. Linear Trends in Legislative Hearings by Policy Area

From Chapter 6

Fig. 6.5. Linear Trends in Legislative Hearings by Policy Area. (Source: Policy Agendas Project Congressional Hearings dataset, compiled by the author.)

The left panel displays the slope coefficients for a time trend counter from a bivariate regression on House reported bill ratios in each policy area. The right panel displays the same data for Senate reported bill ratios.

Figure 6-6. Linear Trends in Reported Bills by Policy Area

From Chapter 6

Fig. 6.6. Linear Trends in Reported Bills by Policy Area. (Source: Congressional Bills Project, compiled by the author.)

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