Committees and the Decline of Lawmaking in Congress

Lewallen, Jonathan

doi:doi:10.3998/mpub.11533650

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.

Series

Legislative Politics and Policy Making

ISBN(s)

978-0-472-13206-5 (hardcover)
978-0-472-12699-6 (ebook)

Subject

Citable Link

The trend in the percentage of bills referred to multiple House committees from 1981 to 2016.

Figure 3-1. Multiply-Referred Bills in the House of Representatives, 1981-2016

From Chapter 3

Fig. 3.1. Multiply-Referred Bills in the House of Representatives, 1981–2016. (Source: Congressional Bills Project, calculated by the author; the 114th Congress was the last set of data available as of this writing. House Rules Committee data exclude those bills it receives for the purposes of devising a debate rule.)

The average percentage of bills referred to each House committee that also were referred to at least one other committee from 1981 to 2016.

Figure 3-2. Multiply-Referred Bills Across House Committees, 1981-2016

From Chapter 3

Fig. 3.2. Multiply-Referred Bills across House Committees, 1981–2016. (Source: Congressional Bills Project, calculated by the author; the 114th Congress was the last set of data available as of this writing. House Rules Committee data exclude those bills it receives for the purposes of devising a debate rule.)

Each House committee’s trend in the percentage of referred bills that also were referred to at least one other committee from 1981 to 2016.

Figure 3-3. Multiply-Referred Bills for Each House Committee Across Time, 1981-2016

From Chapter 3

Fig. 3.3. Multiply-Referred Bills for Each House Committee across Time, 1981–2016. (Source: Congressional Bills Project and Congress.gov, calculated by the author. House Rules Committee data exclude those bills it receives for the purposes of devising a debate rule.)

The percentage of House debate rules classified as open from 1981 to 2016.

Figure 3-4. Open Debate Rules in the House of Representatives, 1981-2016

From Chapter 3

Fig. 3.4. Open Debate Rules in the House of Representatives, 1981–2016. (Source: Sinclair 2007 [97th–108th Congresses] and Congress.gov [109th–114th Congresses]; the former calculated by Donald Wolfensberger, the latter calculated by the author. The Wolfensberger calculations only refer to “restrictive” rules that include closed, modified closed, and modified open rules in the same statistic.)

Committees and the Decline of Lawmaking in Congress

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Figure 3-1. Multiply-Referred Bills in the House of Representatives, 1981-2016

Figure 3-2. Multiply-Referred Bills Across House Committees, 1981-2016

Figure 3-3. Multiply-Referred Bills for Each House Committee Across Time, 1981-2016

Figure 3-4. Open Debate Rules in the House of Representatives, 1981-2016

Figure 3-5. Senate Cloture Motions and Majority Party Leader Involvement, 1981-2018

Figure 3-6. Resolving Intercameral Differences Through Conference Committee, 1981-2018

Figure 3-7. Total Subcommittees and Oversight Subcommittees in Congress, 1981-2018

Figure 3-8. Predicted Values for House Legislative Activity, Multiple vs. Primary Referral Era

Figure 3-9. Predicted Values for Senate Legislative Activity from Previous Cloture Motions