A Bill Editing Approach to Understanding Lawmaking

• In Event: Methodology in the Study of Legislatures

Abstract

We investigate congressional lawmaking as a bill editing process. Contemporary studies of lawmaking focus almost exclusively on the progress of bills without considering how bills change as they move through the process. Studies of legislative effectiveness similarly focus solely on a whether a bill advances without considering its content. In reality, most bills are revised as they move through the different stages of the legislative process. But how are they revised? What do committees do to bills? How does floor consideration alter the substance of bills? Do chambers edit their own bills differently than bills proposed by the other chamber? Which chamber prevails as they resolve their differences? Do editing patterns vary depending on the policy (issue complexity) or political context (party polarization)? We propose and validate a general approach to studying bill editing in Congress. We then study the congressional lawmaking process by examining how more than 100,000 bills were edited at different stages across 20 years of lawmaking.

Authors

• John D. Wilkerson, University of Washington

• Andreu Casas, University of Washington

• Matthew Denny, Pennsylvania State University