Back-channel Policymaking and Inter-branch Communication

• In Event: Presidents and Legislatures: A Complicated Relationship

Abstract

Members of Congress strategically use informal, direct communication with administrative agencies in order to influence policy. The bureaucratic policymaking venue allows members of Congress to circumvent constraints in the legislative process and within their constituencies. I analyze over 60,000 interactions between members of Congress (both House members and senators) and federal agencies between 2005 and 2012 using an original dataset I constructed by submitted several Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. I argue that members of Congress reach out to federal agencies in order to (1) influence policies they were constrained from shaping during the lawmaking process and to (2) satisfy competing principals of party leadership and diverging constituencies. First, while previous literature has depicted the interactions between legislators and the bureaucracy as limited to casework and grant requests, I find that members of Congress regularly contact federal agencies about policy issues. Second, nearly all members of Congress contact agencies about policy, and these interactions are not confined to members of committees with oversight or leadership as previously thought. Finally, legislators use the bureaucratic policymaking venue to circumvent constraints in the legislative process and within their constituencies. My results suggest that we cannot evaluate representation in Congress by observing behavior in the House and Senate chambers alone. Taken together, these findings contribute to a new perspective on policymaking behavior that circumvents the formal lawmaking process.

Author

• Melinda Ritchie, The Ohio State University