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Just How Unorthodox? Assessing Deliberation on Omnibus Spending Bills

Sun, September 2, 8:00 to 9:30am, Marriott, Salon A

Abstract

In recent years, political scientists have called for research on ways to improve deliberation in Congress (Mansbridge and Martin 2013). Scholars assert that the shift to “unorthodox lawmaking” has eroded effective deliberation over legislation because members bypass traditional forms of committee scrutiny such as hearings and markups (Mann and Ornstein 2006). Instead, members write legislation behind closed doors through ad-hoc task forces or with heavy involvement from party leaders. The consequences this shift are hard to measure, but critics suggest that the limited formal role for committees leads to poorer quality legislation. Absent committee consideration, bill writing may be rushed, important stakeholders may not have an opportunity to provide information and feedback, and media coverage that reveals flaws may be limited. Some scholars and practitioners have called for a return to “regular order,” or textbook methods of lawmaking that include formal committee consideration, in response to this change.

Omnibus appropriations bills are a common form of unorthodox legislating. They are formed when members bundle together two or more individual appropriations bills into a single legislative package. Members also frequently attach non-appropriations legislation to omnibus bills. The resulting packages may be thousands of pages long and are often adopted near the end of a session with little time for debate. Critics say that the informal process of assembling these packages lacks effective deliberation, reduces transparency, and leads to the adoption of poorly crafted legislation. At the same time, other work highlights the potential benefits of large, omnibus bills, arguing that when a bill’s jurisdiction is large, it can be easier to build a supportive coalition and deals can be struck that might not be possible otherwise (Binder and Lee 2013).

In this paper, we assess the charge that the unorthodox processes used to create omnibus bills reduce deliberation on the legislation they carry. We assume that the various stages of committee consideration, such as hearings, mark-ups, and reporting a bill to the floor, constitute an important form of deliberation. We then examine the extent of committee deliberation on two different components of omnibus bills: first, the individual appropriations bills that make up the core of the package; and, second, the non-appropriations legislation that also has been added. We report whether the component pieces of omnibus bills received a committee hearing, mark-up, or were reported from committee. We conclude with a discussion of the costs and benefits of using omnibus appropriations bills, especially as vehicles for non-appropriations legislation. Our findings represent the first effort we are aware of to demonstrate whether the charge that unorthodox methods of lawmaking reduce deliberation fits the data on omnibus spending bills.

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