Unification of Powers: When Effective Lawmakers Sponsor Presidential Proposals

• In Event: Implications of Partisanship in the U.S. Congress

Abstract

When Presidents make concrete legislative proposals, which members of Congress sponsor their bills? Does that choice of sponsor significantly influence the fate of the legislation? In this paper, we use multiple sources to identify executive branch proposals appearing as bills in Congress between 1981 and 2006. We examine who sponsors the bills on the President’s behalf, finding strong evidence of sponsorship by members of the President’s party (or ideological moderates in the opposing party), committee and subcommittee chairs (regardless of whether the President’s party is in the majority), previously effective lawmakers, party leaders, and senior lawmakers, all else equal. These legislators naturally are more effective in moving their bills through the lawmaking process. But we find that the coupling of presidential proposals with these effective congressional proponents offers an even more potent force for policy change.

Authors

• Samuel Kernell, University of California, San Diego

• Roger Larocca, Oakland University

• Craig Volden, University of Virginia

• Alan E. Wiseman, Vanderbilt University