Wait Until Next Year:
Congressional Policy Making and the Reauthorization Calendar
E. Scott Adler
Laurel Harbridge
University of Colorado
## email not listed ##
John D. Wilkerson
University of Washington
## email not listed ##
Abstract
Many theories of legislative policymaking begin with the implicit premise that each
Congress starts with a clean slate, and that the preferences of legislators drive decisions
about policy priorities and agendas at the individual level or institutional level. We
question this central assumption by showing how longer term scheduling mechanisms
shape congressional action. Specifically, we investigate expiring authorizations, or
sunsets across issue areas, and find that legislative interest, activity, success is strongly
related to the importance of a program sunset.
Paper to be presented at the 2003 annual meetings of the American Political Science Association. This
research was supported by National Science Foundation grants SES-0080061 and SES-0080066. We are
indebted to T. Jens Feeley and Heather Larsen (University of Washington) and Greg Young and Dennis
Still (University of Colorado) for their extraordinary and meticulous efforts in managing this data
collection project. We also thank Thad Hall for his willingness to share his own work on short-term
reauthorizations.