Introduction
When do legislators work on particular policy issues? When do committees
pursue policy changes? Textbooks and much of the research on legislative activity
portrays the policymaking process as if Congress starts from scratch every two years. The
impression given is that, although legislative entrepreneurs face significant competition
for attention, the agenda is wide open and ready to be exploited by the most creative and
determined legislators. But how open is Congress’ agenda, and how much opportunity do
individual legislators really have to author successful legislation?
A critical element of this conventional wisdom about policy making is that
lawmakers and committees are relatively unconstrained to introduce and promote the
policy changes they see fit. That is, although members and committees make
calculations about political feasibility, political and financial costs, etc. of a bill when
promoting and pursuing it in the legislative arena, there is nothing structural impeding
that activity. There are few constraints, the notion goes, on a member’s efforts to
promote her favorite policy changes. Indeed, many reasons are offered for why members
should frequently sponsor legislation despite its apparently dim prospects (Mayhew
1974).
In an earlier paper (Adler, Feeley and Wilkerson 2003) we proposed that
Congress’ agenda is much less open, and opportunities for success are much more
constrained than the existing literature on legislative effectiveness would lead us to
believe. As evidence we showed that two variables often associated with legislative
effectiveness, majority party membership and referral committee membership, were not
simply contributing factors. They were virtual necessary conditions for the progress of
legislation. We argued that this reflected the fact that decisions about which of many bills
is to become the legislative vehicle for policy change rests in the hands of the leadership.
Thus, we questioned whether the standard measure of effectiveness – the progress of a
particular member’s bill – tells us very much about that member’s abilities when
compared to others.
Convention