component is also evident (as was expected). Its high significance reinforces its role in the
inclusion of a bill in an omnibus. What is intriguing is that the more conservative a president is, the
more likely a bill is to be late. While this would seem to run counter to the understanding of a
conservative president being fiscally responsible this could be accounted for in a few ways. On one
level the utilization of DW-NOMINATE scores to account for conservatism is a rather blunt
measure. Conservatism is expressed in various manners, be it social or fiscal. In this sense such a
discrepancy between fiscal conservatism and the lateness of an appropriations bill could be
accounted for by the presence of an extremely socially conservative president who is not
particularly fiscally conservative being in the White House.
Final Thoughts
Two overarching relationships are prevalent across all levels of the legislative process. The
first is the importance of an Appropriations bill being considered during and election year. More
specifically this is especially important in a midterm election year. During such years bills are more
likely to be included in the omnibus. At the same time though, at various stages of the legislative
process, there is a suggestion that a presidential election year reduced omnibus inclusion (though to
a lesser extent that there was an omnibus inclusion in midterm years). This can be the result of one
of at least two scenarios, which are both dependent on the increased visibility and scrutiny that
arise in such years. On one hand this could be construed as a comparison of heightened states of
awareness. If the presidential election year is understood as the higher point of awareness, then the
presumptions laid out for this model and its various stages—that the higher the visibility, the more
that members will seek to reduce the visibility for their policy outputs, by hiding smaller
appropriations bills in the omnibus—are rather inverted. In presidential years appropriations are
less likely to be in an omnibus, while the inverse is true in midterm years. If the voters that
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Convention