Legislative Process Exam 2

Ethnographic participant observation and interviews of House members

Fenno’s Home style

Perception of entire district.

• See in terms of demographics

• Homogenous vs heterogenous

Geographic constituency

Those who typically vote for the member.

• Understood cross-sectionally (solid supporters, out of reach)

• Longitudinally (who supported last time vs this time vs last time)

• Defined by uncertainty

Reelection constituency

Strong supporters, not just routine or temp supporters

• Solidarity, even in primaries

• high comfort level

• often an identity-link or issue-based link

Primary Constituency

Intimates- those the member trusts (friends, family, etc)

Personal constituency

Consequences of how MCs see their constituencies

Time usage and staff allocation

Main goal of members behavior is to try and build

trust

In order to build trust legislators develop a presentation of the self:

1. qualification

2. identification

3. empathy

Qualification

Emphasize background, experience, and accomplishments

Identification

I’m one of you.

“Home Style”

Adopt a style to convey these three presentations of the self but not equally

The Archetypes

1. person to person

2. popular local boy

3. articulating the issues

4. serving the district

Procuring federal funding for the district can be a great way to increase approval ratings.

• About how many times they send out messages

Grimmer et al

If credit claiming works so well at building approval, maybe legislators have incentives to

craft home styles around getting grants instead of policy making

When would home style around grants be the case?

Reps in competitive districts (marginal reps). Claim credit for appropriations.

Reps in safe districts (Aligned representatives)

adopt more extreme positions and articulate them

Voters trust the legislator

more voting leeway (no evidence)

True or False: local activities can be used to build approval among constituents in ideological disagreement

False

Home style strats lead legislators to allocate their efforts towards different kinds of activities like

policy vs federal grants

Incumbents who win reelection regularly take up their challengers priority issues and act on them in congress

issue uptake

Member who introduces a bill

sponsor

Other members who sign on to show support for a bill

cosponsors

Bills are referred to committees whose

issue area best aligns with

True or False: cosponsoring legislation is a cheap activity

True

Consequences for Senators having the power to offer any amendment

1. greater opportunity to impact a wider variety of issues areas

2. credit claim

3. greater minority party influence

Speaking on the House floor is seen as

position-taking

Floor speeches consequential for voting behavior, especially for some descriptive groups

Dietrich and Hayes

The logic of congressional Action

1. citizens develop preferences

2. citizens select candidates

3. legislators select policies while estimating citizen prefs

4. coalition leaders attempt to influence these estimations

Costs and benefits for citizens perceived three ways

1. general costs and benefits

2. group costs and benefits

3. geographic costs and benefits

Citizen perceptions are influenced by:

1. magnitude

2. timing

3. proximity

Availability of an instigator

someone to help reveal citizens’ stakes in an outcome

The role of coalition leaders

1. framing

2. traceability

3. modification

House rules and procedures are majoritarian and processes flexible

True

Can bills be multiply referred?

yes

Bills reported out of committee are listed in chronological order on the

Union calendar, House calendar, private calendar, consensus calendar

Proposed amendments must relate to the contents of bill

Germaneness requirement

House has increasingly strayed into irregular order also called

unorthodox lawmaking

Omnibus bill

megabills and packages

Why omibus bills?

• hide legislation that would otherwise be controversial

• pressure president to accept provisions

• 11th hour lawmaking

Majority party power in omnibus bill

• influence megabill substance

• give members little time to review contents of bill

• bring must pass legislation to the floor right before a deadline

To expediate lawmaking the speaker may elect to consider a bill under

suspension of the rules

Most major pieces of legislation are considered under (House)

special rules

Rules committee can choose the ordering in which bills reach the floor and

set the conditions for a bill’s debate and amendment

The arm of the speaker

The rules committee

Special rules can structure the terms of consideration;

• debate time limits

• amendment procedure

• waivers of any rules

Allows germane amendments to be proposed on bill

Open rule

Does not allow any amending activity on bill beyond committee-sponsored amendments

Closed rule

Limits amending opportunity

• Only amends to certain parts of bill

• Limits amending to pre-approved amendments

• authorizes only specific lawmakers to amend

Structured rule

Which party prefers closed/structured rules

Majority party

Senate rules and procedures are NOT majoritarian and

less flexible processes than House

Power of the senate

• freedom of debate (filibuster)

• freedom to offer any amendment

Consequences of differences between House and Senate

• minority rights

• weaker agenda control

Which chamber is more likely to have more polarized committees

House

True or False: in Senate contentious bills are more likely to be worked out on the floor than committee

True

In Senate only one calendar for legislation

Calendar of Business

In senate, any senator can make motion to bring a bill

to the floor

Allows majority leader to speak first if multiple senators seek recognition

Right of first recognition

The Senate has ___ on any debatable motion

unlimited debate

Debatable motions include motions to

• consider legislation

• proceed to a vote

• almost anything of importance

Senate majority leader uses these two ways to bring legislation the floor

1. Unanimous consent

2. Motions to proceed

A senator can request that a bill be considered by

unanimous consent

All senators consent to operate outside of the Senate’s standing rules, limiting their individual rights to debate and amend

Unanimous consent

Agreements between majority and minority leaders to consider legislation

Unanimous consent agreement

The primary goal of UCAs is to prevent

filibusters by getting agreement from everyone on how to proceed

Act like special rules in the House

Set times for consideration for the bill:

• time limits for debate

• amendment procedure

• points of order

• vote margin

UCAs

A request by a senator that the parties not enter into a UCA

Hold

Holds are a common tactic to block

nominations

Presents a motion to proceed to the consideration of a particular bill

Motion to proceed (51 votes to proceed)

Any senator can extend debate indefinetely on debatable motions

• Example of minority rights

• Talking vs silent

Filibuster

Minority rights in Senate

• Can place a hold on unanimous consent

• Filibuster

A motion to end debate (60 votes) (51 for noms)

Cloture (rising today)

Consequences of filibuster

• rise of cloture

• death of deliberation on the floor

• rise of omnibus legislation

Amendment rules in senate:

• No germaness requirement

• two degrees of amendments

• no two amendments can be identical

Without a UCA, the senators can slow, change, or

kill bills via amendment

Sources of party unity

• Common ideas among co-partisans

• pressure from voters

• competition for power

Party conflict driven by

• differences in ideas and ideals

• sorting of voters

• increased 2 party competition

Member of the party shares an interest in trying to make the best ___ for the party as possible

collective electoral situation

It is possible that people are not becoming more extreme in their ideological leanings but they are sorting themselves in a more logical way into parties on basis of their ideological leanings

sorting of voters

Primary cause of the decline in competitive races

Sorting, where people live

True or False: Majority party members increasingly hold party message votes

True

Polarization does not appear to be driven by contemporary events or

institutional differences between the House and Senate → this

includes gerrymandering

McCarty reading

“Polarization in Congress derives from both

sincere ideological differences about policy means and ends and

strategic behavior to exploit those differences to win elections”

McCarty

Republicans now can actually

win elections, leading them to strategically differentiate themselves

from Democrats

Lee

Congress was once a ____ institution that followed routine, ____ legislative procecesses

decentralized; regular order

Today, congress is a highly ___ institution that often turns to ____ legislative processes

centralized; unorthodox

What is a routinized, decentralized, committee-led and sequential approach to the legislative process

how a bill becomes law:

1. introduction and referral

2. committee work

3. floor consideration

4. repeat in other chamber

5. conference committee

True or false: fewer bills are subject to formal committee proceedings before passage

True

True or false: more bills are subject to hearings after introduction

false

True or false: fewer bills are subject to open amendment opportunities on the floor of the house

true

True or false: more amendments are being offered or agreed to on the senate floor

false

Today, congressional leaders call the shots on major legislation, what does this mean for back-benchers?

the ideas of back benches require leadership consent to move forward

A flexible, centralized, and leadership approach to the legislative process

unorthodox lawmaking.

Features of unorthodox lawmaking

• leaders take primary role

• action takes place behind the scenes

• traditional processes are adhered to irregularly

• rank and rile legislators have less formal opportunities to participate

Power has begun to centralize with

majority party leadership

Why would rank-and-file members cede power to leadership?

1. Conditional party government theory- party unity

2. a difficult contemporary political environment

Predicts that a party’s strength within the legislature will be determined by the homogeneity of preferences within each party

CPG

Three benefits that centralized processes have for moving legislation

• efficiency

• secrecy

• flexibility

Ability to choose what and doesn’t come up for consideration

agenda power

Agenda power is concentrated in majority party senior partners

• leadership exercises positive and negative agenda control

Majority party leadership power - cartel theory

When the Speaker fails at this (not expedite legislation that runs counters to the wishes of the majority of his majority), it is said that the majority party has been

rolled