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More Effective Than We Thought: Accounting for Legislative Hitchhikers Reveals a More Inclusive and Productive Lawmaking Process

More Effective Than We Thought: Accounting for Legislative Hitchhikers Reveals a More Inclusive... For more than half a century, scholars have been studying legislative effectiveness using a single metric—whether the bills a member sponsors progress through the legislative process. We investigate a less orthodox form of effectiveness—bill proposals that become law as provisions of other bills. Counting these “hitchhiker” bills as additional cases of bill sponsorship success reveals a more productive, less hierarchical, and less partisan lawmaking process. We argue that agenda and procedural constraints are central to understanding why lawmakers pursue hitchhiker strategies. We also investigate the legislative vehicles that attract hitchhikers and find, among other things, that more Senate bills are enacted as hitchhikers on House laws than become law on their own. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png American Journal of Political Science Wiley

More Effective Than We Thought: Accounting for Legislative Hitchhikers Reveals a More Inclusive and Productive Lawmaking Process

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Publisher
Wiley
Copyright
© 2020 by the Midwest Political Science Association
ISSN
0092-5853
eISSN
1540-5907
DOI
10.1111/ajps.12472
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

For more than half a century, scholars have been studying legislative effectiveness using a single metric—whether the bills a member sponsors progress through the legislative process. We investigate a less orthodox form of effectiveness—bill proposals that become law as provisions of other bills. Counting these “hitchhiker” bills as additional cases of bill sponsorship success reveals a more productive, less hierarchical, and less partisan lawmaking process. We argue that agenda and procedural constraints are central to understanding why lawmakers pursue hitchhiker strategies. We also investigate the legislative vehicles that attract hitchhikers and find, among other things, that more Senate bills are enacted as hitchhikers on House laws than become law on their own.

Journal

American Journal of Political Science – Wiley

Published: Jan 1, 2020

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