Abstract
LEE SIGELMAN'S REASSESSMENT.. . in the November 1979 issue of The Journal of Politics offers little that is new to the examination of the Two Presidencies thesis. He accurately points to some confusion in previous writings, but instead of clarifying, he accepts the confusion and adds his own. Because space does permit a detailed critique of Sigelman's note, we limit our comments to his utilization of the key votes measure. Sigelman complains that we (and Wildavsky) compare apples and oranges, but he gives us a grape and tells us it is an entire bowl of fruit. All earlier studies acknowledge the limitations of using initiatives to Congress as the universe of presidential/congressional relations. Using legislation as Sigelman has, may be a good idea, but it is subject to just as many pitfalls and limitations, if more. Congressional Quarterly's judgement about what is major is just one of a possibly infinite number of judgments. The deductive process necessary to move definitely from trivial to non-trivial is much more difficult than we are being told. Even when we get there we have only part of the picture. Sigelman asserts the boxscore of initiatives is not the best evidence of presidential influence (page 1198). But if, as he claims, he is re-assessing the Two Presidencies thesis, initiatives are surely a closer approximation of Wildavsky's original theoretical concern than roll call votes, which may be totally unrelated to policies the President proposed. The fact that Sigelman finds less
Published Version
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