Bill Sponsorship Research Articles

Bridging the Gender Gap In Bill Sponsorship

Under what circumstances do men sponsor issues that are traditionally regarded as salient primarily to women? By examining the sponsorship of legislation in the upper and lower chambers of 15 state legislatures in 2001, we explored the conditions under which men are likely to focus attention on policy areas involving women's issues and children's issues. We found little effect of institutional context (such as party control of the legislature or diversity within the legislature) on the sponsorship behavior of either men or women. Personal characteristics such as race, education, age, and family circumstances are associated with sponsorship by men, but not by women. Committee service is also strongly associated with sponsorship behavior, particularly for men. Differences in sponsorship are relatively marked in the sponsorship of legislation that focuses on reproduction or other health issues particularly relevant to women. We conclude that the boundaries of the set of issues traditionally defined as “women's issues” may be changing over time and that it is important to recognize that the influences on the sponsorship of women's issues can be different for men than they are for women.

Women and Representation: A Different View of the District?

In this article we measure the impact of gender on women's legislative behavior by utilizing a unique research design. We compare whether women and men of the same political party represent the same congressional district differently with respect to women's issues. Using bill sponsorship and floor remarks during the 104th to 107th sessions of the U.S. House of Representatives as measures of legislative behavior, we find that female legislators who replace men in the same district introduce more women's issues bills in Congress. Although our conclusion that women legislators represent women's issues more frequently in the House supports existing research, our results do so in a new and more effective way by controlling for the competing explanations of party identification and district opinion as factors determining a legislator's behavior.

The Behavior and Success of Latino Legislators: Evidence from the States*

Objectives. Research on the link between descriptive and substantive representation has focused almost exclusively on women and African Americans. In the last two decades, Latino representation in state legislatures has more than doubled, yet scholars have only begun to examine the policy interests and legislative success of these legislators. The objectives of this study are to test a descriptive representation model, in which the ethnicity of the legislator influences legislative behavior even after accounting for the ethnic composition of the district, and to examine ethnic differences in legislative success.Methods. Multivariate regression analyses are used to examine the effect of legislator ethnicity and district composition on bill sponsorship, committee service, and bill passage in seven U.S. legislatures.Results. I find that both constituency composition and the ethnicity of the legislator influence legislative behavior. The success of measures sponsored by Latino legislators varies substantially across states.Conclusions. I conclude that both the ethnicity of the legislator and the composition of the district influence legislative behavior and success. There is clear support for a descriptive representation model of agenda setting, particularly on issues involving immigration. However, this link between descriptive and substantive varies substantially by political context.

Uncompromising Positions: God, Sex, and the U.S. House of Representatives

Uncompromising Positions: God, Sex, and the U.S. House of Representatives. By Elizabeth Anne Oldmixon. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2005. 262p. 26.95 paper.Elizabeth Oldmixon rightly observes that heretofore few, if any, books have been devoted exclusively to the study of congressional voting behavior and legislative sponsorship on moral conflicts. The existing body of research, including my own work, is based on scholarly articles that analyze roll call voting on abortion, mainly, with some attention to gay rights. I was not aware of any systematic analysis of roll calls on school prayer, that is, until the publication of this volume. In sum, Oldmixon's purview includes roll calls and legislative sponsorship of bills on abortion, homosexuality, and school prayer in the 103rd through the 107th Congresses.

Bill Sponsorship and Congressional Support for Policy Proposals, from Introduction to Enactment or Disappearance

Bill Sponsorship and Congressional Support for Policy Proposals, from Introduction to Enactment or Disappearance

Bill Sponsorship and Congressional Support for Policy Proposals, from Introduction to Enactment or Disappearance

Research on policy change tends to focus on legislative successes (bills that are enacted), policies that are especially important or controversial, and the final stages of the policy process. This article attempts to show how to improve our ability to trace support for policy proposals through the entire legislative process, for failures as well as successes and for less-visible proposals as well as more visible ones. We refine the concept of a “policy proposal”—a particular proposed solution to a public problem—as a set of identical or nearly identical bills introduced into one or more congresses; show how to find such bills, and examine a stratified random sample of 60 considered by the U.S. Congress; describe how much support the proposals receive; show that, in line with some views of legislative activity, proposals are generally on the agenda for only a short time; and suggest that trends in sponsorship provide a good way to measure support for particular proposals for policy change. It is argued that the approach developed in the article will aid subsequent studies of the determinants of policy change.

The Ethnic Connection: The Motivation Behind Senate Foreign Policy Bill Sponsorship

This research examines the motivation behind Senate foreign policy bill sponsorship. Why do senators sponsor foreign policy legislation? Tofind the answer, this study analyzes legislative activity in the senate during the 1993, 1997, and 2001 calendar years. It first categorizes each senator as either a foreign policy senator or a domestic policy senator according to his or her propensity to sponsor foreign policy legislation. It then sets out to determine which variables appear to motivate foreign policy bill sponsorship. The major finding of this research is that constituency influence is greater than legislative role in motivating foreign policy bill sponsorship in the U.S. Senate.

Tactical and Contextual Determinants of U.S. Senators' Approval Ratings

This paper focuses on U.S. senators and their home‐state approval ratings from 1981 to 1997. We examine these ratings to assess the relative impacts of tactical factors, such as the senators' bill sponsorship and media activity, and contextual influences, such as economic performance, state population size, and the evaluations and behavior of other elected officials. We find that the senators' own tactical behavior affects the approval ratings, but a stronger influence is the context in which the senators operate.

Bill Sponsorship and Intraracial Voting among African American Representatives

Understanding the political implication of increasing minority, descriptive representation through race-conscious redistricting has been of major interest to congressional researchers in recent years. This research departs from past studies by examining intraracial roll-call voting behavior among African American representatives. Utilizing bill sponsorship data over an 8-year period (1991-1998) and event count regression, this investigation reveals that a variety of forces are at work to explain Black legislative behavior. Among them, the party controlling Congress, electoral margin of victory, and tenure in office account for variations in Caucus behavior. The political implications of these findings are discussed in the context of representative democracy.

On the Determinants of Congressional Bill Sponsorship and Voting Behavior with an Application to Government Growth Theories

This paper analyzes two new data sets measuring the total amount of spending reflected in each legislator's aggregate voting record and his or her bill sponsorship activities. The results are contrasted with identical models for legislators’ votes on specific bills. We are able to provide the first exploration of differences in the determinants of the bill sponsorship and voting behavior of legislators. Our data allow tests of the theories of government expenditure growth in a manner more true to public choice foundations. Finally, the bill sponsorship data provide a unique opportunity to explore the presence of vote trading in Congress.

Wavering Equilibriums

A wavering equilibrium theory of subsystem politics is developed to distinguish between three types of subsystem politics. I suggest that subsystem players' ability to control the policy agenda varies with changes in subsystem politics. This article uses correlation analysis with data on bill sponsorship and referral to examine the impact of subsystem variation on policy making in three subsystems. I find that subsystem political variation is associated with changes in subsystem players' ability to control bill introduction and referral.

Bill sponsorship and legislative success among freshmen senators, 1954–1986

Freshmen senators of the 1980s are often portrayed as more individualistic and activist than the freshmen of the 1950s. Freshmen today possess greater resources and appear much more likely to use those resources in whatever policy areas are of interest to them. One indication of this increased activism in the Senate is the dramatic increase in floor activity. Freshmen senators tightly bound by formal and informal restrictions in the 1950s have since gained important committee assignments and increased their staff. Despite their enhanced resources and increased activism in some areas, we found that freshmen senators from the 1980s were no more likely to sponsor legislation and were no more successful at passing their own legislation than the freshmen Senators of the 1950s.

Senators as Political Entrepreneurs: Using Bill Sponsorship to Shape Legislative Agendas

Theory: The interaction of individual legislators with their institutional environment is explored in a study of how and why United States senators use bill sponsorship to help construct their legislative agendas. Hypothesis: A senator's use of bill sponsorship is a function of institutional and political variables including seniority, proximity of reelection, size of state economy, staff size, committee membership and committee positions. Methods: Regression analysis and interviews with Senate legislative staff are used to predict and explain the number of bills senators introduce. Results: Senators are constrained in their use of bill sponsorship by a combination of institutional and political forces. This research suggests that current views of the Senate as a place that lacks structure and predictability in its operations may be overstated.

The causes and consequences of big bank PAC contributions

This article has two purposes. One is to develop and test hypotheses regarding the factors that influence campaign contributions from the political action committees (PACs) of large commercial banks to members of the House and Senate banking committees. A second purpose is to estimate the effect of these contributions on subsequent legislator behavior. Aside from being the first to study the causes and effects of big bank PAC contributions, this article is novel in its employment of bill sponsorship as a measure of legislator behavior.