Domestic Agenda Setting, 1947-1994

Hitching a ride: omnibus legislating in the U.S. Congress

“…Second, this chapter joins other studies that demonstrate the impor tance of studying lawmaking in Congress in stages before the floor (e.g., Hall and Wayman 1990;Krutz, Fleisher, and Bond 1998;Taylor 1998). Omnibus legislating in effect inserts an important decision about policy outcomes (what will be incorporated into a must-pass bill) into the prefloor legislative process.…”

“…From 1949 through 1994, CQ had over 12,000 write-ups on legislation and other congressional matters in the Almanacs . As I discussed above, several other scholars have used CQ to focus on different subsets of bills that receive serious consideration in Con gress (Bader 1997;Baumgartner et al 1997;Edwards, Barrett, and Peake 1997;Sinclair 1992Sinclair ,1995Sinclair ,1997Taylor 1998). …”

“…Hence, we would expect them to be found in a list of important bills compiled in the CQ Weekly Report and to receive prominent coverage in the CQ Almanac. Several scholars have used these sources to identify samples of important bills for analysis Edwards, Barrett, and Peake 1997;Sinclair 1997;Taylor 1998). The CQ Almanac has featured somewhat consistent coverage since 1948 .…”

“…CQ provides in-depth information about the substance of legislation, bill proponents and opponents, who will benefit from the bill, and detailed chronologies of the process that bills followed. Several scholars have used these summaries to code a variety of variables for bills (Bader 1997;Edwards, Barrett, and Peake 1997;Sinclair 1997;Taylor 1998). These variables require some judgment on the part of the coder (based on a careful reading of the CQ write-up) to discern which value a particular variable should take for a given bill.…”

Strategic Intercameral Behavior and the Sequence of Congressional Lawmaking

“…This data set runs through 1994. 11 The third set is from Taylor (1998) and is updated through the end of the 107th Congress. The Taylor set differs from the other two in that it does not include legislation related to foreign policy but does include bills that do not become law and numerous that are not even passed by one or both of the chambers.…”