The Effects of Gender on Winnowing in the U.S. House of Representatives

Abstract

Notwithstanding the importance of winnowing, scholars have devoted little attention to deciphering and systematically explaining the effects that gender may have on determining which small proportion of bills ultimately receive committee attention from the thousands that are introduced every legislative session. Building on past research evincing gendered differences in legislative behavior and effectiveness, this study analyzes the 111th and 112th Congresses in order to ascertain the extent to which gender affects winnowing in the U.S. House of Representatives. The findings suggest that female lawmakers are working hard to achieve legislative success by sponsoring a greater number of bills than their male colleagues, but that their efforts are not being similarly rewarded. Female sponsored bills fail to progress past the winnowing stage at rates comparable to male sponsored bills. Thus, policymaking may be skewed toward the preferences of male lawmakers despite the numeric and positional gains of women in the U.S. Congress.