How do you research the internal politics of US federal legislation and budget allocation?
March 2, 2010 2:00 PM Subscribe
Can someone explain internal politics to me in relation to passing legislation and appropriating funds in US government?
Specifically, I'm writing a paper where I need to explain the internal politics. So instead of just saying, legislator X passed bill Y that allocated to Z, I should be talking about who contributed to that legislator's campaign, what percentage of the time that legislator rewards who supports them, how business interests compete for funding allocation, etc. I've checked out opencongress.org and govtrack.us and they seem like a good first step but aren't deep enough. How does one research this type of stuff?
[this question was asked on reddit.com/r/askreddit to no avail]
Specifically, I'm writing a paper where I need to explain the internal politics. So instead of just saying, legislator X passed bill Y that allocated to Z, I should be talking about who contributed to that legislator's campaign, what percentage of the time that legislator rewards who supports them, how business interests compete for funding allocation, etc. I've checked out opencongress.org and govtrack.us and they seem like a good first step but aren't deep enough. How does one research this type of stuff?
[this question was asked on reddit.com/r/askreddit to no avail]
Do you have specific legislation in mind? Because there are many observers who track campaign donations and legislation very closely.
Also, you can always ask a librarian.
posted by Think_Long at 2:11 PM on March 2, 2010
Also, you can always ask a librarian.
posted by Think_Long at 2:11 PM on March 2, 2010
Have you been to the federal election commission's site? There's a bunch of stuff there.
posted by Think_Long at 2:24 PM on March 2, 2010
posted by Think_Long at 2:24 PM on March 2, 2010
This is an unbelievably complex and context-specific area of interest. There may be a lot of broad generalities about congress that one could say, but the process itself is remarkably dense and varies quite a bit. There are thousands of people here in DC that work at all levels of the lawmaking process, from drafting, to committee work, to coalition building, etc. Hill staffers play a role, as do various attorneys, grassroots coalitions, etc. Personal networks, lobbying, connections, access, all of these things are hugely important. There's a comical view (one you're likely to find on places like reddit) that all it takes is a single industry to give a large amount of money to a specific legislator to get a certain bill passed. In reality, these things are intensely complicated and widely varied.
posted by allen.spaulding at 2:39 PM on March 2, 2010
posted by allen.spaulding at 2:39 PM on March 2, 2010
This sounds a lot like I'm doing your homework for you, but the nice Winter Welcome Ale next to me says "What the fuck."
Specifically, I'm writing a paper where I need to explain the internal politics. So instead of just saying, legislator X passed bill Y that allocated to Z,
Legislator X didn't pass bill Y. A voting majority of the House and a voting majority of the Senate did.
Do you mean that X occupied a veto point and didn't exercise that veto? Do you mean X in some way did a bunch of work that seemed to help get the bill passed? Do you mean that X was the 218th person to vote for it? Do you mean that X introduced it?
I should be talking about who contributed to that legislator's campaign,
Easy source is opensecrets. Unless you look at PAC contributions only, though, it doesn't mean what it says it means -- contributions from Boeing mean contributions from people who work at Boeing or whose spouses work at Boeing. PAC contributions are more meaningfully tied to industries, firms, or various ideological groups.
what percentage of the time that legislator rewards who supports them
In the immediate sense, you want interest group scores, which are almost always expressed as a percent of the time the legislator voted the way that the interest group preferred.
In the less immediate sense, if you want to show that the legislator rewarded a supporter instead of doing what they were going to do anyway and being supported by people who like what they like, you need access to the counterfactual world where the supporter didn't support them, or you need a bunch of fancy statistics to try to disentangle the deep endogeneity problem here, and even then you'll probably fail.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 3:33 PM on March 2, 2010
Specifically, I'm writing a paper where I need to explain the internal politics. So instead of just saying, legislator X passed bill Y that allocated to Z,
Legislator X didn't pass bill Y. A voting majority of the House and a voting majority of the Senate did.
Do you mean that X occupied a veto point and didn't exercise that veto? Do you mean X in some way did a bunch of work that seemed to help get the bill passed? Do you mean that X was the 218th person to vote for it? Do you mean that X introduced it?
I should be talking about who contributed to that legislator's campaign,
Easy source is opensecrets. Unless you look at PAC contributions only, though, it doesn't mean what it says it means -- contributions from Boeing mean contributions from people who work at Boeing or whose spouses work at Boeing. PAC contributions are more meaningfully tied to industries, firms, or various ideological groups.
what percentage of the time that legislator rewards who supports them
In the immediate sense, you want interest group scores, which are almost always expressed as a percent of the time the legislator voted the way that the interest group preferred.
In the less immediate sense, if you want to show that the legislator rewarded a supporter instead of doing what they were going to do anyway and being supported by people who like what they like, you need access to the counterfactual world where the supporter didn't support them, or you need a bunch of fancy statistics to try to disentangle the deep endogeneity problem here, and even then you'll probably fail.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 3:33 PM on March 2, 2010
The "internal politics" are usually way more hidden in the details (was there separate funding legislation? which committee did it get assigned to? any nasty amendments added? etc.) -- you're probably not going to a find an all-purpose answer here. If you have a specific piece of legislation, you might be able to make more headway in understanding this process.
Also, don't overlook secondary sources like news media coverage and political news sources like Roll Call. They have staffers who have spent years on the legislative process and you can learn a lot from reading their coverage -- even if you then go follow it up with the primary source material.
posted by pantarei70 at 6:51 PM on March 2, 2010
Also, don't overlook secondary sources like news media coverage and political news sources like Roll Call. They have staffers who have spent years on the legislative process and you can learn a lot from reading their coverage -- even if you then go follow it up with the primary source material.
posted by pantarei70 at 6:51 PM on March 2, 2010
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posted by Conrad Cornelius o'Donald o'Dell at 2:06 PM on March 2, 2010