Batten Prof. Craig Volden and Vanderbilt Law Prof. Alan Wiseman will measure the legislative effectiveness of members of the U.S. House of Representatives in their new book, “Legislative Effectiveness in the United States Congress: The Lawmakers,” out Oct. 31.
The book will be published in conjunction with the launch of website thelawmakers.org.
“The book covers 1973 to 2008, while the companion website has been updated through 2012,” according to a University press release. The book and website together aim to provide information and data about the extent to which different members of Congress have been able to push bills through the legislative process.
“We have tracked every bill sponsor for about 150,000 bills, and [tracked] how far the bills pass through the system,” Volden said.
For the purpose of measuring effectiveness, Volden and Wiseman broke the legislative process into five discrete steps: a bill is introduced, it receives action in committee, it receives action beyond committee, it passes the House and it becomes law. The researchers also took the importance of each bill into account by judging whether it is substantive and significant, or merely commemorative.
“We downgrade bills which aren’t as important, such as renaming post offices,” Volden said.
For each member of Congress, Volden and Wiseman established a benchmark value based off of seniority, membership in the majority or minority and whether the member held a position in a committee or subcommittee.
Comparing the benchmark value to the actual effectiveness of the member, Volden and Wiseman determine whether the member’s performance has been above or below expectations. Volden said the goal was to create a non-partisan measure of effectiveness.
“The information we find in scholarly literature, media and public accounts of Congress tends to emphasize whether they are liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican, et cetera. It gives a polarized view of the system,” Volden said.
This study focuses on Congressional members as lawmakers first before looking at their other affiliations and attributes. Using this methodology, the study finds that female members are much more effective than their male counterparts.
Volden said the audience for this research is very broad and includes lawmakers themselves, as the book highlights several habits of highly effective lawmakers from whom the less effective can draw inspiration. According to the book, persistence, perseverance and forming coalitions across party lines are essential to effective lawmaking.
“We find that less than four percent of the bills become law," Volden said.
Ultimately, the correlation between early effectiveness and members’ future performance lends the research an air of optimism.
“Based off the freshman term of members, we can see that the highly effective ones reach higher office and contribute in greater ways than others,” Volden said. “The less effective members tend to grow disgruntled and voluntarily retire saying that the Congress is a dysfunctional system in which they can’t get anything done.”
Charlottesville's Rep. Robert Hurt received a fair effectiveness rating — ranking 140th among 245 Congressional Republicans.
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