{"title":"A Measure of Congressional Committee Influence","authors":"Stefani Langehennig, Ryan Bell, E. Scott Adler","doi":"10.1111/lsq.70027","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div>\n \n <p>In this article, we develop a temporally dynamic measure of each congressional committee's influence across nearly all areas of U.S. federal law. Our measure is derived from the United States Code, which provides detailed information on the evolution of public law across time and issue areas. We categorize sections of the U.S. Code by Comparative Agendas Project (CAP) policy topic areas and then construct a committee-level influence score based on committees' authorship and revision of each section. Spanning the 104th through 115th Congresses (1995–2018), our measure demonstrates that there are dominant committees that consistently exercise control over enormous portions of federal law, a handful of committees expand their influence over time, while others ebb and flow in their influence.</p>\n </div>","PeriodicalId":47672,"journal":{"name":"Legislative Studies Quarterly","volume":"50 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.4000,"publicationDate":"2025-08-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Legislative Studies Quarterly","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/lsq.70027","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"POLITICAL SCIENCE","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
In this article, we develop a temporally dynamic measure of each congressional committee's influence across nearly all areas of U.S. federal law. Our measure is derived from the United States Code, which provides detailed information on the evolution of public law across time and issue areas. We categorize sections of the U.S. Code by Comparative Agendas Project (CAP) policy topic areas and then construct a committee-level influence score based on committees' authorship and revision of each section. Spanning the 104th through 115th Congresses (1995–2018), our measure demonstrates that there are dominant committees that consistently exercise control over enormous portions of federal law, a handful of committees expand their influence over time, while others ebb and flow in their influence.
期刊介绍：
The Legislative Studies Quarterly is an international journal devoted to the publication of research on representative assemblies. Its purpose is to disseminate scholarly work on parliaments and legislatures, their relations to other political institutions, their functions in the political system, and the activities of their members both within the institution and outside. Contributions are invited from scholars in all countries. The pages of the Quarterly are open to all research approaches consistent with the normal canons of scholarship, and to work on representative assemblies in all settings and all time periods. The aim of the journal is to contribute to the formulation and verification of general theories about legislative systems, processes, and behavior.
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