Legislative responses to shared executive authority: How the prospects for executive branch coordination affect congressional budgetary authority under separated powers

Abstract

Gary E. Hollibaugh, Jr.† George A. Krause‡ University of Pittsburgh University of Georgia Abstract How do the prospects for executive branch coordination affect legislatures’ willingness to delegate budget authority? A theory is advanced predicting that Congress entrusts its budget authority to executive agencies headed by reliably strong presidential loyalists vis-à-vis reliably low weak presidential loyalists when its policy and electoral interests are aligned with the president, while engaging in mean-reversion budgetary behavior when these interests are opposed to the president. The theory also posits that Congress’s budget authority exhibits relatively lower volatility in response to unreliable executive agency heads when they do not have shared policy and electoral interests with the president compared to when they do so. The evidence offers compelling, albeit mixed support for the theory’s testable predictions, while gleaning novel empirical insights for understanding how the prospects for executive branch coordination via leadership appointees affects the contingent nature of Congress’s decisions to grant discretionary budget authority to executive agencies.