POLSCI 318 Lecture Notes - Lecture 13: Govtrack
4 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Congress and the President
10-19-16 Lecture Notes – Policy Process
x Legex.org – legislative explorer
x Compare substantive differences between bills on summary on govtrack
x Paper – paper should be argument, should give some indication to what factors you think are
important, but only a sentence (argument will be flushed out in the 7 pages)
x Cogress’s orkload has ot oly haged i aout, ut also i harater
x In recent Congresses, the number of bills introduced has greatly declined
x Congress is always passing fewer laws
x Omnibus legislation is mostly the explanation for this
x Hearings – the number of hearings has increased
o Congress is paying more attention to private industry regulations
o Large amount of laws that freed the bureaucracy to implement law in the late 1900s
▪ Due to build-up of past laws
o Cogress’s role is shiftig to goverig through oversight, ot aily through passig
legislation
o Most hearings are oversight hearings
x Number of recorded roll call votes – does’t ilude all otes, ut oly oes that are roll all or
otherwise recorded
o In general, we have been holding more recorded roll call votes to pass legislation
o More amending activity
o More time on rules votes – not substantive, but procedural votes are more polarized and much
more numerous
x Congress has the final word in legislation, not the Supreme Court
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
