Hostname: page-component-669899f699-7xsfk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-26T02:47:56.875Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The American Legislative Process as a Signal

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Robert A. Katzmann
Robert A. Katzmann
Affiliation:
Brookings Institution and the Governance Institute
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The signals of the American legislative process cannot be understood simply by focusing on the formal and technical processes of legislative drafting. Rather, it is important to appreciate the political and institutional dynamics which affect how and to whom signals are sent, and why some signals emerging from the legislative process are clearer than others. Legislative policymaking often does not conform to the textbook ideal of deliberation and clarity. By the way that legislation is drafted, through the use of legislative history and various materials, legislators send signals to agencies, courts, their colleagues and interest groups. How bills are drafted - tight or loose - gives institutions more or less authority to make policy. Accounting for the sometimes absence of clear direction in legislation in the American system, and the consequences of that absence for agencies and courts, raises questions in a comparative context about how the structure of government affects the signals of the legislative process.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Public Policy , Volume 9 , Issue 3 , July 1989 , pp. 287 - 306
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1989

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

REFERENCES

Ackermann, Bruce A., AND HasslerWilliam, T. William, T. (1981). Clean Coal Dirty Air. New Haven: Yale University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Atiyah, Patrick S. (1988). ‘Judicial-Legislative Relations in England’ in Katzmann, R. A., cd.,Judges and Legislators: Toward Institutional Comity. Washington, D.C.: Brookings, 129–61.Google Scholar
Brest, Paul (1980). ‘The Misconceived Quest for the Original Understanding’ Boston University Law Review, 60, 221–24.Google Scholar
Chayes, Abram (1976). ‘The Role of the Judge in Public Law Litigation’, Harvard Law Review, 89, 1281.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coffin, Frank M. (1988). ‘The Federalist Number 86: On Relations between the Judiciary and Congress’, in Katzmann, R. A., ed., Judges and Legislators: Toward Institutional Comity. Washington, D.C.: Brookings, 21–30.Google Scholar
Davidson, Roger, H. (1981). ‘Subcommittee Government: New Channels for Policy Making’ in Mann, T. E. and Ornstein, N. J., eds., The New Congress. Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute, 99–133.Google Scholar
Easterbrook, Frank, H. (1984). ‘The Supreme Court 1983 Term - Foreword: The Court and the Economic System’, 98, 4.Google Scholar
Epstein, Richard (1985), Takings: Private Property and the Constitution. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eskridge, William N. Jr. , and Frickey, Philip P. (1987). ‘Legislation Scholarship and Pedagogy in the Post-Legal Process Era’, University of Pittsburgh Law Review, 48, 691.Google Scholar
Fenno, Richard, F. (1973). Congressmen in Committees. Boston: Little, Brown.Google Scholar
Fisher, Louis (1988). Constitutional Dialogues: Interpretation as a Political Process. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fiss, Owen (1979). ‘Foreword: The Forms of Justice’, Harvard Law Review, 93, I.Google Scholar
Godamer, Hans-Georg (1982). Truth and Method. N.Y.: Crossroad Publishing.Google Scholar
Hart, Jr., Henry, M. and Sacks, Albert (1958). The Legal Process: Basic Problems in the Making and Application of Law. Cambridge: Harvard Law School.Google Scholar
Henschen, Beth (1983). ‘Statutory Interpretations of the Supreme Court: Congressional Response’, American Politics Quarterly, II, 441–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Horowitz, Donald L. (1977). Courts and Social Policy. Washington, D.C.: Brookings.Google Scholar
Jones, Charles O. (1982). The United States Congress: People, Place ad Policy. Homewood, Illinois: Dorsey Press.Google Scholar
Kastenmeier, Robert W., AND Remington, Michael J. (1988). ‘A Judicious Legislator's Lexicon to the Federal Judiciary’, in Katzmann, R., ed., Judges and Legislators: Toward Institutional Comiy. Washington. D.C.: Brookings.Google Scholar
Katzmann, Robert A. (1986). Institutional Disability: The Saga of Transportation Polity for the Disabled. Washington, D.C.: Brookings.Google Scholar
Katzmann, Robert A. ed. (1988). judges and Legislators: Toward Institutional Comity. Washington, D.C.: Brookings.Google Scholar
Kingdon, John W. (1984). Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies. Boston: Little, Brown.Google Scholar
Malbin, Michael J. (1979). Unelected Representatives: Congressional Staff and the Future of Repersentative Government. N.Y.: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Melnick, R. Shep. (1985). ‘The Politics of Partnership’, Public Administration Review, 45, 653–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Menard, Alfred (1954). ‘Legislative Bill Drafting’, Rocky Mountain Law Review, 26, 368–384.Google Scholar
Michelman, Frank (1986). ‘The Supreme Court 1985 Term - Foreword: Traces of Self-Government’, Harvard Law Review, 100, 4.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MikvaAbner, J. Abner, J. (1987). ‘Reading and Writing Statutes’, University of Pittsburg Law Review, 48, 627.Google Scholar
Muir, William K. J. (1982). Legislature: California's School for Politics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Murphy, Walter, F. (1962). Congress and the Court: A Case Study in the American Political Process. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Oleszek, Walter, J. (1984). Congressional Procedures and the Policy Process. Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Press.Google Scholar
Olson, Jr., Mancur, (1965). The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Posner, Richard A. (1985). The Federal Courts: Crisis and Reform. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Price, David E. (1972). Who Makes the Laws? Creativity and Power in Senate Committees. Schenkman Publishing Co.Google Scholar
Rose, Richard (1984). Understanding Big Government: The Programme Approach. London & Beverly Hills: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Shapiro, Martin M. (1986). Courts: A Comparative Political Perspective. Chicago. University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Shapiro, Martin, M. (1988). Who Guards the Guardians: Judicial Control of Administration. Georgia: University of Georgia Press.Google Scholar
Smith, Steven S. and Deering, Christopher J. (1984). Committees in Congress. Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Press.Google Scholar
Starr, Kenneth (1987). ‘Judicial Review of Administrative Action in a Conservative Era’, Administrative Law Review, 39, 363.Google Scholar
Stumpf, Harry (1965). ‘Congressional Response to Supreme Court Rulings: The Interaction of Law and Politics’, Journal of Public Law, 377.Google Scholar
Sunstein, Cass (1986). ‘Legal Interference with Private Preferences’, University of Chicago Law Review, 53, 11–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Van, Mechelen, Denis, , and Rose, Richard (1986). Patterns of Parliamentary Legislation. Aldershot, Hants. Gower Publishing Company.Google Scholar
Weisberg, Robert (1983). ‘The Calabresian Judicial Artists: Statutes and the New Legal Process’, Stanford Law Review 35, 213.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wildaysky, Aaron, Speaking Truth to Power: The Art and Craft of Policy Analysis, 1979. Boston: Little, Brown.Google Scholar