Available in First View at the Journal of Law, Economics, & Organization, is "Amendment Politics and Agenda Setting," the latest paper from Prof. Nathan Monroe. Congratulations to Prof. Monroe and his co-authors!
The paper studies a critical step of the legislative process -- floor amendments -- which has been almost entirely ignored in theories of legislative decision making. The authors develop a theoretical treatment of agenda setting at the amendment stage, formalizing the relationship between it and legislative outcomes at final passage. Using data from the US House of Representatives the authors show that floor amendments mitigate some of the majority party’s agenda setting advantage by moderating initial proposals away from the majority party position. At the same time, floor amendments do not undermine the majority party’s negative agenda control.
