Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-ndw9j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T10:56:33.493Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Legislative Error and the “Politics of Haste”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 April 2016

Jonathan Lewallen
Jonathan Lewallen*
Affiliation:
University of Texas at Austin
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Legislative error is an important and understudied element of the policy process. Even simple clerical mistakes—if unnoticed before enactment—can lead to ambiguity about a law’s meaning, spark political battles concerning rulemaking and implementation, and involve the courts in statutory interpretation. Understanding how and why error occurs can help us better understand how political institutions are intertwined in the design, enactment, and implementation of public policy. This article analyzes the sources of legislative error using data on corrected legislation in the US Senate from 1981 to 2012. The author finds that Senate drafting error is related to unified control of Congress and new majority parties, inexperienced committee members, and committee workload. In addition to bringing in different perspectives and preferences, elections can affect a legislature’s ability to draft clear, error-free statutes.

Type
Politics
Information
PS: Political Science & Politics , Volume 49 , Issue 2 , April 2016 , pp. 239 - 243
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2016 

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.)

References

REFERENCES

Congressional Record . 1914. 63rd Congress, 2nd session, H1926.Google Scholar
Corkery, Michael, and Walsh, Mary Williams. 2015. “Puerto Rico’s Governor Says Island’s Debts Are ‘Not Payable.’” New York Times, June 28. Available at www.nytimes.com/2015/06/29/business/dealbook/puerto-ricos-governor-says-islands-debts-are-not-payable.html. Accessed October 22, 2015.Google Scholar
Feldman, Martha S. 2000. “Organizational Routine as a Source of Continuous Change.” Organization Science 11 (6): 611–29.Google Scholar
Gluck, Abbe R. 2015. “Congress Has a ‘Plan’ and the Court Can Understand It: The Court Rises to the Challenge of Statutory Complexity in King v. Burwell.” SCOTUSblog, June. Available at www.scotusblog.com/2015/06/symposium-congress-has-a-plan-and-the-court-can-understand-it-the-court-rises-to-the-challenge-of-statutory-complexity-in-king-v-burwell. Accessed July 5, 2015.Google Scholar
Heimer, Carol A. 2008. “Thinking about How to Avoid Thought: Deep Norms, Shallow Rules, and the Structure of Attention.” Regulation & Governance 2 (1): 30–47.Google Scholar
Katzmann, Robert A. 1989. “The American Legislative Process as a Signal.” Journal of Public Policy 9:287–306.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
King v. Burwell . 2015. 576 US (2015).Google Scholar
Kliff, Sarah. 2014. “The People Who Wrote Obamacare Think the New Supreme Court Case Is Ridiculous.” Vox.com, November 7. Available at www.vox.com/2014/7/23/5927169/halbig-says-congress-meant-to-limit-subsidies-congress-disagrees. Accessed December 10, 2014.Google Scholar
Lemper, Timothy A., and Bruce, Joshua R.. 2011. “The Dilution Defense Congress Never Meant to Create (and Needs to Fix).” The Trademark Reporter 101 (5): 1580–98.Google Scholar
Mayhew, David R. 1991. Divided We Govern: Party Control, Lawmaking, and Investigations, 1946–1990. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Schroeder, Peter. 2015. “Puerto Rican Debt Crisis Hits Congress.” TheHill.com, July 5. Available at http://thehill.com/policy/finance/246820-puerto-rican-debt-crisis-hits-congress. Accessed September 5, 2015.Google Scholar
Zorn, Christopher J. 1998. “An Analytic and Empirical Examination of Zero-Inflated and Hurdle Poisson Specifications.” Sociological Methods and Research 26 (3): 368–400.CrossRefGoogle Scholar