Hitching a Ride

by Krutz, Glen S.; Patterson, Samuel C.

• ISBN13: 9780814250716
• ISBN10: 0814250718
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-05-01
• Publisher: Ohio State Univ Pr

Summary

Omnibus legislating is the controversial practice of combining disparate measures in one massive bill. Omnibus packages are "must-pass" bills because they have a nucleus that enjoys widespread support but they also contain a variety of often unrelated measures that are simply "hitching a ride". Why are omnibus bills employed? Why the increase in their use? Why do leaders attach certain bills to omnibus packages and not others? Glen Krutz addresses these and other questions in this original and insightful study of an important change in the legislative process.

Many view omnibus packages as political vehicles and therefore attribute their rise to politics, but Krutz finds that, whatever their political value, omnibus packages are institutionally efficient. Omnibus legislating improves congressional capability by providing a tool for circumventing the gridlock of committee turf wars and presidential veto threats.

In addition to furnishing a fascinating look at law-making, Hitching a Ride: Omnibus Legislating in the U.S. Congress provides a challenge to recent

Table of Contents

Foreword	ix
Acknowledgments	xiii
Focusing Attention on Omnibus Legislation	1	(15)
The Nature of Congressional Change: Literature and Theory	16	(14)
The Logic of Omnibus Legislation: An Integrated Theoretical Framework	30	(14)
Studying Omnibus Lawmaking Systematically	44	(17)
Hitching a Ride on the Omnibus	61	(16)
Explaining the Move to Omnibus Legislating	77	(11)
The Birth of Omnibus Legislating: Why the 81st Congress Bundled the Budget	88	(14)
Getting around Gridlock I: Making Health Care Policy through Omnibus Bills	102	(10)
Getting around Gridlock II: The Effect of Omnibus Utilization on Legislative Productivity	112	(12)
The Omnibus Change and Presidential-Congressional Relations	124	(11)
Evaluating Omnibus Legislating	135	(8)
Appendix 1 Constructing a Data Set of Bills per Congress	143	(2)
Appendix 2 The Policy Agendas Project Topic and Subtopic Categories	145	(14)
Notes	159	(8)
Bibliography	167	(12)
Index	179