Vanderbilt University: A new website and upcoming book offer effectiveness scores for members of Congress

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Vanderbilt University

Oct 15, 2014, 05:01 ET

NASHVILLE, Tenn., Oct. 15, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A measure of the legislative effectiveness of almost any member of the U.S. House of Representatives is easily available with the launch of a new website and upcoming book.

The book, Legislative Effectiveness in the United States Congress: The Lawmakers (available online Oct. 14 and in bookstores this fall), provides a wealth of information on the effectiveness of members of Congress. The book covers 1973 to 2008, while the companion website has been updated through 2012. The database will be periodically updated in two-year increments to include future Congresses.

"If you want to know at any given point in time who is introducing bills and who is most successful at getting those bills through the various stages of the legislative process, as well as accounting for whether the bills that they're introducing are more or less substantially important, then our metric does this in a very parsimonious manner," said Alan E. Wiseman, associate professor of political science and law at Vanderbilt University and co-author of Legislative Effectiveness in the United States Congress: The Lawmakers.

Wiseman's co-author and partner on the project is Craig Volden, professor of public policy and politics at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy at the University of Virginia.

Together they divided the lawmaking process into five measurable steps:

  • bills introduced
  • bills that receive action in committee
  • bills that receive action beyond committee
  • bills that pass the House
  • bills that become laws

Also, each bill is weighted to account for how substantively significant it is.

"So, at the end of every Congress we have a legislative effectiveness score that can tell you how successful members of Congress were at moving their measures through the legislative process, accounting for those bills' substantive significance, compared to every other member in that Congress," Volden said.

Media Contact: Jim Patterson, (615) 322-NEWS, [email protected]

SOURCE Vanderbilt University

Related Links

http://www.thelawmakers.org/

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