Congressional Procedures and the Policy Process

Among the topics that receive new or expanded coverage in the fifth edition are: the shift from the politics of deficit to the politics of surplus, innovations in Senate floor procedures and the use of new rules in the House, new developments in the ways that the two chambers resolve their differences, and new trends in legislative oversight.

Oleszek’s concluding chapter examines broad trends in the lawmaking process as well as the transformations currently underway that will influence congressional lawmaking in the twenty-first century.

Walter J. Oleszek is a senior specialist in the legislative process at the Congressional Research Service. He has served as either a full-time professional staff aide or consultant to every major House and Senate congressional reorganization effort beginning with the passage of the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1970. In 1993, he served as Policy Director of the Joint Committee on the Organization of Congress. A long-time adjunct faculty member at The American University, Oleszek is a frequent lecturer before various academic, governmental and business groups. He is the author or co-author of several books, including Congress and Its Members, 10th ed. (2006),with Roger H. Davidson, and Congress Under Fire: Reform Politics and the Republican Majority (1997), with C. Lawrence Evans.