Unorthodox Lawmaking: New Legislative Processes in the U.S. Congress

Open a textbook on American politics and you're likely to find the process by which a bill becomes a law described much as it was in texts of decades ago. But, lawmaking has changed dramatically in recent years, and the traditional how-a-bill-becomes-a-law diagram describes few of the major measures considered in the contemporary Congress.

Bills follow a number of routes through Congress today:

-- they may be considered by several committees -- or none
-- omnibus measures may be shaped by special task forces, or in formal executive-congressional summits
-- floor consideration in the House may be governed by rules tailored to facilitate or slow a bill's progress
-- bills are regularly subject to non-germane amendments or are filibustered on the Senate floor.

In a timely revision of her successful book, Unorthodox Lawmaking, noted political scientist Barbara Sinclair describes the contemporary legislative process as it really operates and treats this subject in a highly readable manner. Sinclair leads students step-by-step through the lawmaking process in each chamber, as she explores the range of special procedures and practices, the factors that have contributed to their emergence, and their consequences on both the lawmaking process and the legislation produced.

Sinclair provides five case studies to illustrate how the legislative process varies from bill to bill, and to show how procedure and politics are interrelated. Following a non-technical description of the current budget process in Chapter 5, case studies in Chapters 10 and 11 trace the budget process from 1993 to 1999, including the balanced budget deal between the President and Congress in 1997 and subsequent budget politics. Three other case studies -- focusing on managed care regulation (new in this edition), national service legislation, and the Omnibus Drug Bill -- offer concrete and interesting examples of the variety in the present-day lawmaking process.

Does the use of new procedures and practices enhance or inhibit the likelihood of a bill becoming law? What other effects does unorthodox lawmaking have on how Congress functions? The second edition of Unorthodox Lawmaking gives your students the tools to better assess the relative successes and limitations of the contemporary legislative process.

Barbara Sinclair is Marvin Hoffenberg Professor of American Politics at the University of California at Los Angeles. She served as chair of the Legislative Studies Section of the American Political Science Association from 1993 to 1995. She is the author of several books, including Legislators, Leaders, and Lawmaking: The U.S. House of Representatives in the Postreform Era, (1995) and Transformation of the U.S. Senate (1989), which won the Richard F. Fenno Prize and the D. B. Hardeman Prize.