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Research on American political institutions correctly emphasizes the ascendency of presidential power over the last century. Nevertheless, Congress possesses tools to influence how the executive branch shapes public policy. I examine how the use of limitation riders in appropriations laws allows Congress to affect the substance of bureaucratic decisions when Congress otherwise would not have much traction with the bureaucracy: under divided government. In examining the history of limitation riders that forbade the issuance of bureaucratic regulations from 1989 to 2009, I find support for this perspective. The findings suggest that, although Congress may be at a disadvantage in shaping law and policy relative to the president in many cases, its constitutionally protected spending authority continues to promote its ability to influence the executive branch.

Limitation riders, which allow the U.S. Congress to forbid agencies from spending money for specific uses, enable congressional majorities to exert greater influence over bureaucratic policy decisions than is appreciated by research on policy making in the United States. I develop a theory of limitation riders, explaining why they lead to policy outcomes that are preferable to a majority of legislators compared to outcomes that would occur if this tool did not exist. I assess this perspective empirically by analyzing the volume of limitation riders reported in bills from 1993 to 2002 and all limitation riders forbidding regulatory actions from 1989 to 2009. In addition to supporting the conclusion that Congress possesses more leverage over agencies' decisions than is currently appreciated, the findings have implications for advancing theories of delegation.

Extending transaction cost theories of agency design, the author develops a theory about why congressional coalitions vary the difficulty of influencing the policy decisions of bureaucratic agencies. He assesses the theory by examining the transaction costs that congressional coalitions imposed on actors seeking to influence agency decisions in landmark laws enacted by the U.S. Congress from 1947 to 1992. The findings stress the need to consider policy disagreement between congressional coalitions and both congressional committees and the president, as well as policy agreement between committees and the president, in understanding how difficult congressional coalitions make it to influence agencies' policy decisions.

Theories of agency design maintain that lawmakers impose requirements on how bureaucratic agencies make policy decisions, preventing those agencies from undermining lawmakers' political and policy goals. Empirical support for these theories is limited, however, by the difficulty of measuring critical variables hypothesized to influence the use of this tool of political control. For this study, I employed a methodology particularly well suited, but not previously employed, to study variance in the use of agency‐design provisions: interviews with congressional committee staff. Staffers' responses support several theories, cast doubt on one explanation, and point to nuances in other explanations of agency design.

Objective. Debate about market-oriented school-choice proposals often centers on questions of whether they will help or hurt minorities & the poor. We examine the locational decisions of different types of charter schools in the District of Columbia (DC) to assess their distributional consequences. Methods. We employ ordered probit regression to estimate models of the degree to which census tracts are served by charters. Results. Charters are more likely to locate in areas with high proportions of African-American & Hispanic residents than in the predominantly white neighborhoods, & more likely to locate in neighborhoods with middle incomes & high home ownership than in either poor or wealthy areas of the city. This is especially true of those operated by for-profits & those chartered by the elected rather than appointed chartering body. Additionally, we observe charters taking political & practical considerations into account when deciding where to locate. Conclusions. Proponents claim that charter schools will locate where need is greatest, while critics fear they will shy away from neighborhoods housing disadvantaged & minority students. We find that both camps are oversimplifying. Locational patterns are more complex & appear to be sensitive to variations in the type of charter school as well as the institutional characteristics of the chartering agency. Although market incentives are important, so too are pragmatic factors & institutional context. 2 Tables, 38 References. Adapted from the source document.

Scholarly attention to public evaluations of governors has focused almost exclusively on individual voting decisions. Such an approach has allowed scholars to identify the factors that lead voters to support and oppose incumbent governors. However, such analyses deal with assessments of governors solely at election time, potentially overlooking some factors that influence assessments of governors and overstating others. The authors develop a model of public approval of gubernatorial performance and test it on a cross-section of governors. Their results suggest that only in an election year does the public hold the governor responsible for having presided over tax increases. Similarly, only in an election period does a strong institutional power base result in higher approval ratings for governors. Outside of the campaign context, neither tax increases nor institutional power makes a dent in governors' job ratings.