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Front Cover -- Title Page -- Copyright Information -- Table of Contents -- Introduction -- Limiting the Unlimited: Debate in the U.S. Senate -- Obscuring the Causal Chain: Majoritarian Exceptions as a Blame Avoidance Tool -- Employing the Exceptions: The Case of Budget Reconciliation -- The Policy Consequences of Procedural Choice: Programmatic Change Using Budget Reconciliation -- Facilitating Gains and Blocking Pain: Creating Executive Branch Oversight Exceptions -- Conclusion -- Appendix Tables -- Notes -- Works Cited -- Acknowledgments -- Index -- Back Cover.

Since its early uses in the early 1980s, the budget reconciliation process has played an important role in how the U.S. Congress legislates. Because the procedures protect certain legislation from a filibuster in the Senate, the reconciliation rules both shape, and are shaped by, the upper chamber in significant ways. After providing a brief overview of the process, I discuss first how partisanship in the Senate has affected the use of the reconciliation procedures. Next, I describe two sets of consequences of the contemporary reconciliation process, on negotiation and on policy design. I conclude with some observations about the relationship of reconciliation to the prospects for broader procedural change in the Senate.

AbstractScholars commonly observe that lawmaking in Congress has transitioned from the textbook system of "regular order" in which power was decentralized in committees and lawmaking followed a formal process to one of "unorthodox lawmaking" characterized by the centralization of power in party leaders and a lack of formal process. It is debated whether this change marks a decline in Congress's lawmaking capacity, or is a procedural adaptation that has allowed Congress to remain productive despite high levels of partisanship. In this article, we maintain that lawmaking in Congress varies along two dimensions: formality of process and centralization of power. We analyze non-spending bills added to omnibus appropriations packages to demonstrate that lawmaking on these bills is informal and decentralized. Rank-and-file members retain a capacity to place matters on the legislative agenda and authorizing committees retain gatekeeping and policymaking authority. The process through which add-ons are approved is also bipartisan. Our findings demonstrate that this style of lawmaking is a procedural adaptation used by members to pass legislation important to their districts and in which committees continue to play an important deliberative role.

During the congressional fight over the Affordable Care Act (ACA), interest groups spent record sums on television issue advertising in targeted efforts to influence members of Congress, but did the money make any difference? We use the literatures on outside lobbying and legislative behavior to develop two hypotheses about issue advertising's effects on members' voting decisions. We test the hypotheses using population-weighted, station-level advertising data mapped into congressional districts. We find negligible evidence that issue advertising had a causal effect on either House committee or floor votes on the ACA, even applying forgiving statistical standards. Neither do we find evidence when we ignore the endogeneity bias that should inflate advertising's effects, employ alternative measures and specifications, or limit the analysis to legislators for whom the probability of vote change was highest. The results justify skepticism that the millions of advertising dollars spent on the ACA had a net effect on members' voting decisions. In conclusion, we consider several reasons why our hypotheses are not borne out and suggest several avenues for future research.

"Democratic-leaning urban areas in states that otherwise lean Republican is an increasingly important phenomenon in American politics, one that will help shape elections and policy for decades to come. Blue Metros, Red States explores this phenomenon by analyzing demographic trends, voting patterns, economic data, and social characteristics of twenty-seven major metropolitan areas in thirteen swing states that will ultimately decide who is elected president and the party that controls each chamber of Congress. The book's key finding is a sharp split between different types of suburbs in swing states. Close-in suburbs that support denser mixed use projects and transit such as light rail mostly vote for Democrats. More distant suburbs that feature mainly large-lot, single-family detached houses and lack mass transit often vote for Republicans. The book locates the red/blue dividing line and assesses the electoral state of play in every swing state. This red/blue political line is rapidly shifting, however, as suburbs urbanize and grow more demographically diverse. Blue Metros, Red States is especially timely as the 2020 elections draw near"--