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In what ways do presidents engage in distributive politics? I study the effects of presidential electoral politics on the federal government's financial response to disasters. Specifically I ask whether swing states or safe states are more likely to receive additional disaster aid through presidentially ordered increases in the federal reimbursement rate for specific disasters. I examine four potential political factors affecting this distribution: swing states versus safe states, a president's base states versus the opposing party's base states, the presence of co‐partisan presidents and governors, and the proximity of the next presidential election. I find that the effects vary by administration, with Bill Clinton not appearing to make partisan decisions in this way, while his successors include these factors when making the decisions. These findings demonstrate the presence of partisan political calculations in the distribution of disaster aid and also highlight differences in the ways power is handled in different presidential administrations.

Interactive visualizations are used widely in the natural sciences to facilitate discovery in 'big-data' research. This article introduces a project that applies the same data-driven discovery approach to politics. Lawmaking is a complex process that can be difficult to convey in a constructive way, whether the audience is the general public, students, or researchers. Legislative Explorer (available at http://www.legex.org) visualizes the progress of more than 250,000 congressional bills and resolutions introduced since 1973. Users of all abilities can engage with actual data to discover how bills become law. Filters designed by domain experts guide them toward key insights. It is our hope that Legislative Explorer promotes greater understanding of a much-maligned institution. Adapted from the source document.

ABSTRACTInteractive visualizations are used widely in the natural sciences to facilitate discovery in "big-data" research. This article introduces a project that applies the same data-driven discovery approach to politics. Lawmaking is a complex process that can be difficult to convey in a constructive way, whether the audience is the general public, students, or researchers.Legislative Explorer(available athttp://www.legex.org) visualizes the progress of more than 250,000 congressional bills and resolutions introduced since 1973. Users of all abilities can engage with actual data to discover how bills become law. Filters designed by domain experts guide them toward key insights. It is our hope thatLegislative Explorerpromotes greater understanding of a much-maligned institution.

This article proposes a new approach to investigating the substance of lawmaking. Only a very small proportion of bills become law in the U.S. Congress. However, the bills that do become law often serve as vehicles for language originating in other bills. We investigate "text reuse" methods as a means for tracing the progress of policy ideas in legislation. We then show how a focus on policy ideas leads to new insights into the lawmaking process. Although our focus is on relating content found within bills, the same methods can be used to study policy substance across many research domains.

AbstractIn considering issue expertise in policymaking, we unpack differences in the supply and types of expertise with attention to the presumed privileged role of the bureaucracy. Our empirical investigation is based on witness testimonies of congressional hearings for a policy area involving various forms of expertise – critical infrastructure protection policymaking. Three sets of findings stand out. One set substantiates the role of the bureaucracy as an important information conduit while also showing it is not a primary source of issue expertise. A second set shows how differences in issue maturity and salience affect the demand for and supply of expertise. A third set illustrates the influence of a small cadre of hyper-expertise in drawing attention to problems and solutions across different venues. These findings challenge the conventional view of the bureaucracy in policymaking while expanding the understanding of different sources of information and types of issue expertise in policymaking.