Congressional Procedures and the Policy Process

Thoroughly updated in a new edition, this is the definitive work on how congressional rules, procedures, and traditions affect the course and content of legislation. From committee room to the floor, in the House and in the Senate, the fundamentals of lawmaking are made clear. In a highly readable format—including dozens of lively examples, illustrations, charts, and extracts from real documents—the author explains the role of congressional leadership, illustrates the use of strategic tactics such as the Senate’s filibuster, and elucidates complicated parliamentary processes such as the amendment procedure.

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.