Table of Contents
1 Overwhelmed: An Introduction to Congress’s Capacity Problem Timothy M. LaPira, Lee Drutman, and Kevin R. Kosar Part 1 The Foundations of Congressional Capacity 2 Capacity for What? Legislative Capacity Regimes in Congress and the Possibilities for Reform Lee Drutman and Timothy M. LaPira 3 The Decline in Congressional Capacity Molly E. Reynolds 4 How Congress Fell Behind the Executive Branch Philip A. Wallach Part 2 Knowledge and Expertise in Congress 5 The Congressional Capacity Survey: Who Staff Are, How They Got There, What They Do, and Where They May Go Alexander C. Furnas, Lee Drutman, Alexander Hertel-Fernandez, Timothy M. LaPira, and Kevin R. Kosar 6 What Do Congressional Staff Actually Know? Kristina C. Miler 7 How Committee Staffers Clear the Runway for Legislative Action in Congress Casey Burgat and Charles Hunt 8 Legislative Branch Support Agencies: What They Are, What They Do, and Their Uneasy Position in Our System of Government Kevin R. Kosar Part 3 The Politics of Capacity in the Legislative Process 9 Still Muddling Along? Assessing the Hybrid Congressional Appropriations Process Peter Hanson 10 Congress and the Capacity to Act: Overcoming Gridlock in the Senate’s Amendment Process James Wallner 11 The Issue Dynamics of Congressional Capacity Jonathan Lewallen, Sean M. Theriault, and Bryan D. Jones 12 Congressional Capacity and Reauthorizations E. Scott Adler, Stefani R. Langehennig, and Ryan W. Bell 13 How Experienced Legislative Staff Contribute to Effective Lawmaking Jesse M. Crosson, Geoffrey M. Lorenz, Craig Volden, and Alan E. Wiseman 14 Capacity in a Centralized Congress James M. Curry and Frances E. Lee 15 Congressional Capacity and Bipartisanship in Congress Laurel Harbridge-Yong Part 4 Capacity and the Politics of Reform 16 Lessons from the History of Reform Ruth Bloch Rubin 17 Dodging Dead Cats: What Would It Take to Get Congress to Expand Capacity? Anthony Madonna and Ian Ostrander Acknowledgments Notes References List of Contributors Index Online appendixes are available at https://dataverse.harvard.edu/dataverse/congressionalcapacity/.
