Replication Data for: Unorthodox Lawmaking and the Value of Committee Assignments

Do unorthodox lawmaking processes reduce the influence provided to lawmakers by their committee assignments? In recent decades, Congress has increasingly used "unorthodox" processes to consider and pass legislation. Included among these unorthodox approaches is a more frequent bypassing of formal committee-led processes. Some scholars and observers expect that these violations of the "regular order" may reduce the influence committee members have on policy outcomes. However, this intuition has not been tested in any systematic way. Drawing on data every federal formula grant program reauthorized more than one time since 1980, we compare amounts going to states across programs that were and were not subject to formal committee mark-ups and conferences during reauthorization efforts. We do not find any evidence that the value of a committee seat is affected by whether or not committee-led stages of the legislative process are bypassed.