Parties, Preferences, and Congressional Organization

• Author: Nathaniel A. Birkhead,Jordan M. Ragusa
• DOI: 10.1177/1065912915604052
• Published date: 01 December 2015
• Date: 01 December 2015

Political Research Quarterly

2015, Vol. 68(4) 745 –759

© 2015 University of Utah

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DOI: 10.1177/1065912915604052

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Article

Introduction

When does Congress repeal legislation enacted by prior

generations? Although law creation has garnered signifi-

cant attention (e.g., Baumgartner and Jones 1993; Binder

2003; Cox and McCubbins 2007; Krehbiel 1992; Mayhew

1991), instances in which Congress attempts to reverse

legislation have received little consideration. Given that

one of the defining features of the 113th and 114th

Congresses (2013–2016) has been more than fifty votes

to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA), we believe this

a neglected area in the American politics literature.

We fill this gap with an original data set of all major

repeals from 1877 to 2012. In particular, we catalog major

repeals following Mayhew (1991, 2005), Howell et al.

(2000), Clinton and Lapinski (2006), and others who

compile lists of landmark enactments. Like proposals to

repeal the ACA, the repeals we identify are some of the

most contentious and long-running efforts to shape

national policy. In total, we cataloged eighty-nine major

statutory repeals in the 135-year time span of our study

(an average of 1.3 major repeals per congressional ses-

sion). Examples include the repeal of multiple New Deal

statutes in the 1990s, dramatic fluctuations in monetary

policy in the 1890s, the repeal numerous tax statutes in

the 1920s, and the repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Acts

in the 1940s.

As well as being substantively important yet under-

studied, we believe there are both analytical and theoreti-

cal reasons to study repeals. Analytically, repeals permit

a longitudinal study of Congress that is unique. Unlike

measures of policy enactment, which are static, repeals

allow us to compare lawmaking in two time periods and

isolate the effects of long-term changes in institutional

structures and coalitions. And theoretically, we argue that

the causes of repeal differ from those that explain policy

creation. For this reason, although we think shifts to the

left or right in Congress’s membership—known in the lit-

erature as shifting pivot points—are an important cause

of repeals, we focus on the ebb and flow of party strength

604052PRQXXX10.1177/1065912915604052Political Research QuarterlyRagusa and Birkhead

research-article2015

1College of Charleston, Charleston, SC, USA

2Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS, USA

Corresponding Author:

Jordan M Ragusa, Department of Political Science, College of

Charleston, 114 Wentworth Street, Room 106, Charleston SC,

29401, USA.

Email: ragusajm@cofc.edu

Parties, Preferences, and Congressional

Organization: Explaining Repeals in

Congress from 1877 to 2012

Jordan M. Ragusa1 and Nathaniel A. Birkhead2

Abstract

When does Congress repeal laws enacted by prior generations? Although the substantial body of work on policy

creation provides tentative explanations, we believe repeals represent an alternative way of examining the effects of

congressional organization on legislative behavior. In this paper, we develop hypotheses based on both the conditional

nature of party power and the location of pivot points, and test these hypotheses with a new data set of repeals from

1877 to 2012. We find that the largest effects on Congress’s capacity to repeal legislation are variation in the majority’s

positive agenda control and shifts in the gridlock interval. We also find that when the majority claims control of both

chambers after a long stretch in the minority, there is an increased likelihood of repeal beyond what is predicted by

conditional party government alone. Because the partisan factors in our model have the largest substantive effects, and

because repeals do not occur automatically in productive Congresses, we characterize repeals as long-term contests

between two great “teams” over the location of the status quo.

Keywords

U.S. Congress, legislative studies, landmark legislation, policy repeal, political parties, conditional party government,

Affordable Care Act