Making the Rules Work: Assessing the Performance of Committee Systems in
the State Legislative Process - A Preliminary Assessment
By
Nancy Martorano
and
Jeffrey Budziak
University of Dayton
Department of Political Science
300 College Park
Dayton, Ohio 45469-1425
Nancy.Martorano@notes.udayton.edu
ABSTRACT: Do committee systems that are given powerful procedural tools to impact the
legislative process effectively use those tools to influence legislative outcomes? This question is
explored using history data from the Iowa and North Dakota state legislatures for the 2001-02
legislative session. This study finds mixed evidence that committees in procedurally
autonomous committee systems actually behave that way.
Paper prepared for presentation at the 5th Annual Conference on State Politics and Policy, East
Lansing, Michigan, May 13-14, 2005.
Committee systems have long been of interest to legislative students (see Mezey 1993;
Hamm and Squire 2001; Gamm and Huber 2003, for extensive reviews of research on legislative
institutions).
Most scholars agree that committee systems emerged in response to a need to
make the legislative process more manageable. Thus, the primary purpose of committees was to
divide an ever-increasing workload among smaller sub-units (Wilson 1885, McConachie 1898).
Over time, the committee stage of the legislative process has become known as one of the most
active and most important stages in the legislative process.
Additionally, past research has shown that legislative structures and procedures have an
impact on the legislative process. This research has focused predominately on the U.S. Congress
and suggests that structures and procedures add stability to the process by ending majority vote
cycling and promoting cooperative behavior amongst members (Sheplse 1979; 1986).
Additionally, structures, like committees, can be used by members to gain control over policy
areas and cultivate benefits for their districts (Mayhew 1974; Weingast and Marshall 1988).
Procedures have been used in the past to suppress or expand the influence of congressional
minorities in the legislative process (Dion 1997; Binder 1997). Further, some procedures (i.e.,
open vs. closed rules) have been used to reduce uncertainty over the outcomes of the legislative
process (Bach and Smith 1988; Sinclair 1989, 1994; Rohde 1991). Finally, it has been argued,
especially from a comparative perspective, that legislative structures and procedures also play an
important role in the institutionalization of legislatures (Evans 1999; Liebert 1998).
A last area that has been largely ignored by legislative scholars is assessing the actual
effectiveness of a given set of institutions. That is, we know very little about whether or not
legislative institutions are actually used and whether or not their adoption and usage leads to the
desired outcomes. The goal of this paper is to explore the link between procedural adoption and
1
their usage. Specifically, this paper asks – does the adoption of structures and procedures that
create an autonomous committee system effectively lead to a committee system that is in fact an
autonomous actor in the legislative process? This question will be explored using data from the
2001-02 legislative sessions in Iowa and North Dakota.
Literature and Theory
Very little work at the state legislative level has focused on the issue of linking
institutions to performance. Most studies of structures and procedure at the state level have
focused attention on rule adoption and/or evolution (Hamm, Hedlund and Martorano 2001 and
Martorano, Hamm and Hedlund 2000; 2001; Clucas 2001) or exploring the applicability of
congressional theory at the state legislative level (Martorano 2004; Martorano, forthcoming;
Brown et al. 1997; Overby and Kazee 2000; Overby, Kazee and Prince 2004). A much smaller
number of studies have tried to actually relate rules and procedures affecting committees to their
performance with mixed results (e.g., Rosenthal, 1974; Hamm and Moncrief, 1982), or have
tried to account for changes in the number of committee positions using a variety of rule-based
criteria (Hamm and Hedlund, 1990). The most comprehensive study of the role of committees in
the state legislative process to date focuses on the relative importance of committees in the state
legislative process, and is based largely on a survey of state legislator perceptions of the matter
(Francis 1989). Thus, what is missing is a multi-state, longitudinal understanding of how
committee systems develop and operate the state legislative level. The lack of organized data
may be a reason for this lack of research as the collection and coding of longitudinal data for a
large cross-section of state legislative chambers is an enormous and time consuming task.
2
This paper hopes to rectify this situation in part by developing a framework for studying
the affect of rules on the functioning of committees in the legislative process. In previous
research (Martorano, forthcoming) one of the authors of this study developed a rules based
measure of committee system autonomy in the legislative process. This measure was developed
by consulting earlier research that had attempted to address the notion of committee system
development and effectiveness (Hamm, Hedlund and Martorano 2001 and Martorano, Hamm
and Hedlund 2000; 2001; Rosenthal 1973; Davidson and Oleszek 1976). Specifically, the
measure taps into the formal powers afforded to committees that allow them to initiate/write and
screen bills during the legislative process, as well as protect their actions and decisions from
alteration by the floor of the chamber (See Appendix A). This research discovered that there was
a wide range of variability evident at the state legislative level regarding committee system
autonomy and that some of this variance could be explained from an informational theory
perspective of legislative organization (Martorano, forthcoming). What this research did not and
could not do was determine whether or not the adoption of rules that foster an autonomous
committee system actually translated into a committee system that acted with autonomy in the
chamber.
The only way to determine whether or not the adoption of autonomous committee rules
“matters” is to collect data that explores the actual behavior of committees in the legislative
process. Bill history data provides some insight into the behavior of committees. Specifically, it
provides a way to determine the extent to which committees introduce, amend, and screen
legislation. It also provides a way to assess how “permanent” committee actions are during the
final floor stages of the legislative process. In this case, “permanent” refers to the extent to
which the decisions made by committees are upheld during the floor consideration stage.
3
Theoretically, we should expect that committees that enjoy rules that lead to higher autonomy
would be committees that engage in a higher degree of influence over legislative product. That
is, they are more likely to introduce, amend and screen legislation, and they are more likely to
have their decisions stand on the floor of the chamber. Thus, our hypotheses in this research are
that committees in high committee system autonomy chambers will:
1) Sponsor and introduce more legislation
2) Amend more of the legislation referred to them
3) Screen (i.e.: kill in committee) legislation at a higher rate
4) Have their decisions overruled less by floor amendments; and
5) Possess higher agreement rates between committee recommendations and
floor actions
Data and Methods
The state legislatures of Iowa and North Dakota are the focus of this very preliminary
investigation into the linkage between committee procedures and committee behavior.
Originally, this paper was to include data on three state legislatures – one that exhibited a highly
autonomous committee system, one with a moderately autonomous committee system, and one
with a committee system that exhibited a low level of autonomy. However, the availability and
quality of bill history data varies tremendously from state to state and given time constraints a
decision was made to collect and code data for only four chambers: the Iowa House, Iowa
Senate, North Dakota House and North Dakota Senate. In the end, one chamber possesses a
committee system that can be considered highly autonomous (Iowa House), one is considered
moderately autonomous (Iowa Senate) and two can be classified as possessing a relatively low
level of autonomy (North Dakota House and North Dakota Senate).
4
Both states provide complete histories of all legislation introduced that includes detailed
information on all committee and floor action. All of this information was accessed via each
state legislature’s Internet sites. These data were coded into an Access database by the authors.
The narrow cross-section of data employed in this study means that there are significant
limitations to the conclusions that can be drawn from it. Therefore, this research accomplishes
two, more limited goals. First, it provides the beginnings of a method for determining whether
or not legislative institutions (in this case committees) are efficiently utilizing the tools at their
disposal. Second, it provides a preliminary test of several hypotheses relating to the linkage
between institutional adoption and real behaviors. However, a broader cross-section of states
would be necessary to draw major conclusions from this research.
Analysis
Due to the small sample size in this research, the analysis will be limited to the
exploration of descriptive statistics, bivariate correlations and difference of means tests. The
dependent variables in the analysis are the extent to which a particular committee engages in a
certain activity. A rate of activity was calculated for each standing committee in each chamber.
For example, we recorded the history of each bill introduced in each chamber and calculated the
percentages of bills sponsored, screened, amended, etc. for each committee. This analysis
contains 54 cases representing the 16 standing committees of the Iowa House, the 15 standing
committees of the Iowa Senate, the 12 standing committees of the North Dakota House and the
11 standing committees of the North Dakota Senate.1 Table 1 provides some simple summary
statistics for the 13 committee activities explored in this analysis. What is clear from this
1
Since the general hypothesis concerns the autonomy of the committee system chamber wide, the most appropriate
test would be to calculate rates of committee activity aggregated to the chamber level. We chose to aggregate the
data to the committee level to ensure that we attained the minimum number of cases needed to conduct analysis.
5
summary table is that there is quite a bit of variance in the rates at which individual committees
engage in any number of behaviors. In all 13 categories there is at least one committee in the
dataset that did not engage in a given activity (most likely these are committees like Ethics or
Administration and Rules that only had one or sometimes no bills referred to it in a session) and
in several cases the maximum value is 100 percent. There is also a good deal of variation of the
mean rate of activity in each category with a low of 2.4 percent in the area of committee bill
sponsorship and a high of 73.7 percent in floor-committee agreement. Also, many of the
standard deviations are quite large indicating that there is a substantial degree of variance in the
rates in which particular committees engage in each of these activities.
[Table 1 about here]
Figures 1 through 4 provide the average rates of individual committee activity assessed
by state and chamber (e.g. Iowa House, North Dakota Senate, etc.), committee type as defined by
Fenno,2 chamber (i.e., house vs. senate), and committee system autonomy. Thus, the first set of
graphs display the averages by state and chamber, the second set by committee type, the third set
by chamber and the final set by committee system autonomy. The percentages presented in the
figures is the mean rate of activity for the committees that fall in each category.
[Figures 1-4 about here]
Figure 1 displays three sets of graphs concerning the average rates of activity of
committees in the Iowa House and Senate and the North Dakota House and Senate. In all four
2
Fenno (1973) asserted that within the House of Representatives there were three distinct types of committees.
First, there are reelection committees such as Agriculture and Interior that allowed members to secure benefits for
their constituents. Second, there are committees such as Ways and Means and Appropriations that allow members
to accumulate political power within the chamber. Finally, there are policy committees such as Education and
Business and Labor that allow members to broadly influence public policy. Given the assumptions and principles of
the distributive theory (Shepsle and Weingast 1981), reelection committees should enjoy more autonomy than the
other types of committees. Appendix B provides a breakdown of the committees in this analysis by Fenno
committee type.
6
chambers, there is a relatively low rate of committee bill sponsorship with committees
sponsoring on average only about 2-3 percent of the bills introduced.3 Startlingly, in the North
Dakota Senate, on average a committee could expect to have 90 percent of the bills it sponsors
referred back to it for further work. This rate is much higher than the other three chambers.
Regarding passage rates for committee sponsored legislation, the average rate of passage is
substantially higher for committees in the North Dakota legislature than in the Iowa legislature.
What happens to bills in these chambers during the committee stage? Not unexpectedly,
bills are much more likely to die in committee in the Iowa House and Senate. This difference
between the Iowa and North Dakota chambers is due largely by the fact that in both the North
Dakota House and Senate, the rules of procedure require that committees consider and report all
referred legislation back to the floor. This formal rule does not exist in either the Iowa House or
Senate. Because committees in both chambers of the North Dakota legislature are required to
consider and report back all legislation, they exhibit a higher rate of activity of recommending
that bills either “pass,” “pass with amendments” or “fail.” In the Iowa legislature, committees
simply sit by and do nothing to legislation that they deem in appropriate.
The findings are more mixed regarding floor activity.
On average, committee
amendments are adopted at a higher rate by the floor in the North Dakota House and Senate than
in the Iowa House and Senate. It is also the case that the floor takes no action on committee
reports more in the North Dakota chambers. Once again this difference can be accounted for
largely by rules of procedure. Committees in neither Iowa chamber are required to report
legislation back to the floor, and so they simply let matters that have no chance of passage die on
the committee calendar. Interestingly, both North Dakota chambers enjoy a higher rate of
3
The number of bill introductions for the 2001-02 legislative session are: 1392 (IA House); 888 (IA Senate); 479
(ND House) and 455 (ND Senate).
7
passage and a higher rate of floor-committee agreement. However, when it comes to the floor
adopting the report of the committee or amending bills on the floor there is little significant
variation.
Figure 2 displays the same rates of activity as Figure 1, except now committees have
been categorized by Fenno committee type. Is it the case that one type of committee is more
active than another type of committee? The answer it appears is largely no. A difference of
means test revealed that the only significant difference in mean committee activity by type
involves the rate at which the floor adopts committee reports and the rate at which referred bills
are passed. Specifically, the committee reports of political power committees are adopted by the
floor at rates higher than re-election or policy oriented committees. Additionally, bills referred
to political power committees are passed on the floor at higher rates that bills referred to policy
committees (but not re-election committees).
Chamber also seems to matter little when
considering committee activity rates (Figure 3). The only statistically significant difference in
mean activity between house and senate chambers is in the area of floor amending. On average
senate chambers amend 6 percent more bills on the floor than house chambers.
Of primary interest in this research is the impact of the adoption of rules of procedure that
afford committees autonomy in the legislative process. Do these rules cause committees to
actually behave and/or be treated with more autonomy. Figure 4 displays activity rates by
committee system autonomy categorized as being either low, moderate or high.4 There appears
to be some very significant differences in activity rates across committees with differing levels of
committee system autonomy. However, not all the differences are in the hypothesized direction.
4
Committee system autonomy was calculated for all 99 state legislative chambers by one of the authors (Martorano
2004). Autonomy scores range from 0 to 11. The Iowa House ranks possesses one of the most autonomous
committee systems with a score of 9, the Iowa Senate with a score of 7 possesses a moderately autonomous
committee system and finally both the North Dakota House and Senate rank at the bottom with autonomy scores of
4 and 3 respectively.
8
Recall that it was hypothesized earlier that committees in chambers with rules fostering an
autonomous committee system would be very active in introducing, screening and amending
legislation as well as have few of their decisions overruled on the floor of the chamber. In the
limited sample of states included in this study, this does not appear to be entirely the case.
Committees in more autonomous chambers do in fact screen legislation at a higher rate than less
autonomous committee system chambers – only 0.6 percent of the legislation in the low
committee system autonomy chambers died in committee compared to 79.7 percent and 93.6
percent in the moderate and highly autonomous committee system chambers.5 This is quite a big
difference that is further exasperated by the rule in both North Dakota chambers that requires the
reporting of all referred legislation.
Interestingly, in most of the other cases our primary hypothesis is not borne out. It is the
case that in most of the areas explored in this analysis, the committees in the low committee
system autonomy chamber engage in more frequent committee and enjoy a larger degree of
support on the floor of the chamber. Committees in the low autonomy category have the bills
that they sponsor and review pass at a significantly higher rate.
The floor adopts their
amendment suggestions at a much higher rate and there is a significantly higher rate of
agreement (e.g., the floor carries out the wishes of the committee) between the floor and
committee in the low committee system autonomy chambers. A notable exception is the activity
of floor amending where committees in moderately autonomous committee system chambers are
significantly more likely to have bills referred or sponsored by them amended on the floor.
Two other significant differences to note are that committees in the low committee
system autonomy chambers recommend that referred bills pass or pass with amendments more
5
Difference of means tests confirmed that this and all subsequent differences in means discussed were indeed
statistically significant at the 0.05 (two-tailed) level.
9
than those committees in moderate or high committee system autonomy chambers. Taken at
face value this finding also seems to run contrary to expectations. However, it could be the case
that since (at least in this sample of states) in the moderate and high committee autonomy
chamber there is no requirement to report bills back, that these committees only act on the small
number of bills that they know have a good chance at passage in the chamber.
Table 2 provides bivariate correlations between committee activity and committee system
autonomy.6 These correlations accurately match the patterns evident in the line graphs. Ten of
the 13 correlations are statistically significant and only one is positive. There is a positive
statistically significant and very strong correlation between committee system autonomy and the
percentage of bills that die in committee. This indicates that bills referred to committees are
reported back to the floor at much lower rates in highly autonomous committee system chambers
than in lower committee system autonomy chambers. This is what we would expect from
committees in highly autonomous settings. However, there are negative, statistically significant
and relatively strong correlations between committee system autonomy and the percentage of
committee sponsored bills passed, the rate at which the floor adopts committee amendments, the
overall rate at which bills referred to committees are passed and the extent to which the floor
agrees to and carries out recommendations of committees. This is opposite to what we should
theoretically expect.
Summary and Conclusions
In sum, this limited analysis has provided some evidence that committees in state
legislative chambers do in fact follow the rules that dictate their activities. The North Dakota
6
The raw committee system autonomy score (see Footnote 4) from Martorano (2004) was used to calculate the
correlation.
10
House and Senate each have rules that state that all committees must consider and report back to
the floor all legislation referred to them. This appears to be the case. The low floor amending
rate in the North Dakota House is due largely to the fact the chamber rules also dictate that floor
amending must occur by unanimous consent or bills can be re-referred to committees for
amendment consideration by a majority vote.
What was surprising to some extent was the degree to which the floor exercised its right
to “check” the activity of committees in the more autonomous committee system chambers. This
is evident by the extent to which the average rate of committee bill passage, committee
amendment passage, referred bill passage and floor-committee agreement was significantly
lower than in more autonomous chambers.
However, these results must be interpreted and used with extreme caution. This analysis
is based on a sample of only four chambers in two states. Thus, it lacks the empirical leverage
necessary to draw general conclusions about state legislative behavior. The bottom line is that
more data in the form of an increased sample of states is necessary if we are to draw any
confident conclusions about the nature of the relationship between rule adoption and behavior in
this area. Collecting and coding bill history data is a time consuming process, and it will take a
significant time investment to acquire an adequate sample. Thus, a significant contribution of
this current paper is that it provides a starting point for framing and organizing this type of data
collection.
However, the benefits of such a data collection effort would be a tremendous asset to
state legislative scholars. The collection of bill history data would allow us to begin to assess
whether or not the adoption of particular institutions actually results in the desired behavior. A
major shortcoming of much of the institutional research (especially as it relates to rules of
11
procedure studies) is that it is focused much more on the theoretical rather than the empirical.
That is, most studies “prove” their hypothesized effect of rule adoption using formal modeling
rooted in social choice or game theory. Very few of these models are then empirically tested on
real data. I suspect that much of this is driven by the difficulty of working with this data.
Further the collection of these data can also allow for research concerning inter-chamber
variability in the behavior of legislators and legislative structures, like committees. Is it the case
that even in chambers that have rules that allow committees to behave in autonomous ways that
some committees are allowed to behave more autonomously than others? This is one of many
questions that can be addressed using the type of data employed in this paper.
12
Appendix A: Measuring Institutional Committee Power
Power to Receiving Legislation
3 points = All bills must be referred to committees for consideration; bills may be pre-filed; and
committees may meet in the interim
2 points = Any two of the three
1 point = Any one of the three
0 points = None of the three
Power to Screen Legislation
4 points = Committees do not have to consider all referred bills; no deadline for committee action exists;
do not have to report all bills back to the floor; and difficult for the floor to withdraw a bill
from committee consideration
3 points = Any three of the four
2 points = Any two of the four
1 point = Any one of the four
0 points = None of the four
Power to Shape Legislation
3 points = Committees can introduce legislation; committee amendments are incorporated into bills
before floor consideration; and committees may propose substitute bills
2 points = Any two of the three
1 point = Any one of the three
0 points = None of the three
Power to Affect Floor Passage
3 points = Adverse committee reports are difficult to overturn on the floor; bills are considered on the
floor in the order reported from committees; and amending of bills on the floor is difficult
2 points = Any two of the three
1 point = Any one of the three
0 points = None of the three
Power to Gather Information
4 points = Committees may subpoena people; subpoena documents; conduct investigations, and must
hold public hearings
3 points = Any three of the four
2 points = Any two of the four
1 point = Any one of the four
0 points = None of the four
13
Appendix B:
Iowa and North Dakota Standing Committees Categorized by Type*
State/
Chamber
Political
Committees
Re-Election
Committees
Policy
Committees
Iowa
House
Administration & Rules
Appropriations
Judiciary
Ways & Means
Agriculture
Local Government
State Government
Transportation
Commerce & Regulation
Economic Development
Education
Environmental
Protection
Ethics
Human Resources
Labor & Industrial
Relations
Natural Resources
Iowa
Senate
Appropriations
Judiciary
Rules & Administration
Ways & Means
Agriculture
Local Government
State Government
Transportation
Business & Labor
Relations
Commerce
Education
Ethics
Human Resources
Natural Resources &
Environment
Small Business,
Economic
Development &
Tourism
North
Dakota
House
Appropriations
Finance & Taxation
Judiciary
Agriculture
Government Affairs &
Veteran’s
Administration
Political Subdivisions
Transportation
Education
Human Services
Industry, Business &
Labor
Natural Resources
North
Dakota
Senate
Appropriations
Judiciary
Taxation & Finance
Agriculture
Government Affairs &
Veteran’s
Administration
Political Subdivisions
Transportation
Education
Human Services
Industry, Business &
Labor
Natural Resources
*Type designation taken from Fenno (1973)
14
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17
Table 1
Descriptive Statistics
(N=54)
Minimum
Maximum
Mean
Standard
Deviation
% Committee Sponsored
0.0
7.2
2.4
1.7
% Committee Bills Re-referred
0.0
100.0
30.6
36.1
% Committee Bills Passed
0.0
100.0
65.0
28.2
% Died in Committee
0.0
100.0
51.1
46.6
% Do Pass
0.0
100.0
17.2
19.1
% Pass w/Amendments
0.0
61.1
18.7
22.2
% Fail
0.0
38.2
9.3
12.3
% Floor Adopts All Comm. Amends
0.0
100.0
58.5
46.6
% Floor Adopts Comm. Report
0.0
100.0
57.7
28.3
% Floor Takes No Action
0.0
75.9
22.1
27.7
% Floor Amends
0.0
29.4
3.3
6.4
% Bills Passed
0.0
100.0
65.0
30.3
% Floor-Committee Agreement
0.0
100.0
73.7
28.0
18
Table 2
Correlation between Committee Activity and Committee System Autonomy
(N=54)
Pearson’s R^
% Committee Sponsored
-.138
% Committee Bills Re-referred
-.445***
% Committee Bills Passed
-.514***
% Died in Committee
.902***
% Do Pass
-.623***
% Pass w/Amendments
-.889***
% Fail
-.849***
% Floor Adopts All Comm. Amends
-.688***
% Floor Adopts Comm. Report
.112
% Floor Takes No Action
% Floor Amends
-.914***
.197
% Bills Passed
-.826***
% Floor-Committee Agreement
-.570***
^Pearson’s R is employed given that the raw committee system autonomy score,
not a categorization, was used to calculate the correlation.
*p<.05, **p<.01, ***p<.001
19
Figure 1: Averages by State/Chamber
Committee Sponsored Legislation by State/Chamber
Committee Action by State/Chamber
100
100
90.9
93.6
90
83.8
90
80.8
80
79.7
80
70
70
IA House
IA Senate
ND House
ND Senate
60
Percent
50.9
53.5
50
40
50
45.1
40
IA House
IA Senate
ND House
ND Senate
42.7
35.7
30
30
21.5
24.8
18.4
20
22.3 22.5
20
12.1
10
1.9
2.6
2.9
2.4
2.8
10
4.0
0
1.2
Committee sponsored
Re-referred to sponsoring
committee
1.6
0.0
0.1
0.0
0.0
0
Committee bills passed
Died in committee
Do Pass
Pass w/Amends.
Fail
Floor Action by State/Chamber
120.0
99.0 99.4
100.0
90.8
87.5
80.0
71.0
67.1
Percent
Percent
60
60.4 61.5
58.9
60.0
55.6
51.6
50.4
47.7
IA House
IA Senate
ND House
ND Senate
45.1
40.0
31.3
27.8
20.0
11.5
10.7
0.0 0.0
0.7
0.0 0.3
2.7
0.0
Floor adopted
all comm.
amends.
Floor adopted
comm. report
Floor takes no
action
Floor amends.
Bills passed
FloorCommittee
agreement
20
Figure 2: Averages by Fenno Committee Type
Committee Sponsored Bills by Committee Type
Committee Action by Committee Type
80
70
71.5
70
66.9
60
57.3
59.5
60
47.6
50
45.0
Percent
41.7
40
29.0
30
40
30
20.4 21.3
20.5
20.6 20.4
20
16.3
20
12.3
8.9
10
10
3.3
1.9
10.5
8.7
2.3
0
0
Committee sponsored
Political
Re-referred to sponsoring committee
Committee bills passed
Re-election
Died in committee
Do Pass
Policy
Political
Pass w/Amends.
Re-election
Fail
Policy
Floor Action by Committee Type
100
87.7
90
80
70
76.2
69.5
66.5 67.3
67.7
60
Percent
Percent
50
52.9
50
47.5
50.0
40
34.2
30.9
30.2
30
19.7
20
20.8
18.0
10
4.4
1.9
3.7
0
Floor adopted all
comm. amends.
Floor adopted
comm. report
Floor takes no
action
Political
Floor amends.
Re-election
Bills passed
Floor-Committee
agreement
Policy
21
Figure 3: Averages by Chamber
Committee Sponsored Bills by Chamber
Committee Action by Chamber
70
66.3
60
63.7
56.0
60
50
46.0
50.8
50
Percent
30
30
22.1
19.3
20
18.1
20
12.5
11.7
2.3
9.5
9.1
10
10
2.5
0
0
Committee sponsored
Re-referred to sponsoring committee
House
Committee bills passed
Died in committee
Do Pass
Senate
House
Pass w/Amends.
Fail
Senate
Floor Action by Chamber
90
80.1
80
67.4
70
60
Percent
Percent
40
40
58.9 58.1
59.0
56.3
50
40
35.0
30
24.9
20.0
19.4
20
10
6.3
0.4
0
Floor adopted all
comm. amends.
Floor adopted
comm. report
Floor takes no
action
House
Floor amends.
Bills passed
Floor-Committee
agreement
Senate
22
Figure 4: Averages by Committee System Autonomy
Committee Sponsored Bills by Committee System Autonomy
Committee Action by Committee System Autonomy
90
100
93.6
82.2
90
80
79.7
80
70
70
60
50.9
60
Percent
50
45.0
40
50
43.9
40
30.2
30
30
21.5
22.4
18.4
20
20
12.1
10
10
2.6
2.6
4
1.9
1.6
0.0
Pass w/Amends.
Fail
0.6
0
0.0
0
0
Committee sponsored
Re-referred to sponsoring committee
Low
Moderate
Committee bills passed
Died in committee
Do Pass
High
Low
Moderate
High
Floor Action by Committee System Autonomy
120
100
99.2
89.1
80
71.0
Percent
Percent
53.5
61.5 60.4
60
53.6
56.1
53.3
50.4
40
31.3
27.8
20
11.5
10.7
0.0
0
0.2
0.7
2.7
0
Floor adopted all
comm. amends.
Floor adopted
comm. report
Floor takes no
action
Low
Floor amends.
Moderate
Bills passed
Floor-Committee
agreement
High
23