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PIPE* Workshop: Pamela Clouser McCann, USC Price
May 7, 2019 @ 12:00 pm - 1:30 pm
Negotiating Bicameral Compromise
Legislators encode their policy choices in the text of bills they propose, debate, and pass. The textual choices made and the shared elements of the language in House versus Senate bills provide a window to policy conflict and compromise in a bicameral setting. To characterize the nature of the bargains needed to pass legislation, a novel dataset of the shared and unique language in Senate and House bills and final enactments is constructed using text analytic approaches. Measures of policy consensus and uniqueness are calculated and used to consider the extent to which party, pivots, and presidents matter for policy passage of all significant legislation and a random sample of non-significant laws from 1973 through 2014. House and Senate proposal generation appears to more commonly occur behind-closed-doors when parties and pivots are not aligned and presidents may create additional hurdles for their own-party legislators.
Pamela Clouser McCann, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor at the USC Sol Price School of Public Policy. Professor McCann previously served as an assistant professor of public affairs at the University of Washington.
Her research interests include U.S. political institutions, bureaucratic delegation, federalism, intergovernmental politics, legislative behavior, public policy, health policy, policy diffusion, state and local politics. She examines the influence of the states and state-level political institutions on national political maneuvering and policy choices. In particular, Dr. McCann focuses on the influence of policy actors’ intergovernmental context on legislative choices. Her recent work addresses the impact of the interaction of state and national political institutions on political choices and policy outcomes.
Dr. McCann received her Ph.D. from the University of Michigan, where she received the Gerald R. Ford Fellowship (2010-2011) and the Rackham Pre-Doctoral Fellowship (2009-2010). She also earned the Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (2008-2009; 2004-2005), and named National Science Foundation IDEAS IGERT fellow (2006-2008).
Please note, as space is limited we will prioritize USC students, staff, & faculty for this research workshop.