The Legislature's influence on the content of the government agenda

ABSTRACT

Introduction:  Throughout a legislative term, thousands of bills are introduced, but only a small fraction become law. We argue that unsuccessful bills are far from irrelevant, as the ideas they put forward often shape the content of future proposals. This article explores how the content of unapproved bills in the Legislature later reappears in similar form in Executive proposals.

Materials and methods:  We compiled all bills introduced by federal representatives and the Executive Branch between February 1, 2003, and January 31, 2023. Each Executive-proposed bill was compared with previously introduced but unapproved legislative proposals to evaluate content similarities, using cosine similarity for the analysis.

Results:  The findings reveal that approximately 13% of the Executive's legislative bills were influenced by initiatives originally put forward by federal representatives. Additionally, we found that the Executive is more likely to incorporate legislative proposals in social policy areas, while showing less inclination to adopt ideas related to strategic fields such as economics and politics.

Discussion:  These findings underscore the Legislature's significant contributions to shaping the government agenda, revealing that a substantial portion of the Executive's bills integrates and adapts ideas initially introduced by legislators. While the Executive plays a central role in policymaking, it often draws on legislative proposals to shape and advance its agenda, underscoring the interdependence between government branches in the legislative process.

Keywords
Legislative Branch; Executive-Legislative relations; bills; legislative production; quantitative text analysis