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Political Analysis Advance Access originally published online on February 12, 2008
Political Analysis 2008 16(3):303-323; doi:10.1093/pan/mpm035
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© The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Political Methodology. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Legislative Productivity of the U.S. Congress, 1789–2004

J. Tobin Grant

Department of Political Science, Mailcode 4501, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, IL 62901-4501
e-mail: grant{at}siu.edu (corresponding author)

Nathan J. Kelly

Department of Political Science, University of Tennessee, 1001 McClung Tower, Knoxville, TN 37996-0410
e-mail: nathan.j.kelly{at}gmail.com

We measure legislative productivity for the entire history of the U.S. Congress. Current measures of legislative productivity are problematic because they measure productivity for a limited number of decades and because they are based on different aspects of productivity. We provide a methodology for measuring (1) a Legislative Productivity Index (LPI) and (2) a Major Legislation Index (MLI). We use the W-CALC algorithm of Stimson (1999, Public opinion in America: Moods, cycles, and swings. 2nd ed. Boulder, CO: Westview Press) to combine information from previously used indicators of productivity into measures of the LPI and the MLI. We provide examinations of content, convergent, and construct validity. The construct validity model includes potential determinants of legislative productivity. We conclude that the LPI and the MLI are superior measures of productivity than other measures used in the literature.

Author's note: A previous version of this article was presented at the 2006 meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association. For suggestions and criticisms, we thank James Avery, Jason Barabas, Janet Box-Steffensmeier, Sean Ehrlich, Chuck Finocchiaro, Jason Gainous, Mark Hurwitz, Jennifer Jerit, Gregg Johnson, Jana Morgan, Scott McClurg, and four anonymous reviewers.


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