Protecting the public--legislative behavior and social regulation: Constituent demand, agenda setting and the Congress

This dissertation empirically tested a bipartisan politics theory for the enactment of social legislation derived from the work of James Q. Wilson. It answered questions relating to the study of the legislative process pertaining to the enactment of social regulations; legislative initiative and constituent support; and external environmental factors that impact and influence the social policy decisions of legislators. It specifically addressed the factors that influenced the passage of enabling legislation for recently established social regulatory agencies and traced these factors over time to determine the degree and nature of support. Recorded roll call votes for four programs or agencies were selected for inclusion in the analysis. They were Super Fund, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the consumer protection function of the FTC, and the Office of Health Maintenance Organizations (OHMO) in the Health Care Finance Administration (HCFA) of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). This research empirically analyzed the degree of acceptance by the Congress of these social regulatory agencies (and by inference, the public) over time and examined the differences in agency ability to maintain support by the coalitions that lobbied for its formation. The post-1964 era was selected for study since most U.S. federal social regulation occurred starting with the Johnson Administration. The study employed analytical techniques from policy analysis, media analysis, and the study of legislative behavior. Data sources were the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research Recorded Roll Vote Data Tapes, The Survey Research Center General Social Survey Data Tapes, and the Television News Index and Abstracts. The principal findings were: (1) There was no evidence in the recorded roll call votes on the authorizing legislation for any of the four agencies that indicated the presence of broad, bipartisan coalitions in the Congress; (2) Personal ideology, party, and issue salience as measured by placement in prime time network news telecasts had the greatest influence on votes for support of an agency over time; (3) Party was a better indicator of a congressman's policy voting decision than personal ideology, although ideology was more frequently significant.