FOR INFORMATION:
CQ Press
An Imprint of SAGE Publications, Inc.
2455 Teller Road
Thousand Oaks, California 91320
E-mail: order@sagepub.com
SAGE Publications Ltd.
1 Olivers Yard
55 City Road
London EC1Y 1SP
United Kingdom
SAGE Publications India Pvt. Ltd.
B 1/I 1 Mohan Cooperative Industrial Area
Mathura Road, New Delhi 110 044
India
SAGE Publications Asia-Pacific Pte. Ltd.
3 Church Street
#10-04 Samsung Hub
Singapore 049483
Copyright 2017 by CQ Press, an Imprint of SAGE Publications, Inc. CQ Press is a registered trademark of Congressional Quarterly Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Sinclair, Barbara, author editor.
Title: Unorthodox lawmaking: new legislative processes in the U.S. Congress / Collected and edited by Barbara Sinclair, University of California, Los Angeles.
Description: Fifth edition. | Washington DC: Sage CQ Press, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015051478 | ISBN 978-1-5063-2283-4 (pbk.: alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: LegislationUnited States. | United StatesPolitics and government21st century.
Classification: LCC KF4945.S58 2016 | DDC 328.73/077dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015051478
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Senior Acquisitions Editor: Michael Kerns
Senior Development Editor: Nancy Matuszak
Editorial Assistant: Zachary Hoskins
Production Editor: Laura Barrett
Copy Editor: Megan Markanich
Typesetter: C&M Digitals (P) Ltd.
Proofreader: Eleni-Maria Georgiou
Indexer: Robie Grant
Cover Designer: Anupama Krishnan
Senior Marketing Manager: Amy Whitaker
Foreword
IN EARLY MARCH OF 2016, I WAS ONE OF Barbara Sinclairs many friends and colleagues who were shocked to learn of her death. She had been ill for some time but had kept her condition private. By chance, the very next class I taught was in my undergraduate Congress course and was on rules and procedures. The students, just returning from spring break, were reading Unorthodox Lawmaking. I took a few minutes at the start of class to tell them about Barbaras passing and the contributions that she had made to both the study of Congress (and also to the Women and Politics field). In doing so, I lamented that Unorthodox Lawmaking, Fourth Edition, which I had come to rely upon for both teaching and as a research resource since its initial publication nearly twenty years ago, would likely be the last. In writing to Greg Koger who was preparing a column on Barbaras legacy for The Washington Post, I focused on the importance of Unorthodox Lawmaking and argued that someone needs to take responsibility for maintaining the book through subsequent editions. Those of us who teach about Congress may have lost a dear friend and colleague, but we did not have to lose the book as well.
A couple of weeks later, I received a call from Michael Kerns, a senior editor at CQ Press. To my great surprise, he informed me that Barbara had completed a new edition of Unorthodox Lawmaking, and it was in page proofs. I was initially amazed that she had been able to produce a Fifth Edition, given her illness. But probably, I should not have been. Barbara was the consummate professional. (Shed also managed to get me her chapter for the new edition of Larry Dodds and my book, Congress Reconsidered, in December, a few months before the due date. Barbara was always early. So I thought nothing of it.) Michael asked if I would be willing to write a brief foreword for the new edition under deadlines that editors always face. I agreed. But that was not the end of the surprises.
When I read the page proofs, the earlier form of the book pages in front of you, I was stuck by two things. First, I was reminded anew about what a wonderful book Unorthodox Lawmaking has been and still is. And second, I was struck with what a superb job Barbara had done in revising the book, one last time. Let me elaborate on each of these.
The joy that one has as a scholarly consumer of the material in Unorthodox Lawmaking and as a teacher ensuring that ones students grasp the value of its content is that Barbara Sinclair fills the two needs comfortably. She notes in the preface: Although based on original research, the book is written with the nonspecialist in mind. No extensive knowledge of Congress is presupposed... but my primary aim is to enable them to make sense of congressional politics.... And surely through all five editions, Barbara has delivered. The college student can read this book and both be engaged and informed in an accessible manner about the way the contemporary Congress actually operates and how that has changed in an altered, more partisan political context. The book both invites the student to learn more and provides the framework, theory, and details for doing so.
For the scholar, researcher, and graduate student of American political institutions, Sinclair provides more advanced offerings. These consumers of the book may need to know how various procedures operate and how they have changed; which ones are relied upon more and which ones have fallen into disuse; how a legislative process was employed to pass or defeat a key piece of legislation; or how some other further detail about a particular congressional process. For the scholar, Barbara Sinclair continued to monitor and make sense of the alterations that regularly occur in unorthodox lawmaking and their substantive implications. Wed all come to rely on her and Unorthodox Lawmaking, and they never failed us.
Importantly, Unorthodox Lawmaking has never been a parliamentary procedure book. As Barbara notes on page 10,... procedures that are obscure and seldom employed are of no interest here. Yes, there is a good deal of detail illustrating how many of the procedures and workings of Congress operate in concrete events. But Barbaras concern is the big picture. She wants the students to see things from the top downthe broad paths through the House, the roadblocks in the Senate, the interchamber politics, the causes and consequences of unorthodox lawmaking, and the implications of unorthodox lawmaking for congressional responsiveness to public policy demands and for democratic values. Along the way, she exposes the reader to the gritty detailsthe forms of multiple referral and the frequency of their use, the effect of growing partisanship on committee mark-ups and the decline in the use of conference committees, threats and applications of nuclear options to undercut obstruction in confirmation of federal judges. Understand the forest first. The trees and even some leaves and bark add richness, but they are not the focus.
