INTRODUCTION

Scheduling legislation is one of the most vexing collective-action problems faced by a legislative body. When the combination of must-pass legislation and legislation wanted by individual members exceeds the available time and resources, choices among alternatives must be made. These choices about the form and content of the legislative agenda create winners and losers, so it is important that we understand how these agenda-setting institutions emerge and develop. We focus on the two most important agenda-setting institutions in the U.S. Congress – special rules in the House and unanimous-consent agreements (UCAs) in the Senate.

THE MOTION ON THE PREVIOUS QUESTION AND PATH DEPENDENCY

A potentially strong path dependency exists in the development of congressional agenda-setting mechanisms. This path-dependent process is stronger than those usually encountered in processes of institutional change. Pierson describes path-dependent processes that are a product of the increasing returns of an institutional arrangement. In fact, increasing returns are a common, maybe the most common, form of path-dependent processes. With little difficulty, we can see this form operating in Congress, too.