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AbstractIncreasing ideological polarization and dysfunction in Congress raise questions about whether and how Congress remains capable of constraining the activities of other actors in the separation of powers system. In this article, I argue Congress uses nonstatutory policymaking tools to overcome the burdens of legislative gridlock in an increasingly polarized time to constrain executive branch actors. I leverage a new data set of committee reports issued by the House and Senate appropriations committees from fiscal years 1923 through 2019 to empirically explore these dynamics and evaluate my argument. Traditionally, these reports are a primary vehicle through which Congress directs agency policymaking in the appropriations process. Committees increasingly turn to them when passing legislation is most difficult and interbranch agency problems are most pronounced. In this way, nonstatutory mechanisms may help maintain the balance of power across branches, even when Congress faces gridlock‐induced incapacity.

AbstractThis article studies how administrations seek to shape the federal workforce through the budget process. I develop a theory of personnel politics in which presidents balance ideological and interest group demands in distributing human resources across the federal government. I argue administrations advantage organizations with which they are ideologically aligned and that agencies with higher levels of union penetration see increased budgeted personnel levels, particularly during Democratic presidencies. Using an original dataset of budgeted personnel levels from fiscal years (FY) 1983–2016 and a series of regression analyses, I find strong support for these hypotheses. I also examine the sensitivity of presidential strategy to congressional preferences, agency professionalization, and leadership politicization, providing insights into how this control strategy interacts with the broader environment. Overall, these results have implications for understanding the political dynamics of human capital and capacity in the federal bureaucracy, the administrative presidency, and the politics of performance in federal agencies.

The specter of unbridled executive power looms large in the American political imagination. Are checks and balances enough to constrain ambitious executives? 'Checks in the Balance' presents a new theory of separation of powers that brings legislative capacity to the fore, explaining why Congress and state legislatures must possess both the opportunities and the means to constrain presidents and governors - and why, without these tools, executive power will prevail. Alexander Bolton and Sharece Thrower reveal how legislative capacity - which they conceive of as the combination of a legislature's resources and policymaking powers - is the key to preventing the accumulation of power in the hands of an encroaching executive.

How access to resources and policymaking powers determines the balance of power between the legislative and executive branchesThe specter of unbridled executive power looms large in the American political imagination. Are checks and balances enough to constrain ambitious executives? Checks in the Balance presents a new theory of separation of powers that brings legislative capacity to the fore, explaining why Congress and state legislatures must possess both the opportunities and the means to constrain presidents and governors—and why, without these tools, executive power will prevail.Alexander Bolton and Sharece Thrower reveal how legislative capacity—which they conceive of as the combination of a legislature's resources and policymaking powers—is the key to preventing the accumulation of power in the hands of an encroaching executive. They show how low-capacity legislatures face difficulties checking the executive through mechanisms such as discretion and oversight, and how presidents and governors unilaterally bypass such legislative adversaries to impose their will. When legislative capacity is high, however, the legislative branch can effectively stifle executives. Bolton and Thrower draw on a wealth of historical evidence on congressional capacity, oversight, discretion, and presidential unilateralism. They also examine thousands of gubernatorial executive orders, demonstrating how varying capacity in the states affects governors' power.Checks in the Balance affirms the centrality of legislatures in tempering executive power—and sheds vital new light on how and why they fail

Abstract
The revolving door is a potential mechanism of private influence over policy. Recent work primarily examines the revolving of legislators and their staff, with little focus on the federal bureaucracy. To analyze decisions to turnover into lobbying, we develop an argument emphasizing the (1) policy expertise acquired from federal employment; (2) the proximity of employees to political decision-making; and (3) the agency policymaking environment. Leveraging federal personnel and lobbying data, we find the first two factors predict revolving whereas the policymaking environment has an inconsistent impact. We highlight the importance of studying selection into lobbying for estimating casual effects of lobbyist characteristics on revenue and contribute to the literature on bureaucratic careers and the nature of private influence in policymaking.

Whether unilateral actions are used to circumvent legislative policy preferences is a central question in separated systems. Although executives have incentives to engage in this behavior, US policymaking studies offer little evidence of it. We explore how intervals between legislative sessions can create such opportunities, depending on interbranch policy disagreement and legislatures' special session powers. During intersession breaks, executives issue more executive orders under divided government relative to unified, but only when legislatures lack control over special sessions. Executives facing legislatures with such powers cannot exploit these breaks. We demonstrate these dynamics in the US states. Additionally, we find governors "wait out" legislatures without special session powers, engaging in more unilateral activity following the adjournment of sessions. This study has implications for understanding the conditions under which legislatures can constrain executive power and the balance of power in separated systems.

This article develops a theory of presidential unilateralism in which both ideological divergence with Congress and legislative capacity influence the president's use of executive orders. We argue that when Congress is less capable of constraining the executive, the president will issue more executive orders during periods of divided government. Conversely, in periods of high legislative capacity, the president is less likely to issue executive orders when faced with an opposed Congress. Based on an examination of institutional changes, we identify years prior to the mid‐1940s as characterized by low congressional capacity and the subsequent period as characterized by high capacity. Testing the theory between 1905 and 2013, we find strong support for these predictions and demonstrate that legislative capacity conditions the role of ideological disagreement in shaping presidential action. Overall, this article deepens our current understanding of the dynamics of separation‐of‐powers politics and the limits of executive power.

In the past year, President Obama has been roundly criticized by the Republican Party over his use of executive actions. While Obama has claimed that he has taken such actions because of Congress' inability to act, his critics argue that he is being excessive and maybe even unconstitutional. In new research, Alexander Bolton and Sharece Thrower find that presidents' use of executive actions became more constrained after World War II – something that they attribute to the allocation of more resources that could be brought to bear on executive oversight.

Can legislatures effectively check unilateral executive power? One prominent and counterintuitive finding in previous work is that executives pursue unilateralism less often under divided government. While executives see greater potential policy gains through unilateral action during divided government, we argue that their likelihood of acting unilaterally depends on an opposed legislature's ability to retaliate. When polarization is high and majorities are marginal, executives are freer to act unilaterally given the difficulties legislatures have in statutorily responding. Unilateralism is also more likely when facing opposition if legislatures lack nonstatutory means of punishment, such as regulatory review. In the largest analysis of gubernatorial executive unilateralism to date, we use a new data set of 24,232 executive orders in the 50 American states between 1993 and 2013 to evaluate this argument and find strong support for its predictions. These results provide insights into how legislative policymaking capacity can influence the functioning of separation of powers systems.