A Review of “Fighting for the Speakership: The House and the Rise of Party Government”

We explore the sensitivity of Congress to statements of administration policy (SAPs) and signing statements in the struggle with the executive over policy. We hypothesize that the nature and use of objections contained in these presidential communications generates additional congressional oversight. To test whether this happens, we developed a dataset with all SAPs, signing statements, and congressional oversight hearings from 1997 through 2007. The results indicate that the type and number of objections raised in presidential communications affects congressional oversight activity.