ABSTRACT Recent years have seen increased attention to legislative capacity and performance, including the development of individual Legislative Effectiveness (LE) scores for the US Congress. In comparing new committee chairs' scores to their scores prior to becoming chair I find significant variation in the ‘boost’ that committees impart to their chairs' LE, including several committees that do not significantly boost their chairs' LE scores at all. This study advances an organisational explanation for legislative effectiveness (at least as measured by LE scores) in contrast to previous work that emphasises member-level characteristics. Variation in committee tasks, roles, and member turnover significantly affect a committee chair's LE boost, often moreso than individual characteristics or shifts in party status. The LE boost a committee chair receives does not endure but disappears once the member is no longer chair, which challenges our understanding of the connections between experience, learning, and skill in the legislative process.

中文翻译：

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助推器席位：新的委员会主席和立法效力

摘要 近年来，人们越来越关注立法能力和绩效，包括为美国国会制定单独的立法有效性 (LE) 分数。在将新委员会主席的分数与成为主席之前的分数进行比较时，我发现委员会赋予其主席 LE 的“提升”存在显着差异，包括一些根本没有显着提高其主席的 LE 分数的委员会。与之前强调成员级别特征的工作相比，本研究提出了对立法有效性（至少以 LE 分数衡量）的组织解释。委员会任务、角色和成员更替的变化显着影响委员会主席的 LE 提升，通常比个人特征或政党地位的变化更重要。