Last week, I started a “Backgrounder” series on one of the most often ignored, but crucially telling, legislative practices: cosponsorship. Cosponsorship, the voluntary addition of a congressperson’s name to a bill before the Congress, provides everyday citizens like us a way of tracking the spread and extent of congressional coalitions on an issue.

To continue the cosponsorship backgrounder, this week I’ll consider the question, “Do political players believe cosponsorship matters?”

Do political players believe cosponsorship matters? Let’s look at some recent history, going back a bit to the 1960s and up to the 1990s. In the 1950s and 1960s, cosponsorship in the House of Representatives was prohibited in its modern sense. And yet, House members found it to be so important that they would develop a procedure to make an end run around the prohibition: multiple sponsorship, or the introduction of identical bills by different members of Congress as a way of demonstrating support for a legislative initiative (Congressional Record 1967: 10712). The willingness of legislators to wholly reintroduce legislation in order to register their support for it indicates that cosponsorship, or its equivalent, has long played an important role in the legislative process.

Cosponsorship has a strong reputation on and around Capital Hill for its supposed impact on legislative outcomes. Comments made by Rep. William Colmer of Mississippi in support of the bill that formalized cosponsorship reflect that reputation:

The cosponsorship of a bill adds prestige and strength to proposed legislation. For there is strength in unity. The proposal is given status by numbers (Congressional Record 1967: 10710).

Legislators themselves regularly cite cosponsors attached to their bill when appealing for action on the measure. In a typical appeal, Rep. Brian Flaherty of Connecticut made a mention of cosponsorship regarding his bill H.R. 4179, which dealt with the “federalization of state drivers’ licenses”:

We need quick enactment of H.R. 4179, sponsored by Mr. [Robert] Barr, who sits on this subcommittee, and a bipartisan group of cosponsors. While I realize that you are in the waning days of this session, this section of the law is so egregious that it merits an expeditious appeal. (Hearing of the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee’s Subcommittee on National Economic Growth, Natural Resources and Regulatory Affairs, 9/17/98).

Rep. Michael Oxley of Ohio made sure on the same day to mention the support of 59 cosponsoring members of the House when appealing for the passage of H.R. 3783, which would have required screening of adult content on the Internet (Hearing of the House Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Telecommunications, Trade and Consumer Protection, 9/17/98). Like most bill authors, Rep. Joseph Kennedy of Massachusetts sent out a “Dear Colleague” letter to explicitly solicit the cosponsorship of a bill that would shut down the controversial School of the Americas:

This is a familiar pattern: a story comes out about violence or oppression in Latin America, and the names of the School of the Americas graduates emerges. Once again the US is shamed. It is time we dissociate ourselves with the School of the Americas once and for all. Join 129 of your colleagues in closing down the School by becoming a cosponsor of H.R. 611. To cosponsor, call Robert Gerber at 5-5111 (Dear Colleague Letter, Rep. Joseph Kennedy, 1/12/98).

Like his colleagues mentioned above, Rep. Wally Herger mentioned his collection of 155 cosponsors for H.R. 2593, the Marriage Penalty Relief Act. Herger further noted the numbers of Democratic and Republican cosponsors as an indication of bipartisanship. He also mentioned his cosponsorship of Rep. Weller’s Marriage Tax Elimination Act (H.R. 3734) as a way to “make clear for the record” his support for Weller’s alternative bill (Hearing of the House Ways and Means Committee, 1/28/98).

Petitioners for policy relief from outside the Congress also seem to cite cosponsorship as a way of bolstering their appeals to lawmakers. Charles Kruse, President of the Missouri Farm Bureau, made his feelings about cosponsorship clear when asking for the institution of tax-exempt FAARM accounts through H.R. 3659:

I ask each and every member of the Small Business Committee to get behind FAARM accounts. They aren’t a substitute for the short-term help needed by farmers this year, but they are just as important. Please cosponsor H.R. 3659 if you haven’t already (Hearing of the House Small Business Committee, 9/16/98).

At their web site, the Gun Owners of America maintain a Legislative Action Center. In this center, the GOA staff uses the Capitol Advantage service to keep a current list of House and Senate bills related to the second amendment, with complete rosters of cosponsors attached. This has been a longtime service that GOA has offered in some form for years. Before they subscribed to Capitol Advantage (when they maintained their vigilance over cosponsorship themselves), the GOA described cosponsorship thusly to their members:

Gaining cosponsors is an important part of the legislative process. Bills with cosponsors are more likely to be passed from committee to a floor vote. If your Representative has not cosponsored the important legislation below, please call, write, fax or e-mail and ask him or her to do so (Gun Owners of America 1999).

For each bill, the GOA also offers a sample letter that ends with the words “Please cosponsor this important legislation.” Web sites similarly urging cosponsorship are maintained by organizations as varied as Americans for Democratic Action, the American Iron and Steel Institute, the Arkansas Hospital Association, the Institute of Transportation Engineers, the National Association of Manufacturers, the National Community Action Foundation, and Peace Action.

In short, the guarded and unguarded expressions of political operators inside and outside the Congress indicate the centrality of cosponsorship to the legislative process. To them, cosponsorship does matter.