Agency Responsiveness to the Legislative Oversight of Administrative Rulemaking: A Case Study of Rules Review in the Illinois General Assembly

Abstract

Students of public administration have long maintained that for bureaucratic power to be in balance with constitutional democracy, it must be exercised by a responsible bureaucracy. Legislative oversight is one means by which to secure the responsible exercise of this power. However, little is known regarding why agencies are responsive to oversight. In this article this question is explored by presenting a case study of bureaucratic responsiveness to a highly specialized and routine approach to oversight found in state legislatures—the legislative review of administrative rule-making or "rules review." Five factors that appear to explain agency responsiveness are presented as analytical generalizations that may find application elsewhere; these include the lack of relevance that oversight may have for many legislators, the availability of sanctions that can be applied against nonresponsive agencies, the working relationship between an oversight committee and the agencies, agency costs associated with responsiveness, and the oversight committee's faithfulness to the legislature's original intent.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Aberbach, J. D. (1979). Changes in congressional oversight. American Behavioral Scientist, 22 (May/June), 493-515.

Bowers, J. R. (1988). An overview of rules review in Illinois. Comparative State Politics, 9 (December): 18-26.

Boyer, W. W. (1964). Bureaucracy on trial. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill.

Burke, J. P. (1986). Bureaucratic responsibility. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Ethridge, M. E. (1985). Legislative participation in implementation. New York: Praeger.

Frederickson, H. G. (1980). New public administration. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press.

Friedrich, C. J. (1968). Constitutional government and democracy. Waltham, MA: Blaisdell Publishing.

Gruber, J. E. (1987). Controlling bureaucracies. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Illinois General Assembly (1980). [House and Senate legislative debate on House Bill 1503. 81st General Assembly, 1980 session. Copy on file with the Illinois Secretary of State, Index Division, Springfield.]

10.

Illinois General Assembly (1977). [House and Senate legislative debate on House Bill 14. 79th General Assembly, 1977 session. Copy on file with the Illinois Secretary of State, Index Division, Springfield.]

11.

Immigration and Naturalization Service v. Chadha. 462 U.S. 1919.

12.

Joint Committee on Administrative Rules (1981). 1980 annual report to the Illinois General Assembly. Springfield: Author.

13.

Joint Committee on Administrative Rules (1983). [Untitled internal staff task force report obtained from the private files of a former JCAR staff member who wished to remain anonymous.]

14.

Jones, R. (1982). Legislative review of regulations: How well is it working? State Legislature, 8 (September), 7-9.

15.

Kaiser, F. M. (1988). Congressional oversight of the executive. Bulletin of Bibliography, 45 (June), 108-128.

16.

Krislov, S. (1974). Representative bureaucracy. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

17.

Krislov, S. , & Rosenbloom, D. H. (1981). Representative bureaucracy and the American political system. New York: Praeger.

18.

Landau, M. (1969). Redundancy, rationality, and the problem of duplication and overlap. Public Administration Review, 29 (July/August), 346-358.

19.

McCubbins, M. P. , & Schwartz, T. (1984). Congressional oversight overlooked. American Journal of Political Science, 28 (February), 167-179.

20.

Mosher, F. E. (1982). Democracy and the public service (2nd ed.). New York: Oxford University Press.

21.

National Conference of State Legislatures (1979). Restoring the balance in the legislative review of administrative regulations. Denver: Author.

22.

Powell, N. J. (1967). Responsible bureaucracy in the United States. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

23.

Riley, D. R. (1987). Controlling the federal bureaucracy Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

24.

Rockman, B. A. (1985). Legislative-executive relations and legislative oversight. In G. Lowenberg et al. (Eds.) Handbook of legislative research (pp. 519-572). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

25.

Rosen, B. (1982). Holding government bureaucrats accountable. New York: Praeger.

26.

Yourell, H. (1976). Statement to the Illinois House of Representatives, Executive Committee. In Administrative rules and regulations, House Democratic Staff, Illinois General Assembly.