Cosponsorship amendment data in MA budget
The Massachusetts policy calendar revolves around the budget, when not only is money allocated but many policies get attached to this massive legislative vehicle.
We are currently in the process of the House debating and amending its budget, to be followed by the Senate, and then a conference committee, to produce a final budget by July 31.
Much of the focus is on the actual policies that are produced, but I was directed to a tiny, and often overlooked aspect of the process. You can cosponsor a budget amendment.
So, building on our previous work examining what cosponsorships of legislation might tell us about the workings of Beacon Hill, here are some stats from the budget process.
We’re trying something new with this data dive. Rather than asking for your email before accessing the data, it’s all here, but we ask that you sign up for a 15-min demo of Legislata to give us some feedback of what else you’d like to see in the product
Lots of cosponsorships
I hadn’t been aware that cosponsoring amendments was a common practice, and was surprised at just how many there were. About half of all amendments had a cosponsor, although half of those had less than three cosponsors.
Nonetheless, more than 400 amendments collecting more than 3 cosponsors is a significant amount of activity for a budget debate that is only one part of a longer process.
Legislators also were varied in their activity. Of the 151 representatives who did cosponsor legislation, the median cosponsored 46 pieces of legislation, again, a significant number.
Top 10 most prolific cosponsorers
Similarly to amendments, there was a wide range in how many people legislators usually got to join them. Legislators averaged less than 10, though that was a far more dispersed pattern, in part because some only sponsored a few that received many cosponsors (such as Rep. James Murphy whose amendment on firefighter health was the 3rd-most cosponsored amendment).
Who cosponsors together?
We also looked at what pairs of legislators had the highest rates of co-cosponsorship. We scored every pair of legislators. A higher score indicates that two legislators cosponsored more amendments together, with each amendment weighted by how many other cosponsors were on the legislation (fewer cosponsors indicate a greater connection).
While it does not indicate that the two legislators like each other or work together, it shows that, at least on this budget process, they agreed on a lot of amendments. It could be a sign for those in the policy process about whose endorsement may help convincing which other legislators.
(If you work in the policy process in Massachusetts, you can use this practically, by going to the Cosponsorship Relationship sorted by Legislator sheet and searching for the legislator you’re looking to connect with and see who they might be closest to, then searching for them and working backwards to someone that you have a good relationship with to map out a path).
If you’d like to see all of the data, you can do that here. If you find it useful, we ask only that you book a short 15-minute demo of Legislata so you can let us know what else we should be adding to the product to make it the most comprehensive (and lowest-cost) policy intelligence platform for Massahchusetts.