Chapter 33 — Exercises

These exercises ask you to use the analytical vocabulary the chapter built — the stages model, the streams model, the veto-points framework, the implementation gap, and policy feedback — to study a current policy situation. They are designed to take an investigation seriously rather than to test recall. Plan to spend an hour or more on the longer exercises; do them with a partner if possible.

Exercise 1 — Track a current bill through Kingdon's three streams

Choose a current bill that has been introduced in the 119th Congress. Use GovTrack (govtrack.us) or Congress.gov to find a bill that interests you and has at least one cosponsor from each party. (If you cannot find a bipartisan bill, choose one that is salient enough to have media coverage.)

For your chosen bill, complete the following:

(a) Problem stream. What is the problem the bill claims to address? Identify the indicators (statistics, trends) that supporters cite. Identify any focusing event(s) that elevated this problem onto the agenda. Was there a precipitating crisis or moment, or has the problem been recognized for a long time?

(b) Policy stream. Where did the proposed solution come from? Search for any think-tank reports, prior bills, academic articles, or interest-group white papers that propose similar solutions. List at least three sources. Were any of these published more than five years ago?

(c) Political stream. What is the current political environment around this bill? Who is sponsoring it? Who is opposing it? What is the partisan composition of the relevant committees? Has any external event recently shifted the political stream?

(d) Window analysis. Are the three streams currently coupled, partially coupled, or not coupled? If a window is open, how long do you think it will stay open? If it is not, what would have to change for it to open?

Write up your analysis (600–900 words) with citations to specific sources.

Exercise 2 — Identify the veto points blocking a particular reform

Choose a major reform proposal that has not passed Congress. Some options: federal paid family leave, statehood for Washington D.C. or Puerto Rico, comprehensive immigration reform, federal cannabis legalization, a constitutional amendment to limit money in politics, a national right-to-work law, federal voting-rights expansion, federal abortion-rights or abortion-ban legislation. (Choose one. Pick a topic on which you have not already formed a strong opinion if you can.)

(a) List the veto players. Walk through the policy adoption chain and identify each veto player whose agreement would be required for the proposal to become law: House majority, Senate cloture, Senate majority, presidential signature, and (potentially) Supreme Court review.

(b) Estimate each veto point's current binding force. For each veto player, what is the current probability that they block the reform? Cite the relevant data (current Senate composition, presidential position, recent court rulings).

(c) Identify the alternative pathways. Could the reform be pursued through executive order, agency regulation, judicial doctrine, state-level adoption, or constitutional amendment instead? For each alternative, what are the costs and constraints?

(d) Steel-man the opposition. Even if you favor the reform, present the strongest argument against it. Try to do this without scare quotes or sneering. Use the language the opposition uses for itself.

Write your analysis (700–1,000 words).

Exercise 3 — Trace a successful policy through implementation

Choose a major policy that has passed in the last fifteen years and that has now been in implementation for at least three years. Suggested options: the Affordable Care Act (2010), the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (2021), the CHIPS and Science Act (2022), the Inflation Reduction Act (2022), the First Step Act (2018), the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, the SECURE Act (2019), the 2018 Farm Bill.

(a) Identify the chain of implementation. From statute to operational reality, list the institutional acts required: agency rulemaking, state action (if applicable), local action (if applicable), private-sector response, beneficiary application or eligibility, monitoring and enforcement.

(b) Find the implementation gaps. Where has implementation diverged from what the statute envisioned? Search for retrospective evaluations, GAO reports, OMB inspector-general reports, or academic studies. Cite at least three sources.

(c) Apply policy feedback. Has implementation created constituencies that defend the policy? Has it created constituencies that demand reform? What political coalitions exist now that did not exist before the policy was enacted?

(d) Evaluate. Based on the evidence, is this policy succeeding, failing, or showing a mixed record? Be specific about the criteria you are using to evaluate, and acknowledge the criteria you are not using.

Write your analysis (600–900 words).

Exercise 4 — Steel-man process reforms

Choose two reform proposals from Section 33.13 of the chapter. (For example: filibuster reform AND independent redistricting commissions; or permitting reform AND congressional process reforms.)

For each reform:

(a) Steel-man the case for it. Present the strongest argument in favor, drawing on the chapter's framing and on outside reading. Cite at least one academic or think-tank source.

(b) Steel-man the case against it. Present the strongest argument against, drawing on outside reading. Cite at least one source. The opposing argument should not be weaker than the case in favor.

(c) Identify the empirical questions. What questions, if answered, would resolve the debate? What questions are inherently normative and cannot be settled by evidence?

(d) Take a position. After steel-manning both sides, share your own view. Be clear about where the empirical evidence supports you and where you are making a value judgment.

Write your analysis (800–1,200 words).

Exercise 5 — Democracy Audit: policy outcomes in your district

Use your representative's voting record (govtrack.us provides this) and your senators' voting records to identify three major policies that have affected your congressional district in the last five years.

For each policy:

(a) Identify the legislative path. How did the policy pass? Statute, reconciliation, executive order, judicial decision, state-level innovation? Who voted yes and who voted no?

(b) Identify the implementation in your district. What concrete projects, programs, or regulations have resulted from the policy? Use the relevant agency websites (USDOT for transportation projects, USDA for agricultural funding, HHS for health programs, etc.) to find specific local funding or activity.

(c) Identify the local impact. Has the policy changed conditions in your district? (Be careful here: causation is hard to prove, and many things change. Identify what you can support empirically and acknowledge what you cannot.)

(d) Compare your representative's vote to local impact. Did your representative vote for or against the policy? If you can, compare their stated reasoning to the local impact. Are these consistent?

Submit your analysis (700–1,000 words).

Exercise 6 — Compare two failed reforms

Choose two failed reform efforts. The chapter discusses several (comprehensive immigration reform, comprehensive entitlement reform, major climate legislation pre-2022, the 1993–94 Clinton health-reform effort, the 2021–22 voting-rights legislation).

For each failed reform:

(a) Identify which streams aligned and which did not. Was the problem stream coherent? Was the policy stream ready? Did the political stream collapse?

(b) Identify the binding constraint. Was failure caused by a single veto point or by a combination?

(c) Identify the policy-feedback consequences of the failure. Did the failure itself reshape subsequent politics? Did it strengthen or weaken the constituency for the next attempt?

Compare the two cases. Are the failure modes similar or different? Write your analysis (600–900 words).

Exercise 7 — A policy-window prediction

Identify a problem currently on the political agenda for which a policy window has not opened. (Examples: AI regulation, social-media regulation of minors, antitrust modernization, state-pension reforms, water-rights reform in the West, comprehensive court reform.)

(a) Predict the conditions that would open a window. What focusing event, electoral change, or indicator shift would couple the streams?

(b) Identify the policy-stream solutions that are currently being developed. Where? By whom?

(c) Identify the entrepreneurial actors most positioned to act if a window opens.

Write your prediction (500–700 words). This is forecasting; you may be wrong. The exercise is in the reasoning.

Exercise 8 — Implementation-design exercise

You are a senior staff member to a senator. Your boss has decided to introduce a bill to address a particular problem (you choose: housing affordability, child-care access, rural broadband, prescription-drug pricing — any well-defined problem).

Design the bill's implementation architecture, not its substantive provisions. Address:

(a) Which agency or agencies will implement? (b) What role will states play? Will participation be mandatory or optional? (c) What is the rulemaking timeline? (d) How will success be evaluated, and by whom? (e) What political coalition will defend implementation if a future administration tries to roll back the program?

Write your design memo (500–800 words).

Exercise 9 — Reading and discussion

Choose one of the texts in further-reading.md. Read at least one chapter of it. Bring to class:

(a) The author's central claim, in your own words. (b) The author's strongest piece of evidence. (c) One question you would ask the author. (d) One way the author's argument applies to a current policy debate.

Exercise 10 — A policy autopsy

Identify a major policy that was repealed or substantially weakened after enactment. (Possible cases: the Glass-Steagall provisions repealed in 1999, the 1990s welfare-reform work requirements as modified in subsequent years, the assault-weapons ban that expired in 2004, the individual-mandate penalty zeroed in 2017, the Title 42 pandemic-era border policy lifted in 2023.)

(a) Identify the original adoption coalition. Who passed the policy, with what coalition, in what political environment?

(b) Identify the repeal/weakening coalition. Was it the same coalition reversed, a different coalition, or a generational shift?

(c) Apply Patashnik's framework. Did the policy fail to entrench because it lacked organized constituencies? Because the constituencies could not sustain political power? Because the underlying policy logic was undermined by other developments?

(d) What does this case tell us about the durability of policy adoption? Some policies survive across administrations; others do not. What predicts durability?

Write your analysis (500–700 words).

Exercise 11 — Comparing pathway choices

Choose a substantive policy goal (examples: reducing prescription-drug prices, expanding child-care access, addressing climate change, reforming criminal justice).

For your goal, sketch three alternative pathway approaches:

(a) A statutory regular-order approach. (b) A reconciliation-eligible approach. (c) An executive-action approach.

For each pathway, identify what the policy would have to look like to fit that pathway. Then evaluate the trade-offs: speed, durability, scope, legal risk.

Write your analysis (500–700 words). The exercise is in seeing how the procedural choice shapes substantive design.

Exercise 12 — A simulation

In groups of four to six students, role-play a Senate negotiation on a current bill. Assign roles: a senator from each party representing one extreme of their coalition, a senator from each party representing the median, the majority leader, and a senior committee staffer.

Run the simulation for thirty minutes. Each role-player should advocate for their assigned position consistently — not their personal political view. The objective is to identify whether a bill could be assembled that secures a majority (or, depending on the bill, sixty votes) without losing any coalition member.

Debrief: Which role-players had the strongest leverage? Which compromises were possible? Which were not? What does the exercise reveal about how the streams must align for adoption to occur?

This exercise is best run with instructor mediation. The simulation is in the practice, not in producing a "correct" outcome.