Resumen de Conceptual and measurement limitations of the Biennial Congress: an examination

Eric Paul Svensen

• This paper proposes congressional scholars reexamine biennial measures in their research. It argues two-year measures, while providing important insight on legislative behaviour in Congress over the past five decades, are both methodologically regressive and conceptually impractical. Not only is this measurement practice insensitive to the vibrant political life that marks American politics over the course of a two-year period, it is prone to numerous measurement shortcomings when compared against refined metrics such as annual, quarterly, and monthly data. To demonstrate these deficiencies, this paper explores the conceptual and methodological limitations of biennial measures.