Arvin Pandiyan
Pronouns: he/him/his
Research Mentor(s): Devin Judge-Lord
Research Mentor School/College/Department: / Public Policy
Program:
Authors: Arvin Pandiyan, Devin Judge-Lord
Session: Session 5: 2:40 pm – 3:30 pm
Poster: 19
Abstract
A crucial phase in the creation of new federal regulations is the public comment period, during which individuals and organizations may suggest adjustments to proposed rules. This research assesses trends in the types of comments and organizations that are more successful in moving policy. Understanding how public comments affect policy will help improve public involvement in the regulatory process. The project collects public comments from corporations, advocacy organizations, government officials, and trade associations. This project includes regulations spanning all federal agencies. Our data is created using qualitative coding of public comment texts to systematically gather key information for quantitative analysis, including “policy position,” “organization type,” and “lobbying success.” The “position” variable is ordinal and is assigned based on a commenter’s support of or opposition to a proposed rule. The “org_type” variable categorizes comments made by organizations into subgroups such as corporations or non-governmental organizations. To create the “lobbying success” variable, we determine the extent to which a public comment’s desired changes were implemented in the final rule, and assign a value based on that level of success. These data points allow us to discover broad trends in which groups influence public policy. Professor Judge-Lord has previously found that the use of legal language increases an organization’s likelihood of having their suggestions implemented, and these results have been incorporated by White House initiatives to increase public involvement in the rulemaking process. This project thus serves as a continuous study of the effectiveness of public commenting, and its findings may be used to help many different groups affect federal policy.
