Minimizing the risks of delegation: Multiple referral in the German Bundesrat

Legislative scholars continue to debate whether or not congressional committees should be viewed as preference outliers. This arlicle establishes that committee assignment procedures in the German upper house, the Bundesrat, yield committees that do not always reflect the chamber's partisan preferences. This non-American setting provides leverage on a central question In legislative studies how can a chamber ensure responsive lawmaking when delegating to unrepresentative committees? I argue that Bundesrat procedures, including multiple referral, equal reporting rights, and a self-selection referral process. minimize the risks of delegation. A spatial model illustrates how the Bundesrat referral system creates conditions under which unrepresentative committees, acting to achieve their own preferred policies, yield legislative outcomes congruent with the chamber median. An original dataset including partisan-based preference measures permits statistical tests of the model's predictions about when a committee requests referral.