Agenda Control in Real Time

This paper models legislative decision making when an agenda setter proposes amendments in real time. We consider a setting in which voters are sophisticated and the agenda setter cannot commit to her future proposals. Nevertheless, the agenda setter obtains her favorite policy in every equilibrium regardless of the initial status quo. We show that this result applies to a broad class of policy spaces and legislative procedures. Our results overturn the conventional wisdom that voter sophistication on its own constrains an agenda setter’s power.