The speed of consideration of draft laws as an indicator of the political nature of the legislative process

The article examines the prospects for using the speed of adoption of bills as an indicator of the political nature of the rules of the legislative process. Political science has developed an independent tradition of studying the political implications of lawmaking - legislative studies, which pays little attention to formal procedures and bureaucratic logic as political characteristics of the work of parliamentary institutions. The example of the Legislative Council of the Russian Federation demonstrates the need for a broader application of this indicator in policy studies. Established in 2012, a relatively new structure for the Russian parliamentary system has increased the average speed of consideration of the initiatives of the Russian regions by 100 days during its activity, which is in contradiction with the authors' initial logic about the optimization of the legislative process. The authors conclude that this indicator reflects the consequences of a deeper metamorphosis of the political system. The example of the Council of Legislators represents only one dimension, demonstrating the impact of changing the «rules of the game» by creating a new procedure of «filtering» draft laws with the help of extra-constitutional structures. The authors believe that the presented example will provide a new perspective not only on the federal law-making process per se, but also on the «rules of the game» within individual institutions. The rules of procedure of the State Duma, for example, have been changed 175 times between the second and seventh convocations. The fluidity of procedures can be used both to strengthen the position of the Houses of Parliament in interaction with other authorities and to defeat political opponents within these Houses.