This article demonstrates that Brazil’s legislative branch plays an active and substantive role in shaping bills that originate in the executive. A strong presidency does not automatically produce a weak legislature: legislative amendments and substitute bills contribute large shares of final law content.

📊 How bill changes were traced

• Original executive proposals were compared to the versions enacted to identify alterations introduced by the legislature.
• Focused on two legislative tools that reshape executive bills: substitute bills and amendments to legislation.

🔍 Key findings

• The legislative branch is responsible for nearly 40 percent of the content of laws promulgated in Brazil.
• Both substitute bills and amendments are important mechanisms through which legislators draft and rework policy originally proposed by the executive.
• Executive efforts to control the legislative agenda—such as provisional decrees and urgency requests—do not reduce the rate at which the legislature changes executive-origin bills.

📌 What this shows

• Despite presidential institutional resources to place bills on the agenda, the legislature still discusses, analyzes, and modifies executive proposals rather than acting solely as a passive rubber stamp.
• The data reveal an active legislative power that substantially participates in policy drafting and content formation.

⚖️ Why it matters

• These findings recalibrate assessments of executive–legislative relations in presidential systems by showing that agenda-setting by the executive does not eliminate legislative influence over policy substance.
• The results have implications for understanding separation of powers, policy design, and the institutional dynamics of lawmaking in Brazil.