Framework statutes entrench policy through political costs rather than legal prohibitions.
Evidence
In fact, upon closer inspection, a number of examples of legislative entrenchment featured in the scholarly literature seem to involve functional without formal entrenchment. Theorists who characterize the Gramm-Rudman Act and other framework statutes as impermissible legislative entrenchment recognize that there is no legal impediment that prevents a subsequent congressional majority from revising or repealing the original statute. To the extent framework statutes entrench policies or procedures against change, they do so by raising the political salience—and therefore, in some cases, the political cost—of reversal. Gramm-Rudman, for example, was designed to impose “substantial political risks” on subsequent congressional majorities that chose not to comply by forcing them to overcome the burden of “legislative inertia” and “to act in the full glare of the balanced budget debate.”
— Daryl Levinson and Benjamin I. Sachs, Political Entrenchment and Public Law, 192
Categorization
XREF: Directly serves the research question on rationalizing-ideology stickiness: distinguishes formal from functional entrenchment mechanisms, echoing earlier institutional-persistence work (Pierson path dependence, Milgrom law merchant institutions). — connects to: Constitutions entrench policies through structure and rights much as legislation and elections do — Daryl Levinson and Benjamin I. Sachs, Political Entrenchment and Public Law, 462; Ordinary statutes can carry quasi-constitutional entrenchment power — Daryl Levinson and Benjamin I. Sachs, Political Entrenchment and Public Law, 463; Political barriers can entrench laws as effectively as formal constitutional impediments do. — Daryl Levinson and Benjamin I. Sachs, Political Entrenchment and Public Law, 184 (+5 more)