Are Senators cross-pressured by party influence and constituent demands on procedural votes? We present a theory positing that Senators are indeed cross-pressured between these two demands and that electorally vulnerable members use the increased salience of procedural votes to differentiate themselves from their party. In an analysis of Senate procedural votes since the 92nd Congress, we develop a new spatial measure of obstruction preference and demonstrate our finding in three ways. First, obstruction preferences have become more polarized as the Senate experiences more intense legislative obstruction. Second, electorally vulnerable members are most likely to break from their party on procedural votes. Third, we find that voters electorally reward majority party Senators who break from their party and behave like minority party obstructionists. Our findings suggest that, unlike the House, Senate procedural votes are special opportunities for lawmakers to separate themselves from their party.
AldrichJ. H.RohdeD. W. (2000). The consequences of party organization in the house: The role of the majority and minority parties in conditional party government. In BondJ. R.FleisherR. (Eds.), Polarized politics: Congress and the president in a partisan era (pp. 31-72). Washington, DC: CQ Press.
2.
AlthausS. L.EdyJ. A.PhalenP. F. (2001). Using substitutes for full-text news stories in content analysis: Which text is best?American Journal of Political Science, 45, 707-723.
3.
AnsolabehereS.SnyderJ. M.StewartC.III. (2001). The effects of party and preferences on congressional roll-call voting. Legislative Studies Quarterly, 26, 533-572.
4.
ArmstrongD. A.IIIBakkerR.CarrollR.HareC.PooleK. T. (2014). Analyzing spatial models of choice and judgment with R. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.
5.
AshworthS.BuenoDeMesquitaE. (2014). Is voter competence good for voters? Information, rationality, and democratic performance. American Political Science Review, 108, 565-587.
6.
BinderS. A. (1997). Minority rights, majority rule. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
7.
BinderS. A. (2011). Legislative productivity and gridlock. In EdwardsG. C.LeeF. E.ShicklerE. (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of the American Congress (pp. 641-658). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
8.
BinderS. A.LawrenceE. D.SmithS. S. (2002). Tracking the filibuster, 1917 to 1996. American Politics Research, 30, 406-422.
9.
BinderS. A.SmithS. S. (1997). Politics or principle? Filibustering in the United States Senate. Washington, DC: Brookings Institute Press.
10.
BoydstunA. E. (2013). Making the news: Politics, the media and agenda setting. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.
11.
CampbellA. C.CoxG. W.McCubbinsM. D. (2002). Agenda power in the U.S. Senate, 1877 to 1986. In BradyH. E.McCubbinsM. D. (Eds.), Parties, procedure and policy: Essays on the history of Congress (pp. 216-247). Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.
12.
CarrollR.LewisJ. B.LoJ.PooleK. T.RosenthalH. (2013). The structure of utility in spatial models of voting. American Journal of Political Science, 57, 1008-1028.
13.
CarsonJ. L.KogerG.LeboM. J.YoungE. (2010). The electoral costs of party loyalty in Congress. American Journal of Political Science, 54, 598-616.
14.
CoxG. W.McCubbinsM. D. (2005). Setting the agenda: Responsible party government in the U.S. House of Representatives. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.
15.
CoxG. W.McCubbinsM. D. (2007). Legislative leviathan (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
16.
Den HartogC.MonroeN. W. (2011). Agenda setting in the U.S. Senate: Costly consideration and majority party advantage. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
17.
DohertyD. (2015). How policy and procedure shape citizens’ evaluations of senators. Legislative Studies Quarterly, 40, 241-272.
18.
DurrR. H.GilmourJ. B.WolbrechtC. (1997). Explaining congressional approval. American Journal of Political Science, 41, 175-207.
19.
FlynnD. J.HarbridgeL. (2015). How partisan conflict in Congress affects public opinion: Strategies, outcomes, and issue differences. American Politics Research, 1, 1-28.
20.
FongC.KrehbielK. (2018). Limited obstruction. American Political Science Review, 112, 1-14.
21.
GailmardS.JenkinsJ. A. (2008). Minority-party power in the Senate and House of Representatives. In MonroeN. W.RobertsJ. M.RohdeD. W. (Eds.), Why not parties? Party effects in the United States Senate (pp. 181-197). Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.
22.
GreenM. N. (2015). Underdog politics: The minority party in the U.S. House of Representatives. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
23.
GrimmerJ. (2010). A Bayesian hierarchical topic model for political texts: Measuring expressed agendas in Senate press releases. Political Analysis, 18, 1-35.
24.
GrosecloseT.MilyoJ. (2010). Sincere versus sophisticated voting in Congress: Theory and evidence. The Journal of Politics, 72, 60-73.
25.
HarbridgeL.MalhotraN. (2011). Electoral incentives and partisan conflict in Congress: Evidence from survey experiments. American Journal of Political Science, 55, 494-510.
26.
HibbingJ. R.Theiss-MorseE. (1995). Congress as public enemy: Public attitudes toward American political institutions. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
27.
HibbingJ. R.Theiss-MorseE. (2001). Process preferences and American politics: What the people want government to be. American Political Science Review, 95, 145-153.
28.
HibbingJ. R.Theiss-MorseE. (2002). Stealth democracy: Americans’ beliefs about how government should work. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.
29.
HightonB. (2000). Senate elections in the United States, 1920-94. British Journal of Political Science, 30, 483-506.
30.
JesseeS. A.TheriaultS. M. (2014). The two faces of congressional roll-call voting. Party Politics, 20, 836-848.
31.
JonesD. R. (2010). Partisan polarization and congressional accountability in house elections. American Journal of Political Science, 54, 323-337.
32.
JonesD. R. (2015). Declining trust in Congress: Effects of polarization and consequences for democracy. The Forum, 13(3), 375-394.
33.
KeeleL. (2007). Social capital and the dynamics of trust in government. American Journal of Political Science, 51, 241-254.
34.
KogerG. (2010). Filibustering: A political history of obstruction in the House and Senate. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.
35.
KogerG.LeboM. J. (2012). Strategic party government and the 2010 elections. American Politics Research, 40, 927-945.
36.
LeboM. J.McGlynnA. J.KogerG. (2007). Strategic party government: Party influence in Congress, 1789-2000. American Journal of Political Science, 51, 464-481.
37.
LeeF. E. (2009). Beyond ideology: Politics, principles, and partisanship in the U.S. Senate. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.
38.
LeeF. E. (2016). Insecure majorities: Congress and the perpetual campaign. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
39.
MatthewsD. R. (1959). The folkways of the United States Senate: Conformity to group norms and legislative effectiveness. American Political Science Review, 53, 1064-1089.
40.
McCartyN.PooleK. T.RosenthalH. (2006). Polarized America: The dance of ideology and unequal riches. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
41.
McKelveyR. D.NiemiR. G. (1978). A multistage game representation of sophisticated voting for binary procedures. Journal of Economic Theory, 18, 1-22.
42.
ParkH. M.SmithS. S. (2016). Partisanship, sophistication, and public attitudes about majority rule and minority rights in Congress. Legislative Studies Quarterly, 41, 841-871.
43.
PattyJ. W. (2008). Equilibrium party government. American Journal of Political Science, 52, 636-655.
44.
PooleK. T. (1985). A spatial model for legislative roll call analysis. American Journal of Political Science, 29, 357-384.
45.
PooleK. T.LewisJ. B.LoJ.CarrollR. (2007). Scaling roll call votes with wnominate in R. Journal of Statistical Software, 22(1), 1-23.
46.
PooleK. T.RosenthalH. (1997). Congress: A political-economic history of roll call voting. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
47.
RamirezM. D. (2009). The dynamics of partisan conflict on congressional approval. American Journal of Political Science, 53, 681-694.
48.
RamirezM. D. (2012). The policy origins of congressional approval. The Journal of Politics, 75, 198-209.
49.
RobertsJ. M.SmithS. S. (2003). Procedural contexts, party strategy, and conditional party voting in the U.S. House of Representatives, 1971-2000. American Journal of Political Science, 47, 305-317.
50.
RohdeD. W. (1991). Parties and leaders in the postreform house. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.
51.
SeoJ.TheriaultS. M. (2012). Moderate caucuses in a polarised US Congress. Journal of Legislative Studies, 18, 203-221.
52.
SmithS. S.OstranderI.PopeC. M. (2013). Majority party power and procedural motions in the U.S. Senate. Legislative Studies Quarterly, 38, 205-236.
53.
SmithS. S.ParkH. M. (2013). Americans’ attitudes about the Senate filibuster. American Politics Research, 41, 735-760.
54.
StimsonJ. A. (1998). Public opinion in America: Moods, cycles, and swings (2nd ed.). Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
55.
TheriaultS. M. (2008). Party polarization in Congress. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
56.
VoldenC.BergmanE. (2006). How strong should our party be? Party member preferences over party cohesion. Legislative Studies Quarterly, 31, 71-104.
57.
WawroG. J.ShicklerE. (2004). Where’s the pivot? Obstruction and lawmaking in the pre-cloture Senate. American Journal of Political Science, 48, 758-774.
58.
WoolleyJ. T. (2000). Using media-based data in studies of politics. American Journal of Political Science, 44, 156-173.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
