Parties, Median Legislators, and Agenda Setting: How Legislative Institutions Matter

Abstract

A large literature in American politics argues that the procedural rules in Congress allow the majority party to block bills that are opposed by the majority of its members yet supported by the majority of the chamber. However, majority-party agenda-setting influence is rarely absolute. In this article, I use new data on the rules in the U.S. state legislative chambers to show that majoritarian rules (i.e., procedures that allow the chamber majority to circumvent majority-party gatekeeping) are not only common but also consequential for policy. That is, the presence of majoritarian rules significantly reduces the majority party’s advantage in obtaining its preferred legislative outcomes, particularly as the preferences of the floor and majority-party medians diverge. These results demonstrate that the distribution of power in a legislature is a function of its full configuration of agenda-setting rules and thus provide an important qualification to theories of legislation organization.