Floor Votes Research Articles

Negative Agenda Control and the Conservative Coalition in the U.S. House

While it is widely believed that a “conservative coalition” of Southern Democrats and Republicans sometimes formed on floor votes in the mid-twentieth-century House to block liberal policy initiatives, a fully fleshed-out picture of what the coalition was and how it operated is lacking. In this article, we investigate whether the conservative coalition wielded negative agenda control, that is, whether it used positions of power in the House to block bills from floor consideration that would have harmed a majority of its members. We find that the likelihood that the conservative coalition was rolled increased significantly after the Rules Committee packing in 1961—especially for bills that came from standing committees chaired by nonsoutherners. These results are consistent with the notion that Rules systematically protected the conservative coalition from unfavorable floor votes and that southern committee chairs continued to offer some blocking power after the Rules packing.

Procedural Signaling, Party Loyalty, and Traceability in the U.S. House of Representatives

In this article, we take advantage of a new source of data providing updates from the Majority Leader’s Office that signal the leadership’s positions on floor votes. We offer a more nuanced explanation of voting in the U.S. House as our findings suggest that not all procedural votes are created equal. While the most liberal members of the party vote with the leadership on procedural votes at high rates and nearly 100 percent of the time when signaled by the majority leader, moderate members are significantly less likely to support the party and are not responsive to these signals.

Upstream influence: The positive impact of PAC contributions on Marcellus Shale roll call votes in Pennsylvania

Political scientists have long tried to explain how interest group lobbying and political action committee campaign donations affect election outcomes and public policy debates. Unfortunately, they are often met with null or conflicting results. Consequently, scholars have tested the influence of campaign donations on Congressional outcomes in different parts of the policy-making process, such as roll call votes and committee hearings. Building on these findings, I use the adoption of a Marcellus Shale impact fee in Pennsylvania to test whether campaign contributions have a different effect on bill amendment roll call votes than final floor votes. Given the differing political contexts of these two votes, it stands to reason that there is variation in the relationship between campaign donations and member voting behavior. Specifically, I expect that legislators have more flexibility in voting on amendments than on final bills, and thus factors other than party, including campaign funding, are also relevant. I find that while party, ideology and tenure are the only significant factors associated with roll call votes on final bills, campaign contributions and local-level salience are positively associated with voting on amendments. This shows that while moneyed interests may not be successful in stopping undesirable legislation, they can achieve legislative victory by shaping the bill as it travels through the legislature.

Keeping Your Friends Close and Your Enemies Closer? Information Networks in Legislative Politics

The authors contribute to the existing literature on the determinants of legislative voting by offering a social network-based theory about the ways that legislators’ social relationships affect floor voting behaviour. It is argued that legislators establish contacts with both political friends and enemies, and that they use the information they receive from these contacts to increase their confidence in their own policy positions. Social contacts between political allies have greater value the more the two alliesagreeon policy issues, while social contacts between political adversaries have greater value the more the two adversariesdisagreeon policy issues. To test these propositions, we use social network analysis tools and demonstrate how to account for network dependence using a multilevel modelling approach.

Shirking the Initiative? The Effects of Statewide Ballot Measures on Congressional Roll Call Behavior

Do ballot measures affect congressional voting behavior? Examining the issues of gay marriage, campaign finance, and minimum wage, we test if the results of statewide ballot initiatives inform congressional roll call votes on legislation occupying the same issue space. Theoretically, we expect signals from ballot measures—which provide precise information about the preferences of a member’s voting constituency—reduce policy “shirking” by members. Our findings across the three issues indicate that ballot initiative outcomes alter the floor votes of members of the House, reducing legislative shirking, but we find that the educative effect of ballot measures is attenuated in the Senate due to institutional factors. We attribute the positive effect in House to the precise signal ballot measures provide members about the preferences of the median voter in their district.

The Electoral Connection and Participation on House Roll Call Votes, 1819-1921

It is commonly understood by students of Congress that representatives use their roll call votes as a signal to constituents. The vote choice – whether on a single bill or motion as a position taking device (Mayhew 1974) or as a string of votes (Fenno 1978) – offers the constituent a metric for congruence on policy matters on the congressional agenda. The act of voting itself can also be a signal to constituents the degree to which the member fulfills his or her professional responsibilities; whereas committee work and constituency service do not have a clear metric, roll call voting does. But the act of casting a roll call vote, like a vote cast at the ballot box, is not costless. Attendance in Washington may come at the expense of private business or electioneering at home. Especially in the early House, travel was difficult and conditions in the Capitol inhospitable. In the 19th century Congress as in the 21st, a great deal of the Washington work by a representative occurred outside floor voting – introducing resolutions, responding to constituent inquiries, meeting in committee – and whose time commitments may compete with roll calls. Moreover, abstaining might at times be a dominant strategy, especially when exercised by a sizable minority attempting to prevent a quorum for business. Certainly a great deal of nonvoting in the 19th century House is due to idiosyncratic and nonpolitical factors like illness, drunkenness and apathy. Even so, we argue in this paper that the calculus of roll call participation is shaped and influenced by changes in legislative and electoral institutions and practices, and that this is observable in the variation in the rates of nonvoting across representatives and over time. More specifically, we consider how changes in the role of parties, elections and quorum rules altered the incentives for members to cast roll call votes. The paper proceeds as follows. First, we consider institutional changes in the 19th century House of Representatives which may have affected the calculus of voting for members. The list is not exhaustive, but does suggest three broad eras for considering their participation choices. Second, an overview of the contours of House roll call participation from 1819 to 1921 is offered. Third, we model roll call participation rates at the member level across the century in order to understand the magnitude of the systematic component of nonvoting. Together the results suggest that members were responsive to institutional change, but that the standard markers of modernizing House institutions – in particular the adoption of the Reed Rules and the spread of the Australian ballot – resulted only in modest shifts in the roll call participation of representatives.

Black Radical Voices and Policy Effectiveness in the U.S. Congress

This paper argues that African-American House legislators have become less radical, engaging in less forceful ideological battles with the Democratic Party over its policy leadership. They have become simultaneously more prone to support policy leadership from Democratic presidents as well. This argument is based on a study of floor votes by black legislators on budget resolutions in the Carter and Clinton administrations, as well as an analysis of presidential support and party unity scores from 1977 to 2008 in CQ Almanacs. Since the 1990s, based on a number of factors, black House members are less likely to challenge Democratic presidential and party leadership as radical voices on the political left. This decline in black radicalism, I contend, has implications for the concept of African-American politics as an organized challenge to the racial status of blacks.

State of the Union addresses and presidential position taking: Do presidents back their rhetoric in the legislative arena?

Politicians and presidents are routinely criticized for the mismatch between their policy statements and their legislative actions. While a few studies explore presidents’ support for policy commitments made during their election campaigns, no study systematically examines this relationship for presidents throughout their terms. To determine whether presidents follow through on their policy statements, I examine presidential mentions of three policy areas in State of the Union addresses from 1953 to 2000 and presidents’ subsequent positions on floor votes in Congress. The results indicate that rhetorical attention to economic policy and foreign relations in these speeches increases the chances that presidents will take positions on legislation in these same areas, but there is a disconnect between the rhetoric and their actions on health and social welfare policy. I suggest that this difference can be attributed to their anticipation of success in each policy area because presidents do not want to attach themselves to legislative defeats.

Mandates, Parties and Dissent

Russia's mixed electoral system offers an excellent opportunity to study the effects of electoral rules on party discipline in legislative voting. Under the rules in force from the 1993 to 2003 elections, one half of the Russian Duma's members were elected on party lists, while the remaining half were elected by plurality vote in single-member districts (SMDs). The existing literature has found inconclusive evidence for the direction and magnitude of the effect of such mandate-type differences on the level of party discipline in floor voting. Using a comprehensive database of electronically recorded votes in the Duma in the period between 1994 and 2003 and a panel data structure, we examine the influence of this hybrid system on factional voting cohesion for votes on budget bills. The panel structure permits a more sensitive and rigorous research design than has been employed in previous research. We find modest evidence that SMD representatives defect from the faction position on budget bills more often than proportional representation representatives, even taking into account such intervening factors as party faction, ideology, committee membership and the evolution of the post-communist political system.

The Uncertain Future of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act

Although the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) received nearly unanimous support when enacted, only a few years thereafter its wisdom is increasingly being questioned and its supporters are having to stave off attempts to recraft the legislation. SOX has produced a barrage of complaints, particularly for imposing unwarranted costs, especially on smaller firms, and for contributing to a decline in the competitiveness of U.S. capital markets. After providing a context by reviewing the political dynamics that produced SOX, mapping out the positions of commissioned reports that have recommended revising it and empirical research bearing upon the recommendations, the paper examines media coverage by national journalists and national and regional newspapers to gauge better the political salience of SOX's critics and the increasing support in Congress to revise the legislation, including an analysis of floor votes on exempting small firms. It concludes with a prognosis on SOX's future.

From the Corn Laws to Free Trade: Interests, Ideas, and Institutions in Historical Perspective

From the Corn Laws to Free Trade: Interests, Ideas, and Institutions in Historical Perspective. By Cheryl Schonhardt-Bailey. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2006. 440p. $47.50.In this work, Cheryl Schonhardt-Bailey presents the culmination of her more than two decades–long study of the politics of the 1846 repeal of Britain's Corn Laws. Conceiving changes in the “three Is”—interests, ideas, and institutions—as the three central components of an explanation of this policy change, she presents a series of chapter-length studies focused on each of these elements. She further divides the chapters into “demand” and “supply” sections—with the former tending to emphasize the role of shifting interests, and the latter primarily devoted to discussions of ideology as revealed by parliamentary speeches. Like many who have preceded her, Schonhardt-Bailey studies very closely the proceedings in the House of Commons, but she breaks new ground by also studying the approval of repeal in the House of Lords. (That the latter chamber, dominated in 1846 by the landed aristocracy, would nonetheless not block repeal is even more remarkable than Prime Minister Robert Peel's success in the House of Commons.) She also examines the relationship between the discussion of repeal in local newspapers and the floor votes of members of Parliament (MPs)—a particularly apposite topic given the close relationship between these newspapers and the political parties of the day, and the lack at that time of any national news media.

Party Loyalty and Legislative Success

Majority Party leaders are hypothesized, through their control of the legislative schedule in the House of Representatives, to use legislative success as a selective incentive to encourage majority party members to contribute to the collective goals of the party. Members can demonstrate party loyalty through floor voting and financial contributions to the party's re-election efforts. This article examines legislative success from the 103rd through 107th Congresses. The evidence shows that both demonstrations of party loyalty have a significant effect on legislative success.

The Impact of the Australian Ballot on Member Behavior in the U.S. House of Representatives

Katz and Sala linked the development of committee property rights in the late-nineteenth-century U.S. House of Representatives to the introduction of the Australian ballot. If, as they posited, members sought personal reputations to carry them to reelection in the new electoral environment, the current article argues that behaviors with more immediate political payoffs also should have changed in ways their theory would predict. The article examines whether committee assignments, floor voting behavior, and the distribution of pork barrel projects changed in predicted ways and finds supportive outcomes, but usually only when the office bloc ballot, and not the party bloc ballot, was in use.

The Contemporary President: Should the Senate Take a Floor Vote on a Presidential Judicial Nominee?

President George W. Bush has argued that the Senate ought to hold final up-or-down floor votes on all of his judicial nominations rather than use various parliamentary procedures to prevent such action. Some scholars argue that there is no traditional mandate for such a demand, and that the Senate is well within its prerogatives to deny the president's request. This article revisits the question of Senate parliamentary procedures and the president's function to nominate individuals to the judicial branch. The article examines Founding-era debates to determine whether current practice comports with the logic and design of the system. By focusing on similar constitutional procedures from a separation-of-powers perspective, the article argues that filibusters of judicial nominations are not well founded in constitutional logic. The article concludes by evaluating whether such a change would lead to excessive presidential influence in staffing the judiciary.

The Budget Process and Legislative Behavior: Individual Amendments, Support for the Executive and Government Programs

The article challenges the contention that individual amendments are crucial for a system of exchanging favors with the Administration by members of Congress interested in distributive policies as a way of guaranteeing their reelection. By analyzing funds allocated through Congressional amendments, their distribution in different government programs, and roll-call votes in the Brazilian House of Representatives from 1996 to 2001, the authors show that: individual amendments are not prioritized either by Congress in the budget's approval or by the Administration in its implementation; there are no differences between the agenda dictated by the Administration and that of the legislators; and party affiliation explains both House floor votes and the implementation of individual amendments and is thus an explanatory variable in the Executive-Legislative relationship.

Committee Theories and Committee Votes: Internal Committee Behavior in the California Legislature

AbstractPrevious tests of theories of legislative committee development have relied on floor behavior and votes, data which is one step removed from committee behavior itself. I test these prominent theories of committees by looking directly at legislative behavior in committee. I examine the patterns of committee votes in the 2000-01 sessions of the California Legislature to assess the distributive, informational, and partisan theories of committee development. I find some support for all three theories, leading me to conclude that committee behavior varies across time and issue.

Processo orçamentário e comportamento Legislativo: emendas individuais, apoio ao Executivo e programas de governo

The article challenges the contention that individual amendments are crucial for a system of exchanging favors with the Administration by members of Congress interested in distributive policies as a way of guaranteeing their reelection. By analyzing funds allocated through Congressional amendments, their distribution in different government programs, and roll-call votes in the Brazilian House of Representatives from 1996 to 2001, the authors show that: individual amendments are not prioritized either by Congress in the budget's approval or by the Administration in its implementation; there are no differences between the agenda dictated by the Administration and that of the legislators; and party affiliation explains both House floor votes and the implementation of individual amendments and is thus an explanatory variable in the Executive-Legislative relationship.

Party Caucuses and Coordination: Assessing Caucus Activity and Party Effects

Party caucuses are increasingly important to members' allocation of time. This article reports findings from new data on the minutes, frequency, timing, and attendance of House party caucus meetings. I argue that the party caucuses increasingly affect political and policy information flows to members. This growing party coordination has resulted in a greater bonding and shared strategic information among rank‐and‐file copartisans.This research also contributes to the party effects literature. Earlier research on congressional partisanship has used roll‐call data to measure both member preferences and party effects. I investigate whether or not members' attendance at party caucus meetings immediately prior to key congressional votes imposes partisan cohesion beyond members' preferences. The results indicate that party coordination contributes to greater congressional party unity on key floor votes at both the bill and member level controlling for members' ideological preferences. This party coordination effect occurs even during a period of high intraparty preference homogeneity.

Bankruptcy "Reform" in Congress: Creditors, Committees, Ideology, and Floor Voting in the Legislative Process

Both ideology and interest group interventions are important in voting on bankruptcy legislation. Roughly 15 votes in the U.S. House of Representatives appear to have been changed directly through interest group pressures proxied by campaign contributions. Many more could have been changed if resources could be fully devoted to spot purchases, but most contributions appear to have been aimed at maintaining legislation on the agenda. In the U.S. Senate, state interests in homestead exemptions influenced voting. Although committee markups demonstrate an ideological lineup that is not distinct from floor voting, committees promote bargaining on destabilizing issues. Copyright 2004, Oxford University Press.

The Law: Must the Senate Take a Floor Vote on a Presidential Judicial Nominee?

President George W. Bush has frequently urged the Senate to fulfill its constitutional duty and vote on his nominations to the federal courts. The administration argues that the Senate must hold up-or-down floor votes on all judicial nominees. Senate Democrats counter that the president is trying to short-circuit the procedural steps of the confirmation process. Currently, both sides are waging an ideological and institutional battle over the judicial confirmation process. This article analyzes the claim that the Senate must vote on all of the president's judicial nominees, and concludes that there is no basis for requiring that the Senate must hold mandatory confirmation votes for lower-court nominees. By tradition, the Senate generally takes floor votes for nominations to the Supreme Court.