Senate Collective Action and the Legislative ...

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Jan 2, 2011 - Congressman Everett Dirksen (R-IL) objected on the claim that Rayburn was responsible for the exclusion of this provision. He claimed the.
Senate Collective Action and the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946 Michael H. Crespin Assistant Professor University of Georgia [email protected]

Anthony Madonna Assistant Professor University of Georgia [email protected]

Nathaniel Ament-Stone University of Georgia [email protected] January 2, 2011∗



Paper prepared for the 2011 Annual conference of the Southern Political Science Association, New Orleans, LA. The authors would like to thank Mark Owens, Daniel Helmick, Andrew Wills and Matthew Jennings for their help in collecting the data. Additional thanks to Ryan Bakker, Jamie L. Carson, Nate Monroe, Steve Smith, Barbara Sinclair and the UGA APD working group for helpful comments and to Andrea Campbell and Keith Poole for Senate Roll Call Data. Finally, Crespin would like thank Donald Ritchie of the Senate Historical Office for his insight. All errors remain the authors.

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Abstract Pundits and scholars frequency describe the United States Senate as an institution dominated by individualism and minority obstruction with little coordinated party behavior. These ideas stem from the rules of the Senate that make it possible for an individual or small minority of the chamber from either party to obstruct the legislative process if they think the benefits outweigh any potential costs. The rules allow members to filibuster, not agree to unanimous consent agreements, bring legislation to the floor at any point through the lack of a germaneness requirement or place anonymous holds on bills. These rules make it difficult, relative to the House, to pursue collective action even if a significant portion of the party is in agreement over policy. In this paper we will argue and present evidence that political parties in the Senate have the minimum set of tools needed to coordinate, but not coerce, party unity on procedural matters. The major tools were a result of the passage of the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946. Amongst other changes, the Act called for the formation of Democratic and Republican policy committees. These committees provided a focal point for the parties to coordinate legislative strategy and advance a legislative agenda. The result of the Act was a marked increase in party unity voting on procedural votes in the years following its passage.

On February 25, 2010, the United States Senate began consideration of H.R. 4691, the Temporary Extension Act of 2010. The measure sought to continue unemployment insurance benefits, subsidize health premiums for uninsured and extended current Medicare payment rates (Hulse and Pear 2010; Stanton 2010b). H.R. 4691 had passed the House via voice vote was expected to quickly pass the Senate as well. However, on February 26th, Senator Jim Bunning (R-KY) objected to a unanimous consent agreement that would have allowed the measure to pass that day. Bunning’s decision had significant repercussions for both parties. Due to the chamber’s scheduling rules, majority party Democrats would be unable to force a vote on the measure until the preceding week (Hulse 2010a). Republicans were also put in a difficult position by Bunning’s decision to obstruct a fairly popular measure in a tough economic climate. They attempted to convince Bunning to drop his objections to the measure while distancing themselves from his actions (Hulse 2010c; Pierce 2010).1 Despite intense criticism from opposing and fellow partisans, Bunning was able to delay the passage of the measure for over a week, forcing thousands of federal employees to be temporally furloughed (Stanton 2010a).2 Senator Bunning’s obstruction of H.R. 4691 conforms to the popular perception that lawmaking in the United States Senate is highly individualistic. Despite serious concerns that his actions could severely damage their brand name, Senate Republicans were unable to persuade Bunning to drop his objections and allow a popular measure to be quickly enacted. The rules of the Senate allow individual senators like Bunning or a small minority of the chamber from either party to obstruct the legislative process. Because members can fili1 On March 1, Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) took to the floor on behalf of “numerous” other Republicans in an unsuccessful attempt to persuade Bunning to drop his objections (Pierce 2010). Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) noted that Bunning was “one senator” and did not “represent the position of the caucus (Hulse 2010b).” 2 H.R. 4691 passed the United States Senate on March 2, 2010 with broad bipartisan support by a vote of 78 to 19. Bunning argued that his opposition to the measure was rooted in his opposition to the costs being added to the deficit as emergency spending (Hulse and Pear 2010). Ultimately, he dropped his objections in exchange for a recorded vote on a substitute amendment he sponsored (Stanton 2010a).

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buster (Binder and Smith 1997; Wawro and Schickler 2006), not agree to unanimous consent agreements (Ainsworth and Flathman 1995; Smith and Flathman 1989), bring legislation to the floor at any point through the lack of a germaneness requirement (Smith and Gamm 2002) or place anonymous holds on bills (Evans and Lipinski 2005) it is difficult, relative to the House, for the parties to command loyalty from rank and file members. We argue that the establishment of policy committees following the adoption of the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946 (79th Congress) provided a focal point that allowed the parties to coordinate legislative strategy. We believe this increased coordination facilitated the majority party’s structuring of procedural votes, leading to high levels of party unity on the floor. To examine this question, we adopted a three-pronged approach. First, we look at the overall proportion of procedural votes that could be classified as “party unity votes” before and after the establishment of the policy committees. We then examine the usage of a key procedural agenda-setting motion – the motion to table – over this time frame. Finally, we fit an ordinary least squares regression of average individual support for party positions on procedural votes. The evidence suggests that the parties began to shift disagreements off of the floor and coordinate their agenda in a way that is similar, but not exactly like the “procedural cartels” present in the lower House (Campbell, Cox and McCubbins 2002; Cox and McCubbins 1993, 2001, 2002, 2005).3 The next section discusses the passage of the Legislative Reorganization Act in greater detail.

The Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946 On August 2, 1946, President Harry S. Truman signed the Legislative Reorganization Act into law, dubbing it “one of the most significant advances in the structure of Congress since its establishment (Byrd 1988, 548).” The President’s signature marked the end of intense 3

This heightened degree of party unity began a decade before the “master of the Senate,” Lyndon Johnson became majority leader (Caro 2002) and almost 30 years before the return of party power in the post-reform House (Rohde 1991).

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debate over the best way to reform the United States Congress.4 Scholars had expressed concerns over the legislature’s loss of authority to the executive branch, the fragmented jurisdiction of the committee system, insufficient staffing and travel allowances for members, the growing congressional workload and the weakness of political parties – among other issues (Davidson 1990; Waggoner 1946). In early 1945, the Joint Committee on the Organization of Congress was established in order to investigate reform proposals. Nearly a year later, the committee submitted 37 recommended congressional reforms.5 One of the most controversial of the committee’s recommendations was the creation of policy committees for the majority and minority parties. Specifically, the original Senate resolution called for “a policy committee, consisting of seven members, for the formulation of over-all legislative policy of the respective parties (S. 2177, sec. 244(a) 1946).” Observers had long complained about the lack of “unity of command in Congress (Ritchie 1997, 3).” As such, the provision sought to create committees that faciliated partisan coordination and increase the parties abilities to sheppard an agenda through both chambers (Gamm and Smith 2002). This, supporters hoped, would further serve to increase partisan accountability by letting the people understand each party’s position on major issues (Heller 1945).6 Debate over the Legislative Reorganization Act began in the Senate on June 6. It would pass 49 to 16 just four days later; with the policy committee provisions attached. Navigating the bill through the House proved much more difficult. Speaker Sam Rayburn (D-TX) found 4

A formal discussion of this issue was underway by 1941. In that year, the American Political Science Association formed a committee to investigate problems with the United States Congress. The committee – under the leadership of Professor George B. Galloway – produced a report in 1942 that outlined a number of reforms (Byrd 1988; Matthews 1981). 5

Perhaps the most ambitious proposed reform sought to streamline the committee systems in both chambers. In doing so, the number of Senate standing committees was to be reduced from 33 to 13 and the 48 committees in the House were combined into 19. Other recommended changes included reforming the budget process, increased funding for committee staff, a pay-raise for members and changes in scheduling for committee and floor action (Schneider et al. 2003). 6

In an article written for the New York Times, Senator Robert La Follette (R-WI) stated that the “policymaking in Congress is splintered and uncoordinated,” and the new committees will “coordinate the legislative program,” and were “designed to help crystallize the determination of party policy on major issues and to promote party responsibility for the performance of platform promises (La Follette Jr. 1946).”

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the creation of majority and minority party policy committees objectionable.7 This objection was likely rooted in Rayburn’s unwillingness to weaken his substantial influence in setting the chamber’s agenda (Galloway 1946; Ritchie 1997; Schneider et al. 2003). Additionally, the procedural uncertainty within the chamber further increased the speaker’s role in the House (Byrd 1988). As a result, the policy committee provisions were dropped from the House bill when it was finally passed nearly six weeks later. The House’s decision to exclude the policy committees generated significant criticism. The Washington Post noted that the policy committees were the primary mechanism by which reformers thought to centralize party responsibility and increase coordination with the executive. It lamented it as a “critical loss” and blamed Rayburn for its defeat.8 Galloway (1946) argued that Rayburn’s decision would appear to political laymen as “an astonishing piece of political piracy” and noted that news articles characterized it as a “a travesty on the democratic process.”9 Rather than send the bill to conference, the Senate concurred with the House amendments. Disagreement would likely have been fatal for the Act as many House members had already left Washington (Galloway 1946). After passing the bill, the Senate established policy committees separately. Senate historian Donald Ritchie (1997) has provided valuable insight into the workings of the newly formed Republican committees though a careful study of the committee minutes. He argued that while the committees possessed no formal powers to coerce voting behavior, during the early years of the committee it strived to, “build party discipline,” “determine consensus within the party on issues,” “reconcile conflicting views among Republican sena7 The House debate also featured a substantial amount of debate over the inclusion of a pay raise and pension plan for members. House members were concerned about how voting for such a provision would be seen by their constituents. Ultimately, the chamber adopted an amendment dropping the base salary from 15,000 dollars, as specified by the Senate bill, to 12,000 dollars. 8

See “Stripped Reform Bill,” The Washington Post, July 20, 1946. Congressman Everett Dirksen (R-IL) objected on the claim that Rayburn was responsible for the exclusion of this provision. He claimed the editorial was “an unconscionable distortion of the facts” and the decision to remove the policy committees was made by the entire joint committee in order to secure the bill’s passage (Congressional Record, 79th Congress, July 25, 1946, 11047). 9

See Byrd (1988) on this point as well.

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tors to maintain party harmony,” “consider questions of floor strategy,” “devis[e] strategies to promote those policies,” and “to preserve party unity (Ritchie 1997, 15-38).” Over time, these responsibilities have increased (Peterson 2005; Kelly 1995).10

Party Coordination and Collective Action in the Senate In the United States House, the chambers’ strong central leader – the Speaker – can use the Rules Committee to set the agenda and keep unwanted legislation from coming to the floor (Cox and McCubbins 1993, 2001, 2002, 2005). Although the Senate does have formal party leadership positions, namely the majority and minority leaders, no one member of the Senate has the same power as the Speaker of the House (Rohde 1991; Aldrich and Rohde 1998, 2000, 2001). However, we argue that the adoption of policy committees in the Senate should have helped the parties coordinate activities and advance a legislative agenda. Once the coordination problem is worked out and parties are able to choose between strategies, it may become easier to solve any collective action problems. Since collective action problems become easier to solve as the number of actors decreases (Olson 1965), it may be possible to overcome this dilemma in the relatively small Senate. Although these committees do not provide any specific rule changes that can make it easier to overcome individual obstructionism, they at least give the parties a more institutionalized way to discuss strategy and perhaps work out compromises beforehand in the caucus rather than on the floor. This should lead to higher levels of party unity on the chamber floor. The idea that the Senate leadership strives to solve coordination and collective action 10

In terms of leadership, the Republican Policy Committee chair was traditionally someone other than the formal party leader. Senator Robert Taft (R - OH) chaired the committee from its inception through 1952 when he subsequently took on the position of majority leader. Taft utilized the Policy Committee chairmanship as the basis for his leadership within the chamber (Schickler 2001). In contrast to Taft and the Republicans, the Democratic leader also chaired the policy committee. After the chair, membership on the committee also varied by party and over time. The Republicans on the committee tended to be part of the leadership such as the floor leader and the whip. Starting with the 83rd Congress, two-thirds of the committee chairs were allowed on the committee and soon afterwards the party tried to achieve a regional balance and at times allowed members who were up for reelection to join the committee. Meanwhile, the Democratic leader selected junior members to serve on the committee and only filled vacancies as the original members left the Senate (Peterson 2005).

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problems is not new. Gamm and Smith (2002) argue that if members are in agreement about an issue, then someone must solve the coordination problem to choose a strategy that will help the party achieve the goal. Note that this does not imply that the leadership can force members to act against their will, only that if members are in agreement, the leadership can coordinate activities between party members. As the workload increased during the first half of the 20th century and senators were laboring on more issues (Davidson 1990) it is likely that coordination between even like-minded partisans became more difficult. Moreover, the ratification of the 17th Amendment in 1913 ensured that senators would be reelected independent of the state parties. This likely further strained intraparty coordination. One way the policy committees are used to solve the coordination problem is to determine on which issues the party was unified and on which issues they were not. If enough party members were unified on an issue, they would frequently present it to the full caucus. They could then use the committees to develop a legislative plan and then disseminate that plan to the other party members. If the party agreed, it would then move forward. Although the Democrats and Republicans did not run the policy committees in the same fashion, they both met regularly to agree on what items to put on the agenda and what to leave off. If the party membership is not in total agreement, they are then faced with a collective action problem. Smith and Gamm (2002, 2) argue this problem exists when “members of a party must act collectively to pursue a strategy but they must individually sacrifice something in order for the strategy to be implemented.” In the modern House, members give power to the Speaker who uses the tools at his disposal to maintain loyalty. These tools include the ability to schedule minor legislation in exchange for votes, exert influence over committee assignments and chairmanships, and maintain power over the Rules Committee (Rohde 1991; Cox and McCubbins 1993, 2005). Members who do not maintain a high enough level of party unity, or vote against the party at key moments, are then punished by the Speaker. In contrast, members who are loyal are rewarded. This is not the case in the Senate where there is no committee with the same power

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as House Rules and the seniority norm essentially guarantees committee assignments and chairmanships from Congress to Congress.11 However, since there are fewer members in the Senate compared to the House it may be relatively easy to buy off enough members to solve collective action problems from time to time. For example, if a significant portion of the caucus wanted action, or non-action on an issue, then the majority party may be able to convince enough senators to vote with the party and the legislative agenda can proceed. In return, they may get to add their amendment to the bill or have some of their legislation placed on the agenda in the near future. Again, this would require some degree of cooperation among the caucus to decide who to buy off and who to ignore. This would have been made easier after the policy committees were formed and they met regularly to discuss party strategy. In order to pass legislation, party leaders must negotiate unanimous consent agreements (Sinclair 1989; Smith and Flathman 1989; Ainsworth and Flathman 1995) so agreement with and between the parties is essential to ease the legislative process. However, not every aspect of how the bill will proceed is covered in the agreement, or agreements, so maintaining unity on the floor, especially on procedural votes, is essential to keep legislation from unraveling and getting bogged down with additional amendments added late in the legislative process. Keeping a high level of party unity may also be needed to keep legislation alive that the other party has placed on “hold.” Evidence suggests that holds, especially when placed by the minority party are not always effective and do not necessarily kill a bill (Evans and Lipinski 2005).12 How could the parties advance their legislative agenda? Scholars of policy-making in the United States House discuss the utility of both positive agenda control (coercing members 11 The Majority leader now has the power to fill half of the vacant “A” committee seats. This new power gives the leader some leverage over other senators in his party. 12

A hold is essentially a threatened filibuster. When placing a hold, a member informs the minority or majority leader that they find a bill or nomination objectionable. This indicates that the body will be unable to procure the unanimous consent agreement that is usually necessary to bring the legislation to the floor in a timely manner. When a committee chair is notified of a hold, she will usually elect to not schedule a hearing on that particular bill or nomination.

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into voting a certain way on key votes) and negative agenda control (keeping other key bills and amendments off of the floor) (Cox and McCubbins 2005; Finocchiaro and Rohde 2008; Smith 2007).13 Thus far, the limited research in political science on the effect the act had in Senate party building has looked only at the committee’s ability to coerce support for key votes. In perhaps the most detailed look at the question, Truman (1959) reports little support for the thesis that party policy committees led to a high degree of voting cohesion. Specifically, he argues that high levels of disagreements existed amongst the policy committee members in the 81st Senate. He concludes by arguing that although the policy committees have played only minimal role in establishing voting for members, they have proved to be important “communications centers (Truman 1959, 131).”14 We believe that the establishment of party policy committees served a more fundamental role in chamber policy-making. Specifically, they allowed parties to better structure procedural votes. More procedural votes are needed relative to final passage votes for a bill to work through the entire legislative process. As such, unity on procedure is a necessity. If procedural unity breaks down, the agenda setting advantage will disappear. Thus, in order for a party to enjoy legislative success, a high degree of party unity will be needed on procedural votes and solving cooperation problems, at a minimum, and collective action problems if necessary, must be accomplished to guide a piece of legislation to a successful final passage vote. If procedural mechanisms can be used to structure the agenda correctly, then members will have more freedom to vote with their district on final passage. So, there should be a difference in the levels of party unity when we compare legislative voting on procedural and substantive matters. To be clear, we do not believe the Senate will operate like the House in terms of maintaining party unity. One could envision that the degree of party government can be placed 13 Campbell, Cox and McCubbins 2002, through the study of final passage roll rates, have shown that the majority party can influence the floor agenda but this power is not unconditional as it is in the House. 14 Cooper (1988, 282) echoes this point, arguing that “too often the significance of the Senate policy committees is unduly minimized. In fact, they have performed important service, educational and communications functions.”

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on a continuum with party playing absolutely no role at one end of the spectrum and at the other end, the party dictates nearly every action for its members, as in some parliamentary systems (Krehbiel 1991). If the party plays no role, then individuals are acting on their own without any degree of cooperation. In this situation, we would expect to see lower levels of party unity voting, ceteris paribus, unless of course preferences were aligned in a fashion where party unity votes occurred naturally. If the party rule is absolute, then preferences of individuals do not matter since the party can force members to vote along party lines or face some unspecified punishment and party unity voting should be perfect. Somewhere between these two endpoints is a state of the world where members of the same party can coordinate legislative action if they can agree on outcomes. We argue that after the 1946 Act and the creation of the policy committees, the Senate made a shift away from the party-less end of the spectrum towards a position where the party can help to coordinate activity. By no means is the Senate in a situation where the party can dictate outcomes; rather, if there is enough agreement, the party can coordinate activity during the legislative process. Comparing the House and the Senate, the House will generally be closer to the party dictator end of the spectrum than the Senate. So, this suggests a theory of party government in the Senate where after 1946 cooperation problems, and to some degree collective action problems, became easier to solve relative to previous congresses. As such, the levels of party unity should increase after the legislative reorganization. If the change in party activity was to act like procedural cartels, then the increase should be on procedural votes and not necessarily on substantive matters.

Changes in Party Unity Voting What evidence would suggest a change in the role of Senate parties? A basic one would be an increase in party unity votes. Increased partisan coordination should allow the majority party leadership to better formulate and advance their agenda through the chamber. This, we anticipate, should lead to a greater proportion of party unity votes per Congress. We 11

define a party unity vote as one where a majority of one party votes against a majority of the other party. If the parties were coordinating their efforts after the creation of the policy committees, then we would expect to see an increase in party unity voting after the passage of the act during 79th Congress (1945-46).15 Figure 1 displays the percent of party unity votes in the Senate from the 45th Congress (1877-79) through the 108th Congress (20032004). Reference lines are included for the years 1913 (the adoption of the 17th Amendment) and 1946 (the adoption of the Legislative Reorganization Act). [Figure 1 Here] Over the course of the entire time period, the degree of party unity declined. It reached a peak of 82 percent in the 47th Congress and declined to a low of 33 percent during the 90th Congress (1967-68). However, if we look at levels of party unity before and after the 1946 reform, unity was on the decline until the 79th Congress. As expected, party unity appears to have declined sharply after the move towards direct election of the senators. The adoption of the LRA in the 79th Congress appears to have led to a slight uptick in the percentage of party unity votes. Although the change in unity following the reform is not great and is variable, it gives some indication as to the effect of the creation of the policy committees. If the parties began to act like procedural cartels and the changes in party activity were more of an increase in negative agenda control instead of positive then we would expect to see an increase in unity on procedural votes rather than on substantive votes. Using a dataset created similar to Rohde (2004), we calculated the percentage of votes that were party unity votes for both procedural and substantive votes. Votes such as motions to table, cloture votes, motions to proceed and all other procedural votes are included in the procedure category. Votes on the final passage of bills, amendments, resolutions and conference reports make up the bulk of the substantive category.16 15

Measures of party unity were calculated using vote marginals available at www.voteview.com.

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These data were compiled by Andrea Campbell for the 45th-104th congresses and by Mike Crespin for the 105th-108th congresses.

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Figure 2 presents the percent of party unity votes for each the two categories. Prior to the 79th Congress, there is no discernable difference between the levels of party unity between the two categories. However, beginning with the 79th Congress, there is a striking change in the way members were voting on procedural matters but not much of a change for substantive votes. After the reforms, the percentage of substantive party unity votes still trended downward, although at a slower rate. In contrast, after the creation of the policy committees, there was a marked increase in the percentage of procedural party unity votes. In the 81st Congress, unity on procedural votes was 83 percent. By the 108th Congress, 88 percent of procedural votes pitted a majority of Democrats against a majority of Republicans. While the difference between the two categories varies over the years, these data seem to provide clear evidence that there was a change in the way the parties dealt with procedural matters. As such, it suggests that the parties in the Senate were acting in ways consistent with strong parties after the establishment of the policy committees, contrary to the conventional view of parties in the Senate. [Figure 2 Here] It is possible that these changes in voting patterns are just coincidental and not related the reforms. For example, it is certainly reasonable to think that the end of World War II would usher in an era of greater partisan conflict (Madonna 2011). However, if this were the case, one would expect to see a comparable increase in proportion of party unity votes on procedural issues within the House of Representatives. These data suggest this is not the case. In the ten years before the adoption of the Legislative Reorganization Act, the average proportion of party unity votes on procedural matters in the Senate was 57.17%. In the House, it was a comparable 56.78%. In the ten years preceding the Act’s adoption, Senate party unity on procedural votes shot up to 72.25%, while the House stayed virtually constant – 56.55%. Again, the House did not adopt the policy committees when the Senate did.

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Amendments, Tabling Motions and Post Reform Agenda Change We have argued that the increase in procedural party unity is due to increased party coordination on the legislative agenda. Indeed, a closer examination of the types of votes that received roll calls suggests that there was one type of vote that was used more after the reforms that is critical in terms of agenda control. Crespin and Monroe (2005) argue that, in practice, the Senate leadership has some tools to control the agenda. Two of the most important of these tools are the majority leader’s right of first recognition and the motion to table (Den Hartog and Monroe 2011).17 According to Rule XXII of the Senate, the motion is non-debatable. Moreover, the motion has precedence over the motion to amend. Further, This means that if the majority wishes to dispose of an amendment, the leader can seek recognition on the floor, offer a motion to table and hold an immediate vote. If the motion to table passes, then the amendment is considered rejected and the legislative process moves forward (Palmer and Bach 2003). While the motion to table does not bring about a direct vote on substance – as a special rule would – nor preclude the offering of future amendments, it does provide majority members political cover. Since the vote is on a procedural matter, not on the amendment itself, members can more easily vote with their party and not worry about getting punished from their constituents (Arnold 1990; Oleszek 2004). Den Hartog and Monroe (2011) demonstrate that the majority party is rarely rolled when they attempt to table an amendment offered by the minority. Further, Marshall, Prins and Rohde (1999) show that the majority has been successful in blocking minority amendments during the appropriations process. We anticipate that usage of the motion to table should increase sharply after the adoption of the Legislative Reorganization Act for two reasons. First, party coordination helps ensure that leadership will not bring forward measures that have significant intraparty opposition. This implies that leadership will have pledges from fellow partisans to support leadership 17

In recent congresses, majority leaders have increasingly utilized the practice of “filling the amendment tree” in conjunction with the right of first recognition (Beth et al. 2009; Campbell 2004).

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on less visible procedural votes. Second, the policy committees allow the minority party to coordinate on the best ways to weaken the majority. This should lead to an increase in the number of minority-sponsored amendments that would necessitate tabling motions. Examining the majority party’s usage of the motion to table throughout this era necessitated reading through the Congressional Record to determine who offered the various motions. This was done for tabling motions offered from the 45th to 97th Senates.18 Party affiliation was determined using Poole and Rosenthal (2007).19 Figure 3 plots both the raw number of tabling motions offered from the 45th to 97th Senates as well as the number offered by the majority party. [Figure 3 Here] Two important conclusions can be drawn from Figure 3. First, as anticipated, there appears to be a sharp increase in the number of tabling motions offered after the passage of the Legislative Reorganization Act. Second, the motion to table is a procedure almost exclusively utilized by the majority party. Indeed, 80.81% of all tabling motions was offered by majority party members. Figure 4 examines the robustness of this measure by examining the percentage of the roll call voting record that majority party tabling motions make up. Again, the figure suggests that increased partisan coordination due to the adoption of 18

Future iterations of this paper will seek to update these data through the modern era.

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A potential concern from this approach stems from the usage of only tabling motions subject to roll call votes. Although the United States Constitution specifies that one-fifth is necessary to second any request for recorded roll call votes, this is generally not an obstacle for any sufficiently motivated senator (Tiefer 1989). The lack of any simple-majoritarian method for ending debate allows individual members substantial leverage in delaying the passage of legislation unless a recorded vote request has a sufficient second. A request made by Senator Arthur Vandenberg (R-MI) during consideration of an amendment increasing appropriations made under the Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act in the 75th Congress illustrates this point: Mr. Vandenberg: I ask for the yeas and nays on the committee amendment. The Presiding Officer: The yeas and nays are called for. Is the request seconded? [A pause.] The Chair is in doubt. Mr. Vandenberg. Then I shall have to suggest the absence of a quorum. I shall be very frank about the matter. We shall simply save time if we may have a roll call. I ask for the yeas and nays (Congressional Record, 75th Congress, December 15, 1937, 1528-1529). After the quorum call, the Senate capitulated and provided a sufficient second to Vandenberg’s request.

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chamber policy committee led to increased majority party tabling motion activity. The evidence presented here suggests that after the 1946 reforms, the parties began to act more like procedural cartels in their pursuit of negative agenda control by not allowing amendments to come to a vote. A senator who offers an amendment will be able to still claim credit back in his or her state, and can then blame the failure to pass on some “complicated procedural vote.” [Figure 4 Here] To this point we have examined the impact the 1946 reforms have had on procedural votes. One related effect that increased partisan coordination may have deals with substantive issues. Specifically, we anticipate that after the establishment of the policy committees, both parties were able to better coordinate their amending activities. Majority party leadership would be more likely to anticipate troubling amendments offered from within their own caucus. In addition to avoid in-fighting and protecting the party’s brand-name, the party has substantial transaction cost incentives to work with these members to keep these amendments off the floor (Carson and Madonna 2010). Specifically, the less time they spend debating amendments offered by fellow party members, the more time they can pass other majoritysponsored measures. In most cases the minority party will lack the same incentive structure. Minority party members are less likely to win on future Senate measures and as such, are unlikely to share the same concerns over chamber time. Moreover, senators seeking to delay the passage of legislation or to force the majority to cast a series of votes are unlikely to be dissuaded by the prospect of their amendment being tabled. Indeed, it is likely that minority party policy committees were being used to craft amending strategies. Examining the partisan nature of the amending process required a reading of the Congressional Record in order to determine who the sponsor of a given amendment was. This was done from the 45th to 97th senates. When an amendment was described as being a committee amendment, a detailed reading of the debate over the amendment within the roll 16

call record was undertaken to see if it could be determined who had offered the amendment within the committee. This would often be noted during the debates over the amendment.20 In other cases, the sponsor of the amendment would be credited by another member on the floor.21 If no credit was given for the amendment, the sponsor would be listed as the member who was most aggressive in speaking for the committee amendment on the floor.22 If no such member could be identified, the sponsor information was listed as missing. In the rare case that a member offers an amendment on behalf of himself and others, the listed sponsor is the member who formally introduces the amendment on the floor (Carson and Madonna 2010). [Figure 5 Here] Figure 5 plots the percent of all amendments that received recorded roll call votes offered by majority party members. The figure is less clear than in other analyses, but is still suggestive that our intuition holds. A closer examination of the five congresses before and after the acts adoption is also supportive of our argument. In the decade preceding the creation of the policy committees, majority party members accounted for 63.94% of all amendments that received recorded votes. In the decade afterwards, this percentage dropped to 36.49%. 20

A statement by Senator Thomas Kuchel (R-CA) on an amendment provides an example of this:

Mr. Kuchel: Mr. President, the subject before the Senate is one prime importance. Because of the last yea-and-nay vote, I most respectfully urge member of the Senate to adopt the amendment I have offered as the best means of expressing its approval of a sound policy of dispersion with respect to defense contracts (Congressional Record, 84th Congress, June 22, 1956, 10850). 21

For example, in the 78th Congress, Senator Robert La Follette (R-WI) remarked that a given committee amendment was “. . . proposed in committee by the Senator from Pennsylvania, Mr. Reed (Congressional Record, 78th Congress, April 4, 1934, 6176).” 22

For example, Senator Carl Hayden (D-AZ) spent several hours outlining the reasons behind the committee amendment, concluding by stating that “That is the justification for this appropriation; and on behalf of the committee, I ask that the committee amendment be adopted (Congressional Record, 75th Congress, June 1, 1938, 7813).”

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Examining Individual Party Support on Procedural Votes In the preceding sections, we have presented evidence that suggests the adoption of party policy committees facilitated an increase in aggregate party unity on procedural votes. Additionally, it suggests that majority party members increasingly employed agenda-control mechanisms like the motion to table to advance their legislative agenda. In this section, we examine the impact the committees had on individual member’s support for the party on procedural votes. We argue that the establishment of party policy committees in the Senate facilitated majority party leaders’ ability to coordinate with rank and file members, leading to greater success on the floor. If this is the case, we expect that majority party members should exhibit higher individual levels of party unity on procedural votes that occurred during congresses after the establishment of the committees. To examine this question, we compiled percent party support scores on procedural votes for all members serving between the ratification of the 17th Amendment in 1913 and the 105th Congress.23 . We examined all non-unanimous or near-unanimous roll call votes cast on procedures. We then tabulated the percentage of times a member voted in the same direction as a majority of his party. Members who voted in less than 20% of all procedural roll calls were omitted.24 [Figure 6 Here] Figure 6 plots the average individual support for the party on procedural matters from the 64th Congress (1915-1917) to the 105th Congress (1997-1999). A brief glance at the raw data before and after the adoption of the Act supports our hypotheses. Average individual support for the party on procedural matters from the 70th to 79th congresses was 73.1%. It jumps to 78.2% between the 80th and 89th congresses. Excluding Southern Democrats – 23

Votes with greater than 95% support were considered near-unanimous roll calls. Future iterations of this paper will update these data through the modern era. 24

This constituted less than 5% of all members.

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who frequently abandoned the party position on procedural votes in the post-reform era – the increase is even more pronounced, moving from 73.5% to 80.2%. The figure also suggests that the increase in party unity on procedural matters was primarily confined to the majority party. To further examine the relationship between the Senate’s establishment of party policy committees and individual party unity on procedural votes, we fit a simple ordinary least squares model. The dependent variable, procedural support, is the percentage of times a member voted in the same direction as a majority of his party in a given Congress. We expect the adoption of the party policy committees would have a positive and significant impact on the procedural support percentage of majority party members. To evaluate this, we include dummy variables for majority party status and for congresses occurring after the adoption of the LRA in the 79th Congress. Given the conditional nature of our hypothesis, these variables are interacted. We include four additional control variables. First, the mid-20th century featured a number of heated Senate battles over civil rights legislation. As previously mentioned, this led to a pronounced split between Northern and Southern Democrats over usage of obstructive tactics like holds and filibusters. As such, we anticipate that Southern Democrats should have a far lower procedural support score. The larger the majority party is relative to the minority, the less likely it would need to command high levels of party unity to successfully pass legislation. Conversely, small majorities should need a high proportion of their partisans to pass their agenda. Consequently, we anticipate that Senate’s with large majorities will be feature lower overall partisan support scores on procedural votes. We control for this using a variable accounting for the percent of all seats controlled by the majority party in a given Congress. Again, we hypothesize that the primary effect of the policy committees was to allow party leaders to better coordinate with rank and file members on floor activity. Leaders themselves were likely already on board with the majority of their party. Members holding

19

leadership positions in both parties are far more likely to support a majority of their party on procedural votes. Thus, we control for members that hold party leadership positions in the Senate. This included the majority caucus leader, the majority floor leader, the majority whip, the minority caucus leader, the minority floor leader and the minority whip. Finally, a potential alternative explanation for the changes in party support on procedural votes stems from the ideological make-up of each given Senate. If members were more ideologically homogenous on all votes, than we would anticipate an increase in individual support for the party on procedural issues. Accordingly, we control for the ideological distance between a given senator and the chamber median using DW-NOMINATE scores. We anticipate that more extreme members of both parties will be less supportive of their party on procedural votes. [Table 1 Here]

Results Results from the ordinary least squares model are presented in Table 1.25 The control variables all performed as expected. Both the southern and leadership dummies were significant and in the expected directions. Southern Democrats were significantly less supportive of their party on procedural votes. This is consistent with much of the literature on the evolution of chamber obstruction (Binder and Smith 1997; Wawro and Schickler 2006). Conversely, party leaders were more supportive of the party’s position on procedural votes. This comes as little surprise as leaders are charged with advancing the party’s agenda. The majority seat share control is also positive and significant. This suggests that when the majority controls a large number of seats, it can afford to advance legislative priorities that are not roundly supported by all members. Finally, as anticipated, the ideological 25

Aggregating data over a wide time interval increases the potential for correlated errors. This suggests the usage of standard errors may be appropriate here. While there is no noticeable effect on the significance of the parameters, robust standard errors clustered on each congress are slightly larger and presented in Table 1.

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distance variable is significant and in a negative direction. This suggests that extreme members are less supportive of the party on procedural issues than more moderate members. Our primary theoretical expectation was that the establishment of party policy committees in the United States Senate significantly increased the majority party’s ability to navigate their agenda through the chamber. The results presented in Table 1 provide further support for this hypothesis. As expected, the variable interacting majority party status and post-LRA act dummies is positive and significant. This conforms to our argument stressing the role increased coordination can play in dictating policy outcomes. While individual members can significantly obstruct and kill measures in the chamber, coordination allows party leaders to broker deals amongst fellow partisans and pursue policies on the floor more efficiently. Moreover, the negative and significant coefficient on the majority party dummy suggests that prior to the establishment of the policy committees; party support for procedural votes was less reliable.

Conclusion We have argued the establishment of party policy committees in the Senate helped the parties coordinate activities, advance a legislative agenda and maintain high levels of party unity on the floor by better structuring procedural votes. To examine this question, we have sought to examine a number of different data sources where increased partisan coordination may manifest itself. We believe the evidence provides strong suggestive support for our theory. Figure 1 demonstrated that the establishment of the party policy committees preceded a slight increase in the percentage of party unity votes. More strikingly, the establishment of the committees led to a significant increase in the proportion of party unity votes on procedural issues. Conversely, the proportion of party unity votes on substantive measures stayed fairly constant. The proportion of procedural votes that could be classified as a party unity vote in the House - which did not adopt the policy committees – did not appear to 21

differ during that same time frame. Additional suggestive evidence was provided by a closer examination of the majority party’s usage of the motion to table during this period. Figure 3 demonstrates that there was a sharp increase in the number of tabling motions offered after the establishment of the policy committees. It also confirms that this was a tool used primarily by the majority party. The policy committees also appeared to increase majority party coordination on the offering of amendments on the floor. There was a nearly 30% drop in the proportion of amendments offered by majority party members that received roll call votes on the floor. Finally, the results from an ordinary least squares model of average individual support for party positions on procedural votes presented in Table 1 are further suggestive. Even when controlling for other important factors, the establishment of party policy committees appears to have led to a significant increase in individual senators’ support for party position on procedural issues. These findings suggest that in terms of procedural matters, the parties were successfully able to solve the coordination problems to vote together in a fashion similar to the procedural cartels in the House. Negative agenda control, such as it exists in the Senate after 1946, appears to be on the rise through an increase in the use of the motion to table that keeps unwanted amendments from coming to a vote. Although more difficult to discern from the results presented here, these reforms may also have gone some way towards helping the parties to solve collective action problems once the coordination problem was solved. If enough party members could agree on a strategy, then convincing other partisans to come on board would have been easier with a central coordinating committee compared to members negotiating on their own. In sum, it seems that the Senate parties were able to use the policy committees to help coordinate activity largely with respect to procedural matters. While the focus of power within the institution may shift over time, this reform seemed to have sparked a rise in party unity that continues through the current Congress.

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.3

.4

.5

.6

.7

.8

Figure 1: Percent Party Unity in the Senate Pre and Post 1946 Reform

1875

1900

1925

1950

1975

2000

Year

Note: Percent of party unity votes in the Senate from the 45th Congress (1877-79) through the 108th Congress (2003-2004). Reference lines are included for the years 1913 (the adoption of the 17th Amendment) and 1946 (the adoption of the Legislative Reorganization Act).

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.2

.4

.6

.8

1

Figure 2: Percent Party Unity in the Senate Pre and Post 1946 Reform: Substantive and Procedural Votes

1875

1900

1925

1950

1975

2000

Year Percent Procedural Party Unity Votes Percent Substantive Party Unity Votes

Note: Percent of party unity votes in the Senate from the 45th Congress (1877-79) through the 108th Congress (2003-2004). Reference lines are included for the years 1913 (the adoption of the 17th Amendment) and 1946 (the adoption of the Legislative Reorganization Act).

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0

100

200

300

400

Figure 3: Raw Number of Tabling Motions

1880

1900

1920

1940

1960

1980

Year Tabling Motions

Majority Party Tabling Motions

Note: Tabling motions that did not recieve recorded final passage votes are excluded. Tabling motion sponsor coded by the authors.

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0

.05

.1

.15

.2

.25

Figure 4: Percent of the Roll Call Record Subjected to Majority Party Tabling Motions

1880

1900

1920

1940

1960

1980

Year

Note: Tabling motions that did not recieve recorded final passage votes are excluded. Tabling motion sponsor coded by the authors.

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.1

.2

.3

.4

.5

Figure 5: Percent of Amendments Offered by Majority Party Members

1880

1900

1920

1940

1960

1980

Year

Note: Amendments that did not recieve recorded final passage votes are excluded. Amendment sponsor coded according to Carson and Madonna (2010).

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.65

.7

.75

.8

.85

.9

Figure 6: Average Individual Support for Party Positions on Procedural Votes

1920

1940 Both Parties

1960 Year Majority Party

1980

2000 Minority Party

Note: The “party position” is defined as the position that a majority of the party supported. Unanimous or near unanimous votes are omitted. Members who voted in less than 20% of all possible votes are also omitted from this analysis.

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Table 1: OLS Estimates for Individual Senator Support on Procedural Votes Covariate Majority Party Post-LRA Majority Party * Post-LRA Southern Party Leadership Majority Party Seat Share Ideological Distance Constant Observations Prob > F R2

Coefficient -0.031∗ -0.032 0.038∗ -0.042∗ 0.054∗ -0.368∗ 0.181∗ 0.960∗

Standard Error (0.012) (0.019) (0.015) (0.013) (0.012) (0.087) (0.032) (0.057) 4038 0.000 0.151

Note: Coefficients with robust standard errors clustered on Congress listed in parentheses. ∗ indicates significance at the p = .05 level. These data includes all major party members who served from the 64th Senate (1915-1917) to the 105th Senate (1997-1999).

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