Agenda Setting in the U.S. Senate

Abstract

Proposes a new theory of Senate agenda setting that reconciles a divide in literature between the conventional wisdom – in which party power is thought to be mostly undermined by Senate procedures and norms – and the apparent partisan bias in Senate decisions noted in recent empirical studies. Chris Den Hartog and Nathan W. Monroe's theory revolves around a 'costly consideration' framework for thinking about agenda setting, where moving proposals forward through the legislative process is seen as requiring scarce resources. To establish that the majority party pays lower agenda consideration costs through various procedural advantages, the book features a number of chapters examining partisan influence at several stages of the legislative process, including committee reports, filibusters and cloture, floor scheduling and floor amendments. Not only do the results support the book's theoretical assumption and key hypotheses, but they shed new light on virtually every major step in the Senate's legislative process.

Efficacy or Rigidity? Power, Influence, and Social Learning in the U.S. Senate, 1973–2005

“…Leaders from the majority party set the legislative agenda, deciding whether or not, and when, to schedule bills for a vote. The scheduling of bills importantly determines senators' ability to advance their legislative agenda (Den Hartog & Monroe, 2011).…”

“…The majority can choose to suppress the bills of the minority party, using what has been called negative agenda control (Cox & McCubbins, 2005;Gailmard & Jenkins, 2007). Majority party members enjoy greater success in adding amendments to bills (Den Hartog & Monroe, 2011), raising campaign funds (Cox & Magar, 1999), and allocating federal resources to their constituents (Balla, Lawrence, Maltzman, & Sigelman, 2002).…”

Trade, Foreign Direct Investment, and Immigration Policy Making in the United States

“…Lee 2009. See Hartog and Monroe 2011;andLee 2009. Further, the 1970 Legislative Reorganization Act has increased the level of partisanship observed in House roll-call votes by changing the vote-generating Kroszner found that analysis of House roll-call votes on the Smoot-Hawley tariff overestimated the effect of partisanship because of strong agenda control by the ranking members of the House Ways and Means Committee.…”

Crossing Over: Majority Party Control Affects Legislator Behavior and the Agenda

“…Still others argue that parties play a role in the US Senate, even if their influence is more constrained than in the House. When majority-party effects are found, they are limited to the polarized contemporary Senate (Campbell, Cox, and McCubbins 2002;Den Hartog and Monroe 2011;Monroe, Roberts, and Rohde 2009;Reynolds 2017;Smith 2007; though see Gailmard and Jenkins 2007;Ragusa and Birkhead 2015). Especially during the midtwentieth century, the US Senate has been characterized as having weak parties (Carson, Madonna, and Owens 2016;Roberts and Smith 2007).…”