The Other Side of Gridlock: Policy Stability and Supermajoritarianism in U.S. Lawmaking

Chapter 6 Pre-Floor Agenda Block

In a recent work by Gary Cox and Mathew McCubbins (2005) the authors propose a formal model of legislative agenda setting predicated upon their well-known Legislative Leviathan thesis (1993). In the cartel agenda model, Cox and McCubbins postulate that the majority party monopolizes the cameral floor agendas because the majority party enjoys a negative agenda power, which is the ability to block unfavorable agendas from reaching the floor. Among the various tests of the cartel agenda model, Cox and McCubbins examine the so-called partisan roll rates. A party is rolled when a majority of its members vote against a measure, a majority of the opposite party’s members vote for the measure, and the motion passes on a final passage vote. Specifically , Cox and McCubbins examine the roll rates in the 83rd–105th Congresses and find that the House majority party was rolled on 1.7 percent of all final passage votes on joint resolutions while the House minority party was rolled on 25.9 percent (2002, 119; 2005, 92–93). Cox and McCubbins conclude that the difference in the “roll rates for the majority and minority party meet our expectations very well” (2002, 119). Cox and McCubbins contend that the majority party’s negative power is unconditional, in that it maintains an ability to block agendas regardless of preferential configuration within the party. In contrast, the pivotal interval movement model, studied in chapters 3 and 4, presents a preference-based model of nonpartisan legislators. The pivotal interval movement model underscores the supermajoritarian features of Congress and maintains that a policy Chapter 6 Pre-Floor Agenda Block 95 The Other Side of Gridlock 96 cannot be changed when its status quo point exists between the ideal points of the veto and filibuster pivots. The implication of the theory is that these two pivots, in combination with legislators who are ideologically more extreme, could block agendas from reaching the floor through implicit or explicit threats of filibusters and presidential vetoes. This chapter first examines the validity of roll rates as a measure for partisan negative agenda power. Secondly, the applied models of the cartel block and the pivotal block are constructed to offer different explanations of agenda setting behavior ex ante floor, and contending hypotheses are generated. Third, the chapter also proposes the Roll Aversion hypothesis, which postulates that when the majority party is likely to be rolled, the party prefers bipartisan support for the legislation to being rolled. Last, the empirical study tests the hypotheses by examining the House during the 83rd-105th Congresses. Roll Rates and Agenda Power According to Cox and McCubbins, the majority party unconditionally holds negative agenda power, which is defined as the ability to block bills from reaching a final-passage vote on the floor (Cox and McCubbins 2002, 109; 2005, 20). Although the hypothesis tested by the authors is whether or not the majority roll rate is zero, the asymmetry between the roll rates of the minority party and the majority party generates an appearance of negative power seemingly held by the majority party. Cox and McCubbins presume that a party’s roll signifies the failure of exercising its negative power, thereby a low roll rate indicates a successful exertion of negative power. This seesaw-like supposition is noticeable in their argument for viewing roll rates as a measure for the pre- floor negative agenda power, as follows: The better control the majority party has over which bills do and do not make it onto the floor agenda, the more it should be able to prevent the appearance of bills that will roll it on final passage; hence—all else equal—the lower its roll rate should be. (Cox and McCubbins; 2005, 247; italics added) Nevertheless, it should be noted that roll rates are calculated based upon the amount of passed legislation on the floor. Thus, the roll rates indicate the opposite party’s positive agenda power, which is the ability to have legislation passed. This insinuates that a party’s high roll rate suggests its lack of negative power on the floor, rather than its lack of negative power before the floor consideration . Cox and McCubbins argue that the cartel agenda model postulates a zero majority roll rate (2005, 89 and 247). Let jJ and jN respectively denote Pre-Floor Agenda Block 97 a majority of the majority party’s members and a majority of...