Agenda Setting in the U.S. Senate

by Den Hartog, Chris; Monroe, Nathan W.

• ISBN13: 9781107006461
• ISBN10: 1107006465
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-05-16
• Publisher: Cambridge Univ Pr

Summary

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.

Table of Contents

Preface

Costly consideration and the majority's advantage

The textbook senate and partisan policy influence

The costly consideration agenda-setting theory

Consideration Costs in the Senate

Committees and senate agenda setting

Scheduling bills in the Senate

Effects of filibusters

Disposition of majority and minority amendments

Killing amendments with tabling motions and points of order

Effects of amendments

Testing the Costly-Consideration Theory

Testing our model

Implications of costly consideration

relaxing the model's assumptions

last actions and coding amendment disposition

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