{"title":"When Politics Is Not Pivotal: Supermajority Debate Rules in State Legislatures","authors":"James M. Curry, Robert L. Oldham","doi":"10.1111/lsq.70035","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>The 60-vote end-debate threshold is a key institution in the United States Senate. Most winning coalitions require 60 votes, effectively giving veto power to a minority of senators. But do supermajority debate rules necessarily translate into minority veto power? We examine this in state legislatures, where there is far more variation in whether chamber rules require a majority or a supermajority of legislators to cut off debate. Across multiple analyses and data sources, we fail to find systematic evidence that supermajority debate rules are associated with several outcome variables, including the size of bill passage coalitions, news coverage of obstruction, and the success of major proposals. The lack of evidence indicates that, in many cases, debate rules do not translate into legislative “pivots” and that case-specific knowledge is necessary for understanding the influence of legislative rules.</p>","PeriodicalId":47672,"journal":{"name":"Legislative Studies Quarterly","volume":"50 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.4000,"publicationDate":"2025-09-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/lsq.70035","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Legislative Studies Quarterly","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/lsq.70035","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"POLITICAL SCIENCE","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
The 60-vote end-debate threshold is a key institution in the United States Senate. Most winning coalitions require 60 votes, effectively giving veto power to a minority of senators. But do supermajority debate rules necessarily translate into minority veto power? We examine this in state legislatures, where there is far more variation in whether chamber rules require a majority or a supermajority of legislators to cut off debate. Across multiple analyses and data sources, we fail to find systematic evidence that supermajority debate rules are associated with several outcome variables, including the size of bill passage coalitions, news coverage of obstruction, and the success of major proposals. The lack of evidence indicates that, in many cases, debate rules do not translate into legislative “pivots” and that case-specific knowledge is necessary for understanding the influence of legislative rules.
期刊介绍：
The Legislative Studies Quarterly is an international journal devoted to the publication of research on representative assemblies. Its purpose is to disseminate scholarly work on parliaments and legislatures, their relations to other political institutions, their functions in the political system, and the activities of their members both within the institution and outside. Contributions are invited from scholars in all countries. The pages of the Quarterly are open to all research approaches consistent with the normal canons of scholarship, and to work on representative assemblies in all settings and all time periods. The aim of the journal is to contribute to the formulation and verification of general theories about legislative systems, processes, and behavior.
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