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The Politics of Obstruction: Republican Holds in the U.S. Senate
Author(s) -
Howard Nicholas O.,
Roberts Jason M.
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
legislative studies quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.728
H-Index - 54
eISSN - 1939-9162
pISSN - 0362-9805
DOI - 10.1111/lsq.12076
Subject(s) - legislation , voting , politics , political science , subject (documents) , law , feature (linguistics) , variety (cybernetics) , public administration , philosophy , linguistics , artificial intelligence , library science , computer science
A defining feature of the modern US Senate is obstruction. Almost all pieces of legislation considered in the Senate are affected either directly or indirectly by obstruction. Obstruction takes many forms in the modern Senate, but one of the most prevalent, yet least studied, is the hold. Using a newly created dataset on Republican Senate holds, we cast light on this important practice. Our results suggest that a variety of factors including timing, party status, and a senator's voting record are related to both the prevalence of holds and the success of legislation subject to holds in the Senate.