Party Polarization and the Changing Effects of Supermajority Procedures in the Senate: Presidential Success of Bush and Obama

Abstract

Research on presidential-congressional relations consistently finds that majority party presidents are more successful in the legislative arena than are minority presidents. Although the advantages of majority party status are similar in both chambers, the benefits are somewhat muted in the Senate. Increasing party polarization since the 1980s has profoundly affected presidential-congressional relations. A recent study (Cohen, Bond, and Fleisher 2013) found that increasing partisanship in the House enhances the benefits of majority control — majority party presidents win more and minority presidents win less. The relationships in the Senate, however, changed considerably in recent decades. Majority party presidents still had small advantage, but the explanatory power of the model declined. The authors speculated, but offered no evidence, that supermajoritarian procedures in the Senate were responsible for the weaker relationships. This paper offers some preliminary evidence that in the context of high partisanship, an increasing number of cloture votes during the Clinton, Bush, and Obama administrations contributed to a decline in success rates of both majority and minority presidents.

Keywords: presidential-congressional relations, party polarization, supermajority