Event

Speaker: Frances Lee, University of Maryland. 

Title: The Permanent Campaign on the Floor of the U.S. SenateTwo-Party Competition and Senate Politics:

Abstract: Intense competition for majority party control—a continuous reality since the Republican Partywon control of the Senate in 1980—has transformed Senate floor politics. This article showshow minority party senators have exploited floor amendments for partisan purposes to a muchgreater extent in the post-1980 period than in the past. During the 1960s and 1970s, flooractivism was a function of an individual senator’s stylistic choices and policy preferences, withmore extreme senators offering more and more unsuccessful amendments, but party having nomeaningful effect. During the post-1980 period, by contrast, minority party senators areconsiderably more active on the floor than majority party senators, and party has become astrong predictor of amending success. Indeed, the most ideologically extreme senators of themajority party are more successful in getting their amendments accepted than the most centristmembers of the minority party.

An electronic copy of the paper is attached below. 

Lunch will be provided.