The Jeffords Switch: Changing Majority Status and Causal Processes in the U.S. Senate

by Nathan Monroe, Chris Den Hartog

Overview

Senator Jim Jeffords left the Republican Party in May 2001 and became an independent. Because he agreed to vote with the Democrats on organizational votes, this gave that party a 51–49 majority in the Senate.

Using the “Jeffords switch,” Chris Den Hartog and Nathan W. Monroe examine how power is shared and transferred in the Senate, as well as whether Democratic bills became more successful after the switch. They also use the data after the switch, when the Republican Party still held a majority on many Democratic Party-led committees, to examine the power of the committee chairs to influence decisions. While the authors find that the majority party does influence Senate decisions, Den Hartog and Monroe are more interested in exploring the method and limits of the majority party to achieve its goals.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780472125401
Publisher:	University of Michigan Press
Publication date:	07/03/2019
Series:	Legislative Politics And Policy Making
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	232
File size:	944 KB

About the Author

Chris Den Hartog is Professor of Political Science at California Polytechnic State University.

Nathan W. Monroe is Professor of Political Science and Tony Coelho Endowed Chair of Public Policy at the University of California, Merced.

Table of Contents

Contents

Acknowledgments

One: A Startling Series of Events

Two: The Jeffords Design: Quasi-Experiment Meets Process Tracing

Three: Institutional Positions

Four: The Effect of Jeffords’s Switch on Senate Committee Behavior

Five: Scheduling

Six: Senate Floor Behavior Before and After Jeffords’s Switch

Seven: Progress of Bills through the Legislative Process

Eight: Legislative Outcomes

Nine: Conclusion

Notes

Works Cited

Index

Editorial Reviews

"The book illuminates the nuts and bolts of structure and operation in the Senate, analyzing each piece and step individually, showing the ways that these aspects changed (or did not) after the Jeffords switch. Almost every reader is likely to find an assessment of the particular motion or outcome that interests them." - Thomas R. Gray, Congress the Presidency

— Thomas R. Gray, Congress & the Presidency

"In The Jeffords Switch Den Hartog and Monroe provide a thoughtful, well-argued account of the how the Senate majority party uses the tools at its disposal to push forward its legislative agenda. ... Drawing on a variety of methods, the authors challenge the standard accounts of minimal majority party influence in the Senate by demonstrating the majority party’s ability to secure the outcomes it favors. Recommended."

-- CHOICE

— P. Hanson, Grinnell College, CHOICE

From the Publisher