Enabling Compromise

• In Event: Political Parties and American Democracy Mini-Conference II: Effective Lawmaking and Compromise in Congress and the States

Abstract

Many legislators recognize that compromise is a prerequisite for achieving their policy goals, but they fear that primary voters will punish them for compromising. We show one tactic party leaders use to facilitate compromise: scheduling a vote on a more extreme, ideologically pure version of the proposal (an affirmational vote) before voting on the compromise. A survey experiment shows that this reduces the punishment compromisers face from primary voters by affirming the compromisers’ ideological commitment. An observational study of Republican legislators’ messaging around debt ceiling negotiations shows that, surprisingly, compromisers rarely mention these affirmational votes. Instead, these votes are usually invoked by legislators who opposed the compromise. We hypothesize that these affirmational votes are intended to shift the rhetoric of legislators who opposed the compromise away from questioning the ideological commitment of the compromisers and toward a tactical discussion of whether it was feasible to pass a more extreme bill.

Authors

• Nicolas Hernandez Florez

• Christian Fong, University of Michigan