Legislator Pivotality and Voter Accountability

• Published date: 01 September 2024
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/10659129241251843
• Author: Sarah E. Anderson,Daniel M. Butler,Laurel Harbridge-Yong,Zoe Nemerever
• Date: 01 September 2024
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Political Research Quarterly

2024, Vol. 77(3) 904–914

© The Author(s) 2024

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DOI: 10.1177/10659129241251843

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Legislator Pivotality and Voter

Accountability

Sarah E. Anderson

1

, Daniel M. Butler

2

,

Laurel Harbridge-Yong

3

, and Zoe Nemerever

4



Abstract

Pivotal legislators’positions are critical to legislative outcomes, but does this heightened importance in poli-

cymaking translate into heightened electoral accountability or voter knowledge? Arguments about clarity of

responsibility suggest that pivotal legislators, who are decisive in determining legislative outcomes, may be held to

higher standards, while perspectives rooted in electoral incentives for position taking suggest they may not. Two

survey experiments show that voters do not respond more strongly to pivotal legislators’votes on policy.

Moreover, observational data analysis rejects the expectation that constituents have more knowledge about the

votes of pivotal moderate legislators compared to non-pivotal moderate legislators. These results suggest that

pivotal legislators face similar, if not lower, accountability for their votes. Combined with the policy-concessions

pivotal legislators can secure, these patterns point to the benef‌its that accrue to pivotal legislators from insti-

tutional rules that give them key veto power over policy.

Keywords

f‌ilibuster, veto players, electoral accountability, dyadic representation, constituent knowledge

When legislators vote in alignment with district prefer-

ences, they are rewarded electorally; when they deviate

from district preferences, they face a penalty (Canes-

Wrone, Brady, and Cogan 2002;Carson et al. 2010).

At an aggregate level, however, not all legislators are

equally responsible for the passage or failure of legislation

that is aligned with or deviates from district preferences.

The votes of pivotal legislators determine which sharply

contested bills pass, making them critical to the policy-

making process (Krehbiel 1998). This clarity of respon-

sibility (Arceneaux 2006;Powell and Whitten 1993;

Royed, Leyden, and Borrelli 2000;Palmer and Whitten

2002) may allow voters to hold pivotal legislators more

responsible or their positionality may make it easier for

voters to know their position on roll call votes. Given their

key role in passing policy, the accountability of pivotal

legislators to their voters may differ from other legislators.

If voters consider legislators’responsibility for legislative

outcomes in addition to the positions they take, pivotal

legislators might be held to a higher standard of ac-

countability. And if voters know more about pivotal

legislators’records, there may be more votes that are

electorally consequential for pivotal legislators. Yet, it can

be diff‌icult to untangle pivotality from alignment with

voters’policy positions and to untangle pivotality from

moderation. In this paper, we use survey experiments to

distinguish pivotality from alignment with voters and

observational data comparing voter information about the

votes of pivotal and non-pivotal moderate legislators to

distinguish pivotality from moderation.

Our analyses examine two ways in which voters might

respond differently to pivotal legislators’roll call votes.

First, two survey experiments test whether voters punish

pivotal legislators more than non-pivotal legislators when

they vote contrary to voters’preferences. The key com-

parison is how voters hold legislators with similar voting

1

University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, USA

2

Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO, USA

3

Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA

4

Utah Valley University, Orem, UT, USA

Corresponding Author:

Daniel M. Butler, Department of Political Science, Washington

University in St. Louis, One Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO 63130-4899,

USA.

Email: daniel.butler@gmail.com