Partisan Bridges to Bipartisanship: The Case of Contraceptive Coverage

• Author: Bailey Sanders
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/lsq.12205
• Date: 01 August 2018
• Published date: 01 August 2018

BAILEY SANDERS

Duke University

Partisan Bridges to

Bipartisanship: The Case of

Contraceptive Coverage

The negative consequences of polarization have been pointed to by scholars and

politicians alike as evidence of a need for a renewal of bipartisanship. However, scholar-

ship on bipartisanship remains limited. This article develops a theory of partisan

bridging that predicts when and why certain legislators might be willing to cross the par-

tisan aisle. I argue that personal preferences can lead some legislators to cross the aisle

in search of consensus, in effect serving as “partisan bridges.” I test my theory by exam-

ining the role of Republican women in the diffusion of contraceptive coverage at the

state level. Through an individual-level analysis of sponsorship and vote choice and an

aggregate-level analysis of policy diffusion, I find that moderate Republican women at

times served as critical actors in the policy process.

Over the past decade, the rise in partisan polarization and its conse-

quences for legislative decision making has been one of the most

important topics in the American politics literature. Across a number of

measures, the story is the same: The parties in government, particularly

at the congressional level, are becoming more internally homogenous

while simultaneously moving farther apart from each other on major pol-

icy issues (Bond and Fleisher 2000; Jacobson 2000; Poole and

Rosenthal 1997, 2001; Sinclair 2000; Stonecash, Brewer, and Mariani

2003). The negative

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consequences of polarization—an increase in the

negative political discourse among legislators (Jamieson & Falk 2000;

Sinclair 2002; Uslaner 1996), an increase in stalemate and gridlock in

the policy process (Binder 2003; Jones 2001), and a dwindling supply of

political consensus (Bond and Fleisher 2000; Sinclair 1997)—have been

pointed to by scholars, politicians, and political commentators alike as

evidence of a desperate need for a renewal of bipartisan policymaking

and compromise.

Yet, scholarship on bipartisanship—why it occurs, how it occurs,

and when—remains quite limited. This article seeks to help f‌ill this gap

by developing a theory of partisan bridging that helps predict when and

LEGISLATIVE STUDIES QUARTERLY, 43, 3, Au gust 2018

DOI: 10.1111 /lsq.12205

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why certain legislators might be willing to cross the partisan aisle. I build

upon the work of Burden (2007), who f‌inds that legislators’ personal

preferences are important considerations when they make voting deci-

sions and/or allocate resources to various policy proposals, to argue that

personal preferences can also lead some legislators to cross the aisle in

search of consensus. I introduce the concept of a partisan bridge—an

individual who, through sponsorship, amendments, voting, and even

lobbying partisan colleagues—works to generate more bipartisan con-

sensus for a policy than might otherwise exist.

Although my theory is not gender specif‌ic, I test its implications by

turning to the literature on women’s representation. A long line of schol-

arship has demonstrated that women legislators often exhibit a strong

preference for representing the particular needs of their female constitu-

ents and that this leads them to place a greater focus—relative to their

male counterparts—on producing women-centered policies. Such

work suggests that women legislators should be more likely than male

legislators to invest the time and effort necessary to craft bipartisan com-

promise on women-centered policy issues. I test this expectation by

examining the role of Republican women in the diffusion of contracep-

tive coverage at the state level between 1998 and 2010. Using two

different approaches—an individual-level analysis of sponsorship and

vote choice and an aggregate-level analysis of policy diffusion—I f‌ind

that moderate Republican women were (1) more likely to bridge on the

issue of women’s contraceptive coverage than their male counterparts

and (2) had a substantive impact on policy outcomes. These f‌indings are

important for two reasons. First, they suggest that we might be able to

predict when bipartisan behavior will occur—presumably something

that is of great interest to policy advocates. Second, they add to our

understanding of Republican women’s role in representing women in

the states—it was not just Democratic women that helped advance pre-

scription equity at the state level.

Personal Preferences and Compromise:

A Theory of Partisan Bridging

As Burden has noted, “researchers tend to assume that legislators

either work only on behalf of their constituents or as foot soldiers for

their political parties” (2007, 14), thereby leaving little room for personal

preferences and/or motivations to shape legislative behavior.

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Yet, focusing only on constituent or partisan preferences as the main

motivators behind legislators’ actions provides an incomplete picture of

legislative behavior, one that can be improved upon if we take into

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