The Politics of Obstruction: Republican Holds in the U.S. Senate

• Author: Jason M. Roberts,Nicholas O. Howard
• Published date: 01 May 2015
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/lsq.12076
• Date: 01 May 2015

NICHOLAS O. HOWARD

JASON M. ROBERTS

University of North Carolina

The Politics of Obstruction:

Republican Holds in the

U.S. Senate

A defining feature of the modern US Senate is obstruction. Almost all pieces of

legislation considered in the Senate are affected either directly or indirectly by obstruc-

tion. Obstruction takes many forms in the modern Senate, but one of the most preva-

lent, yet least studied, is the hold. Using a newly created dataset on Republican Senate

holds, we cast light on this important practice. Our results suggest that a variety of fac-

tors including timing, party status, and a senator’s voting record are related to both the

prevalence of holds and the success of legislation subject to holds in the Senate.

Introduction

A def‌ining feature of the modern US Senate is obstruction. The

Senate’s rules make it virtually impossible to begin consideration of a

measure or end debate on one via simple majority rule (Binder and Smith

1997). The inability of the Senate to set its order of business through

majority rule creates opportunities for individual senators or small groups

of senators to obstruct the Senate’s business through extended debate or

f‌ilibuster. As a result, f‌ilibusters have been a feature of the Senate for

more than a century (Wawro and Schickler 2006). Senate majorities

have been thwarted or delayed on salient issues such as civil rights, vot-

ing rights, and military interventions by determined Senate minorities.

Senators have shown less restraint in turning to obstructive tactics in

recent years, as all indices of Senate obstruction show a sharp uptick

over the past 30 years (Binder, Lawrence, and Smith 2002; Koger 2010;

Sinclair 1989). This has resulted in a legislative climate where all pieces

of major legislation are affected—either directly or indirectly—by

obstructive tactics (Smith 2014).

LEGISLATIVE STUDIES QUARTERLY, 40, 2, May 2015 273

DOI: 10.1111 /lsq.12076

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C2015 The Comparative Legislative Research Center of The University of Iowa

The threat of obstruction has created a legislative environment

whereby Senate party leaders seek to develop strategies that will avert

the use of outright obstructive tactics. The predominant method

employed is to seek a unanimous consent agreement (UCA) to govern

consideration of a measure. In fact, even in today’s polarized political

environment, much of the business that takes place in the Senate does so

with the unanimous consent of all senators (Oleszek 2011a).

The near constant need for unanimous consent has given rise to the

obstructive tactic known as the “hold.” Party leaders inform senators of

bills and nominations that may be subject to a UCA via a circulated cal-

endar or through a hotline request. Senators signal their intent to object

to a UCA—in essence a threat to f‌ilibuster—by sending a letter to their

party leader indicating that he or she will or may object to a unanimous

consent request on a particular measure. These threatened objections are

referred to in Senate parlance as holds. The letters containing holds are

considered private communication between a senator and his or her

leader so they are kept anonymous unless a senator chooses to make his

or her hold public.

1

Despite their lack of public visibility, holds have

been the target of a number of reform proposals, loud complaints by sen-

ators, and intense media scrutiny in the past few years (Evans and Lip-

inksi 2005b,).

Despite the attention given to holds, scholars have a limited sys-

tematic understanding of the effect of holds on the legislative process.

This is almost entirely due to the secrecy of the process. Evans and Lip-

inksi (2005b) provide the only empirical treatment of Senate holds to

date, which was based on correspondence and marked calendars found

in the personal papers of former Senate Republican Leader Howard

Baker (TN) for the 95th (1977–78) and 97th Congresses (1981–1982).

They f‌ind that holds signif‌icantly decrease the probability of a bill pass-

ing the chamber, especially when it is placed by a member of the major-

ity party. In this article, we build on the work of Evans and Lipinksi

(2005a, 2005b) and analyze the effects of the hold on the legislative pro-

cess by combining their data with a unique dataset drawn from the

archives of former Republican Leader Bob Dole (KS) to analyze Repub-

lican hold practices for the 95th (1977–78), 97th (1981–82), and 99th

(1985–86) through 104th (1995–96) Congresses.

This combined dataset provides the most comprehensive portrait

of Senate hold behavior to date. Eight congresses of data give us a win-

dow into variations in hold practices for Republicans under a variety of

institutional circumstances. We have f‌ive congresses in which the

Republicans were the minority party in the Senate and three in which

they were in the majority. Of the f‌ive congresses with the GOP in the

274 Nicholas O. Howard and Jason M. Roberts