Replication Data for: Towards a Theory of Minority-Party Influence in the U.S. Congress: Whip Counts, Amendment Votes, and Minority Leverage in the House

The literature on congressional decision-making has largely ignored the influence of the minority party in the legislative process, particularly in the U.S. House of Representatives. This omission follows from the widely held belief that the majority party dominates the agenda-setting process, and thus is primarily responsible for determining legislative outcomes. Though we agree that the minority party rarely achieves major policy success in Congress, we argue that the minority has significantly more influence over the legislative agenda than is commonly believed – and we begin establishing a foundation for a broader theory of minority-party influence. We posit that, under some conditions, the minority has enough bargaining leverage to get floor votes on their proposals, in the form of both amendments and bills. To investigate this claim, we first examine minority-party disappointments and majority-party rolls across the post-World War II era. We then test our hypothesis using whip count data from the House and show that when a whip count on a bill occurs, the likelihood of a minority amendment disappointment and a majority amendment roll increases, respectively. This suggests that the more leverage the minority party has, the more we see their legislative proposals on the floor.

现有关于国会决策的研究文献大多忽略了少数党在立法进程中的影响力，这一现象在美国众议院（U.S. House of Representatives）中尤为突出。这一研究疏漏源于学界广为接受的一种共识：多数党主导议程设定流程，因此在决定立法结果方面占据主导地位。尽管我们认可少数党在国会中极少取得重大政策胜利，但我们主张，少数党对立法议程的影响力远高于普遍认知——并着手为构建关于少数党影响力的更全面理论奠定基础。我们提出，在特定条件下，少数党具备足够的谈判筹码，能够推动其提案（包括修正案与法案）获得全院表决机会。为验证这一主张，我们首先考察了二战后时期的少数党立法受挫情况与多数党点名投票记录。随后，我们利用众议院的党鞭计票（whip count）数据检验研究假设，结果显示：当某一法案开展党鞭计票时，少数党修正案未获通过的概率与多数党修正案点名投票的概率分别随之上升。这一结果表明，少数党拥有的谈判筹码越多，其立法提案被提交全院表决的情况就越常见。