Americans' Attitudes About the Senate Filibuster. (September 2013)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Smith, Steven S.; Park, Hong Min
• Is Part Of: American politics research. Volume 41:Number 5(2013)
• Page Start: 735
• Page End: 760
• Publication Date: 2013-09
• Subjects: public attitudes -- U.S. Congress -- U.S. Senate -- filibuster; Public opinion -- United States -- Periodicals; United States -- Politics and government -- Periodicals; 320.973
• DOI: 10.1177/1532673X13475472
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1532-673X

Abstract

We examine public attitudes about one of the most visible procedural features of Congress, the Senate's filibuster and cloture practice. We measure the stability of those attitudes during an important legislative episode, relate them to more abstract attitudes about majority rule and minority rights, and draw inferences about the importance of those attitudes for evaluations of the parties and vote intention for the 2010 elections. We find that filibuster attitudes change in ways predicted by respondents' partisan and policy preferences. Moreover, controlling for party identification, ideology, policy views, and attitudes about majority rule and minority rights in the abstract, filibuster attitudes have modest, asymmetric effects on party evaluations but no effect on vote intention.