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- Title
Managing the Senate Floor: Complex Unanimous Consent Agreements Since the 1950s.
- Authors
Smith, Steven S.; Flathman, Marcus
- Abstract
As the Senate moved from a communitarian to a more individualistic environment, increasing and often competing demands on floor leaders produced innovations in the use and content of unanimous consent agreements. We demonstrate (1) that since the mid-1950s leaders have relied on unanimous consent agreement more frequently and that agreements (2) increasingly contained amendment-specific debate limits and increasingly specified certain times for votes on measures and amendments, (3) decreasingly restricted nongermane amendments, (4) increasingly contained provisions affecting individual amendments and individual senators, and (5) increasingly governed the entire debate on measures but also increasingly required middebate adjustment. To generalize, as the Senate evolved from a communitarian to an individualistic legislative body, unanimous consent agreements became more tactical, complex, individualized, and ad hoc. Leadership strategy in managing the floor became more flexible and creative.
- Subjects
UNITED States; UNITED States legislators; UNITED States. Congress. Senate; LEGISLATIVE bodies; LEGISLATIVE power; FREEDOM of debate (Legislative bodies); LEADERSHIP; COMMUNITARIANISM; INDIVIDUALISM
- Publication
Legislative Studies Quarterly, 1989, Vol 14, Issue 3, p349
- ISSN
0362-9805
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.2307/439884