Floor Action

Chapter 3 focuses on the legislative early game. Given the individualistic and “Wild West” nature of floor activity in the Senate, we should expect to see senators who want to make an impact propose amendments. Through an in-depth examination of the debate around Congressional Quarterly’s designated key votes from 2003 to 2013, as well as an examination of the 2009 floor debate around the Affordable Care Act and 2003’s Medicare Modernization Act, this chapter illustrates that partisans and leaders were prolific in the amendment activity, while moderates neglected the activity. Still, the argument could be made that moderates win the early game behind the scenes, so the chapter then turns to floor activity on speeches—the logic here is that if moderates are happy with the legislation, they should take to the floor to defend it. Again, we see that moderates eschew this behavior as well.