Published May 1985 | Submitted
Working Paper Open

Unanimous Consent Agreements: Going along in the Senate

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Abstract

In recent decades the U. S. Senate has made increasing use of complex unanimous consent agreements (UCAs) to set a time for a final vote on legislation (thereby precluding filibusters) and to specify, for example, who may offer what amendments. Because of the numerous dilatory tactics permitted in the absence of a UCA, controversial legislation is typically doomed unless a prior agreement has been reached. Thus the norm of consent to unanimous consent requests (UCRs) is puzzling. This paper addresses the puzzle with a decision-theoretic model of consent which yields what appears to be a rather stringent condition for objection to a UCR. Two actual cases of objection are analyzed and seem quite consistent with comparative statics results derived from the model. A concluding discussion considers UCAs as instances of endogenously chosen institutions which provide Senate leaders with opportunities to induce cooperative behavior.

Additional Information

I am grateful to Tom Gilligan and Doug Rivers for helpful conversations and comments, and to Walter Oleszek for bringing the cases to my attention. Published as Krehbiel, Keith. "Unanimous consent agreements: Going along in the Senate." The Journal of Politics 48.3 (1986): 541-564.

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