Why Senators Prefer Cloture

The Senate has many ways to advance legislation under its existing rules. Cloture - and the closed process senators now use almost exclusively - is only one of them.

Senators can debate legislation and offer amendments on the floor. They can force their opponents to sustain the obstruction rather than rely on cloture to advance their priorities. Or they can defer to party leaders to negotiate the process in advance, restrict amendments, and rely on cloture to move legislation toward an up-or-down vote.

Today’s senators overwhelmingly prefer the second approach - even though they regularly complain about it—because it gives them predictability, convenience, and insulation from responsibility.

Their preference for cloture has high costs for rank-and-file senators in both parties. They have less influence over the legislation the Senate considers. The committees on which they serve play a diminished role in crafting major bills. Senators are frequently prevented from offering amendments on the floor. They are given insufficient time to debate legislation. And they are routinely confronted with massive bills on the Senate floor, unveiled by party leaders at the last minute as take-it-or-leave-it proposals.

The closed process also prevents senators from taking action on proposals addressing issues their constituents care about. They cannot offer amendments to advance their priorities. They cannot force their colleagues to vote against those priorities. And they cannot back up their rhetoric with action on the Senate floor.

The Senate often fails to consider important issues because party leaders determine in advance that there are not enough votes to invoke cloture. That calculation transforms the cloture threshold from a mechanism for ending debate into a prerequisite for beginning it. Senators abandon their priorities without trying to advance them because they assume that trying will fail.

Yet rank-and-file senators continue to prefer the closed cloture process because it also benefits them. That preference begins with predictability and convenience, even when it comes at a cost.

Predictability Without Participation

Senators prefer cloture - even when it stops them from advancing their priorities - because an open Senate is unpredictable. Senators do not always know which amendments will be offered, how long the debate will last, or when votes will occur. A contentious bill can consume significant floor time as members use the Senate’s rules to advance their priorities, obstruct proposals they oppose, and force votes designed to expose divisions on the opposing side.

Processing amendments takes time. So does debating legislation. An open process may require attending late-night sessions and working Fridays and weekends. Senators may have to postpone events, change travel plans, and remain in Washington while the Senate works through a bill.

Deferring to party leaders to institute a closed process using cloture eliminates much of that uncertainty. The majority leader moves to begin debate on a bill, fills the amendment tree, and files cloture to lock down the floor. Party leaders then decide which amendments, if any, will receive votes. They negotiate when those votes will occur. They then use unanimous consent agreements to lock in that arrangement. Senators have less leverage in negotiations because they lose the ability to offer any amendments if they object.

The resulting predictability allows senators to schedule their workweek and travel home reliably. They do not have to expend much effort debating bills or processing amendments. They know when votes will occur because leaders have already determined the outcome - or at least narrowed the range of possible outcomes - before the Senate begins voting. All rank-and-file senators have to do is wait dutifully to be told when votes will occur.

Avoiding Responsibility

The cloture process also helps senators avoid responsibility for controversial decisions. That avoidance is another reason they continue to prefer it.

When leaders unveil a must-pass bill shortly before a deadline, rank-and-file senators can criticize the process, denounce particular provisions, and then vote for the bill anyway. The process allows senators to claim they had no choice because voting against it would shut down the government, cause a default on the national debt, or lead to other undesirable consequences.

Conversely, senators can oppose a bill their constituents support while blaming party leaders for preventing them from offering amendments. They can criticize the Senate’s inaction without forcing it to act. And they can explain almost any result without admitting their own role in producing it.

In short, the closed process allows senators to talk out of both sides of their mouths. They can support the result while opposing how it was achieved. Or they can oppose the result while insisting they were powerless to change it.

The Takeaway

Senators’ acquiescence in the cloture process is a choice. They defer to party leaders because they have multiple - and often conflicting - goals. They want to enact policy, win reelection, protect their party’s majority (or regain the majority), increase their personal influence in Washington, and minimize the effort required to do their jobs. Leaders leverage senators’ competing goals to secure their support when structuring the legislative process.

Senators do not have to support a leader’s decision actively to make it possible. They acquiesce whenever they decline to use the procedural prerogatives available to them in the Senate’s existing rules to resist it.

Senators’ acquiescence shifts power to party leaders. Senators complain that they cannot offer amendments, that they do not have time to read bills, and that legislation is drafted behind closed doors. Yet they rarely use the Senate’s rules to force a different process. They voluntarily accept their own disenfranchisement because the process that excludes them also makes their lives easier.

This dynamic produces gridlock. The Senate avoids issues when party leaders cannot bridge divisions within or between the parties using the cloture process.

The Senate’s dysfunction results from how rank-and-file senators choose to use the rules. Lawmakers cede power to party leaders to ensure that the Senate functions in a way they prefer: predictable, convenient, and insulated from responsibility. The takeaway is clear: senators’ choices, not just the rules, drive the Senate’s dysfunction.

Senators can choose differently. The Senate’s existing rules empower it to do so. But using that power requires senators to accept the uncertainty, effort, and accountability that come with meaningful participation in the legislative process.