with minority party members to offer alternative amendments to the bill, including “killer”
amendments (Cox 1987; Wilkerson 1999).
Party Cohesiveness and Managers Amendments
We know that major policy change is more likely when political parties are more
cohesive (Hurley, Brady and Cooper 1979). Also, party leaders will concentrate their power
when parties are cohesive and disburse their power when parties are less cohesive (Cooper and
Brady 1981). Further, party leaders will suppress minority rights when the majority and minority
parties are more cohesive (Binder 1995, 1997). Majority party leaders suppress use restrictive
procedures as one method by which those leaders restrict the rights of minority parties.
Therefore, we should expect a higher percentage of restrictive procedures when the majority
party is cohesive, but a lower percentage of bills with amendments from floor managers for three
reasons.
First, leaders of a cohesive majority party want a higher percentage of restrictive
procedures because those leaders want to pass their agenda in the purest form possible (Binder
1997; Dion 1997). These leaders do not want to give minority parties any chance to water down
their agenda through the debate or amendment process once a bill reaches the floor. Also, these
leaders want to minimize the chance that defectors from their own party are able to modify the
bill from the leadership’s preferred outcome. Further, these leaders want to prevent majority
party defectors from allying with minority party members to pass “killer” amendments
(Wilkerson 1999).
To minimize the chance of such activities from the minority party and
majority party defectors, party leaders will place a higher percentage of restrictive procedures on
all bills.
6 A killer amendment is one that, if adopted, will likely cause a bill to fail (Enelow and Koehler
1980, Wilkerson 1999).
8
Convention