Partisan Appeals to Bipartisanship

Abstract

How do members of Congress build public support for legislation? Many argue it is through the framing of the legislative process or carefully curated explanations that appeal to their constituents’ preferences. Some suggest the key to members of Congress building public support for legislation is appealing to bipartisanship—signaling to the public that legislation was crafted through compromise and is liked by members on both sides of the aisle. Given the hyper-partisan era that presently exists, however, these bipartisan appeals are unlikely to occur in a vacuum. The minority party has incentives to engage in counter framing to undermine support for legislation. We demonstrate that the benefits awarded to members by engaging in bipartisan appeals are overstated. By engaging in counter messaging, members in the minority party can undermine the legislative accomplishments of their opponents, as well as approval for the legislature. Minority-party members, however, must be careful in how they counter message: partisan, rather than non-partisan, messages actually increase support for the legislature’s majority party while decreasing support for the minority party.