Super-Majority Votes in the Senate

Publication Date: February 2001

Publisher: Library of Congress. Congressional Research Service

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Research Area: Government

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Abstract:

The Senate has long been known for its emphasis on minority rights, for it provides extensive procedural protections to individuals and minority coalitions. Yet most issues in the Senate are decided by a simple majority vote: one-half-plus-one of the Members voting, assuming the presence of a quorum. For instance, if all 100 Senators vote, the winning margin is at least 51— one more than half the membership of the Senate. Under Senate precedents, “[a] tie vote on a question defeats it.”

Some super-majority votes, however, are explicitly specified in the Constitution; implicitly, they also inhere in authority granted in Article I, section 5, which says, “Each chamber may determine the Rules of Its Proceedings.” Under this affirmative constitutional power, the Senate has imposed on itself a number of additional supermajority (sometimes called “extraordinary majority”) requirements. Worth review, then, are the constitutional and Senate procedural-based exceptions to the general principle that Senators commonly decide issues by simple majority vote.