Chapter 4 explores which voters – general election voters, primary voters, or campaign donors – legislators fear will punish them for compromise. In-person surveys of state legislators confirm that legislators mostly fear punishment from primary voters. Legislators believe that primary voters would prefer that legislators vote to kill compromise bills, worry that these primary voters would punish them if they supported such legislation, and act in response to this concern. Beyond the patterns in surveys of state legislators, congressional roll call votes from 2011 to 2015 show that greater Tea Party support in a district predicted an increased likelihood that Republican House members voted against compromise bills. Together, these results highlight how legislators’ concerns about how primary voters respond to compromise can dissuade legislators from compromising.

Chapter 5 tests whether legislators are accurate in their belief that primary voters are likely to punish them for compromising. Results from a survey experiment suggest that most voters, even most primary voters, reward legislators for making compromises. However, co-partisan primary voters who oppose compromise on a specific issue are willing to punish legislators who vote for the compromise. Although legislators may benefit electorally from supporting compromise, especially in the general election, they have reason to be cautious on compromise bills to avoid voter backlash from subsets of the politically active primary electorate. Just because the subset of voters who punish legislators for compromising is small does not mean it cannot be consequential – a small subset can mobilize a strong challenger, paint a legislators’ behavior as problematic in the eyes of less informed voters, or vote on the basis of a single important vote. Moreover, across many compromise votes a legislator may face, the small groups of voters who oppose each compromise might, when added together, represent a decisive portion of the primary electorate.

Why do legislators sometimes reject compromises that seem within reach and are closer to their preferred policy? Chapter 3 tests various explanations for legislators’ rejection of compromise and presents evidence that the belief that voters are very likely to punish state legislators for compromising reduces legislators’ likelihood of voting for a given compromise proposal by 21 percent. We find a similar effect among local elected officials. This demonstrates the importance of legislators’ views of their constituents and the role that fear of voter punishment plays in the rejection of compromises.

Chapter 7 discusses how to balance representation and accountability with processes that might better insulate legislators from their electoral fear as they seek to negotiate compromises. Ensuring that the public is knowledgeable about elected officials’ decisions is an important facet of democratic accountability. Yet the watchful eye of primary voters may also deter legislators from considering reasonable compromises. Chapter 7 discusses how to balance these two considerations and discusses whether communication with constituents can facilitate compromise. Our findings, as well as the comments from state legislators at the 2017 NCSL Summit, emphasize the importance of communication between legislators and their constituents – explaining the legislative process, justifying choices, and developing a home style that cultivates trust. With greater communication and building of trust, legislators may have leeway to insulate portions of the legislative process from public scrutiny, helping them reach compromises and overcome gridlock to solve pressing problems.

Chapter 6 explores reforms that might improve the likelihood of achieving compromise solutions. It tests two different approaches to negotiation with in-person survey experiments at the National Conference of State Legislatures annual Legislative Summits in 2016 and 2017. In one of those experiments, legislators indicate that they are more likely to achieve compromise by negotiating in private (even as they express some trepidation about meeting in private). This suggests that private negotiations might make compromise easier to achieve.

Do a large fraction of legislators reject compromises, even when the compromise moves policy toward their preferred outcome? This chapter uses surveys of state legislators and elected city officials to assess what fraction of officials reject half-loaf compromises that give them some, but not all of what they seek on policy. Nearly a quarter of state legislators say they would reject a proposal that moves the gas tax toward their preferred outcome. Legislators’ rejection of half-loaf compromises exacerbates the difficulties of solving problems in a political environment polarized along ideological lines.

This chapter illustrates how legislators sometimes reject compromise proposals with an example of legislation on public lands management in Utah. Despite broad support for the bill, which was viewed as a compromise solution to increase protection for the San Rafael Swell area, it had detractors who felt it did not go far enough. The failure of the San Rafael Swell National Conservation Area legislation shows that legislators sometimes reject half-loaf compromises in pursuit of getting everything they want. This book takes a problem-oriented approach by examining why legislators reject half-loaf compromises and what can be done about it. This chapter summarizes the varied methods we used to understand the rejection of compromise, our findings that legislators fear punishment for compromise from subsets of the primary election who oppose particular compromises, and our contributions to solving this problem