Sophisticated Voting in Supermajoritarian Settings

Empirical support for sophisticated voting in the legislative setting has been sparse. This is due to a number of factors, including the difficulty of identifying the ideal points of legislators in multidimensional spaces. Whereas the conflict between sincere and strategic voting typically arises in such multidimensional settings, such conflict can also be found with respect to varied voting rules. In this paper, the supermajority rules surrounding vetoes and cloture votes are examined tos how their role in producing sophisticated voting outcomes. Am empirical test with regard to votes on the 1989 minimum wage increase in the House of Representatives provides strong support for this theory. Sincere voting is rejected, while sophisticated voting is supported, even when costly.