One indication of the Senate’s dysfunction is that it votes less than it used to. Roll-call votes during legislative sessions have declined sharply in recent decades.
This decline suggests the Senate is deciding less on the floor than in the past. One reason is that senators routinely prevent the presiding officer from putting the pending question to a vote when debate ends by claiming a quorum is absent.
Under Senate precedent, the presiding officer must put the pending question to a vote when a senator yields the floor, and no other senator seeks recognition. But senators routinely prevent that from happening by suggesting the absence of a quorum when they finish speaking. Doing so immediately suspends business and prevents further action until a quorum is established. In practice, however, quorum calls rarely end that way. Instead, another senator asks for unanimous consent to vitiate the quorum call. Until that happens, floor action stops, and the presiding officer cannot put the underlying question to a vote.
