Catch and release (Congress)

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In United States politics, catch and release is a strategy that members of Congress can use to effect an appearance of relative political independence. Catch and release is commonly used when a legislator's party supports a measure that is unpopular among his constituency; he can agree to vote for the measure if necessary for its passage, but to vote against it otherwise. In neither case is he truly breaking with his party, but if it turns out that he can vote against the measure without preventing its passage, then he can do so, and claim to his constituency that he has broken with his party's leadership on the issue.

Robin Hayes of North Carolina provided a seeming example of catch and release in the July 2005 vote on CAFTA. One week before the July 27th vote, Hayes told the Charlotte Observer he was "flat-out, completely, horizontally opposed to CAFTA".^{[citation needed]} When the actual vote came, Hayes originally voted nay, but changed his vote after Dennis Hastert spoke to him in the House cloakroom.^{[citation needed]} It is not publicly known whether Hayes had originally planned on voting aye if necessary; if so, then this is an example of catch and release.

The term is derived metaphorically from the fishing term catch and release; the metaphor portrays the party leadership as catching the legislator's vote, but releasing it if it turns out not to be necessary.