Congressional scholars have long studied the impact of rules that restrict debate on legislative productivity. However, given the lack of variation in these rules within and across chambers in Congress, we know relatively little about the potential effect different levels of debate restriction on the legislative process and outcomes. We develop a theoretical framework to understand the effects of different levels of restriction on debate and thresholds for cloture on legislative chambers’ ability to consider and pass bills. To test our hypotheses, we use legislative rules and bill data from 99 U.S. State Legislative chambers from 2011 to 2016. We expect to find increases in legislative productivity in chambers that have increasingly restrictive debate limits and have low thresholds for cloture. Our findings will have implications for the study of legislative effectiveness and institutional design.