Presidential Speeches Amid a More Centralized and Unified Congress

Abstract

In his seminal work, Going Public, Samuel Kernell (1987) argued that changes in the congressional bargaining environment incentivized an increase in presidential speeches. Although subsequent research rejected that these changes increased speeches, Congress continues to evolve, having become more centralized and unified (by political party) since the 1970s. The purpose of this article is to revisit the changing congressional environment to assess what impact it has had on presidential speechmaking. We argue that if greater centralization and party unity are to affect speechmaking, they should decrease it, but only under unified government. We find that although congressional centralization, which should promote more bargaining between presidents and legislators, decreases speeches, the impact is not conditional on unified government. To this end, we conclude that the president's electoral not policy goals are the primary motivation for presidential speechmaking. These results have major implications for our theories of going public and our understanding of the public presidency.