Response to James

Abstract

Scott James is gutsy to attempt a refutation of the power of district-level constituency interests on regulatory policy voting in an arena like railroad policy. I believe that his case is weak, but I want to emphasize that party and district political economy interests are intimately interrelated. Party is, as the author argues, a powerful (the most powerful) coalitional mechanism. Representatives often support positions that represent the preferences of party colleagues and not their own, in order to win or maintain political control and support for critical policies, so long as those “vote trading” issues do not represent central concerns at home. Thus southern agrarians included important labor provisions in the 1914 Clayton Antitrust Act in order to get the support of Northern Democrats who had already loyally backed the (agrarian) Democratic position on the tariff bill of 1913. On such a vote, representing an intraparty, biregional coalition bargain, party will naturally “predict” voting positions better than region. But the legislative history leaves little doubt from whence each policy (labor, tariff, and antitrust) originated.