House Voting Research Articles

Authors’ Response

Authors’ Response

Out‐of‐District Donors and Representation in the US House

US House members have become increasingly reliant on out‐of‐district individuals for fundraising. Yet we have little evidence on how such donations might affect representatives' policy decisions. Given the high partisanship known to dominate House roll calls, do the preferences of individual donors influence policymaking at all? And are members who rely on out‐of‐district contributions more responsive to the preferences of the national donor base? This article examines these and related questions, producing three main findings. First, even accounting for well‐established partisanship in House voting, representatives are responsive to the policy preferences of the national donor base. Second, this donor responsiveness is positively associated with electoral safety, including when redistricting exogenously induces the safety. Third, the higher a member's reliance on out‐of‐district donations, the greater is their responsiveness to the preferences of the national donor base. Together, these findings suggest that current fundraising dynamics skew representation in significant ways.

Implications of Anti-AAPI Racism in Light of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Xenophobia against Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) communities has spanned decades of American history, recently escalating in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the Asian Pacific Policy and Planning Council, there were 2583 reports of anti-Asian hate incidents as of August 2020, with reports only rising [1]. The federal government has done little to ameliorate this racial discrimination. Although H. Res 908, condemning all forms of anti-Asian sentiment, passed in September, 2020, the resolution took over 6 months to pass with 164 members of the House voting against the resolution. The national response to AAPI xenophobia parallels the experiences of the AAPI community within medicine, promoting a cycle of mental health issues stemming from prejudice and lack of systemic support. In particular, AAPI students in the medical field face the same encounters of discrimination in addition to the stress and pressure associated with medical school. Students witness encounters of xenophobia within their future career paths, instigating a sense of fear and uncertainty of how they will be perceived by future patients [2]. Concerns of xenophobia are compounded by the model minority myth, which implicates that academic achievement and accomplishments define self-worth, value, and identity [3]. A profound repercussion is that this leads to an unwillingness to seek out help and address mental health concerns within the AAPI community. Ultimately, there lies a challenge as to how we can adequately support our current AAPI medical community. Firstly, an increase in mental health support for AAPI students is pertinent, as this increase may incentivize students to seek help. Secondly, medical education requires more topics regarding diversity, which aid in dismantling the model minority myth while teaching faculty about the presence and history of xenophobia. Lastly, systemic lack of representation necessitates an institutional push for more Asian-American representation in academia. Despite Asians being over-represented in medical recruitment, AAMC reports that only 6% of Asians are professors, 3.52% are chairpersons, and 0% are deans [4]. The COVID-19 pandemic has illustrated how pervasive AAPI xenophobia is both within and beyond the medical institution; therefore, we have the responsibility to mitigate this dilemma.

The Political Response to Recent Changes in U.S. Wage Inequality

Over recent decades, wage inequality has expanded. While there has been much work on the causes behind these changes in the wage structure, it is unclear to what extent voters and politicians have agitated for political reforms in response to increasing inequality. This paper investigates House and Senate voting records as well as House Election results to examine the political response to wage inequality. The results suggest that inequality is related to turnover in the House, leading to a slightly greater number of Democrats on net. Voting records show that inequality leads to polarization by party, with Democrats voting more liberally and Republicans voting more conservatively. The results are consistent with models in which relative position in the income distribution matters, and where the “bite” of inequality hurts the bottom more than the top.

National Forces and the U.S. House Vote, 1980-2004: The Uncertain Progress of Nationalization

Much recent scholarly attention has focused on the theme of growing nationalization in U.S. House elections. In this study, I reach a mixed verdict concerning the extent to which national forces have become more determinative of the House vote from 1980 to 2004. Only voter partisanship, but not ideology, economic evaluations, or assessments of presidential candidates' personal qualities, has increased in importance during presidential year elections. Since presidential voting, on the other hand, has come to depend more heavily on all these factors except the last, this means that contrary to the conventional wisdom, the bases of House and presidential voting actually have grown less, rather than more, similar over time.

Congressional Roll Call Voting on China Trade Policy

This article analyzes roll call voting on China’s most favored nation (MFN) and permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) status to ascertain interchamber difference and party polarization in China trade policy. In the House, party has the largest impact, with Republicans much more supportive of MFN than Democrats. Ideology has the second largest impact, with conservatives and liberals voting against moderates. In the Senate, party is the sole significant determinant of MFN voting. In House voting on PNTR, ideology has the biggest and party the second biggest impact. The lopsided nature of the Senate PNTR vote indicates that ideology, party, and constituency interests had little or no impact. In both MFN and PNTR voting in the House, constituency economic interests have only marginal effects, and only constituency interests adversely affected by trade with China have significant impact on the PNTR vote. The author concludes by situating the findings in the broad debate about interchamber difference and increasing polarization in Congress.

Fundamental dimensions of U.S. trade policy

How many dimensions adequately characterize voting on U.S. trade policy? How are these dimensions to be interpreted? This paper seeks those answers in the context of voting on the landmark 1988 Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act. The paper takes steps beyond the existing literature. First, using a factor analytic approach, the dimension issue is examined to determine whether subsets of roll call votes on trade policy are correlated. A factor-analytic result allows the use of a limited number of votes for this purpose. Second, a structural model with latent variables is used to find what economic and political factors comprise these dimensions. The study yields two main findings. More than one dimension determines voting in the Senate, with the main dimension driven by economic interest, not ideology. Although two dimensions are required to fully account for House voting, one dimension dominates. That dimension is driven primarily by party. Based on reported evidence, and a growing consensus in the congressional studies literature, this finding is attributed to interest-based leadership that evolves in order to solve collective action problems faced by individual legislators.

Fundamental dimensions of U.S. trade policy

How many dimensions adequately characterize voting on U.S. trade policy? How are these dimensions to be interpreted? This paper seeks those answers in the context of voting on the landmark 1988 Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act. The paper takes steps beyond the existing literature. First, using a factor analytic approach, the dimension issue is examined to determine whether subsets of roll call votes on trade policy are correlated. A factor-analytic result allows the use of a limited number of votes for this purpose. Second, a structural model with latent variables is used to find what economic and political factors comprise these dimensions. The study yields two main findings. More than one dimension determines voting in the Senate, with the main dimension driven by economic interest, not ideology. Although two dimensions are required to fully account for House voting, one dimension dominates. That dimension is driven primarily by party. Based on reported evidence, and a growing consensus in the congressional studies literature, this finding is attributed to interest-based leadership that evolves in order to solve collective action problems faced by individual legislators.

Sex, Politics, and Public Opinion: What Political Scientists Really Learned From the Clinton-Lewinsky Scandal

William Jefferson Clinton is only the second president to have been impeached by the House of Representatives. While he was not removed from office, roughly half of the Senate chamber voted him guilty on the perjury and obstruction of justice charges that the House formulated as articles of impeachment in early February 1999. Although Clinton remains in office, numerous politicians, political pundits, and media commentators continue to condemn his extramarital affair with Monica Lewinsky while she was a White House intern as immoral and reprehensible.Many outspoken Republicans have raised questions about how the American people could continue to have confidence in their political leaders, government institutions, or the rule of law when a president who lied to the public, lied under oath, and obstructed justice remains in office. Others ask how they can explain this immoral behavior and thwarting of the law to their children, especially in light of all the salacious details that were made public in Special Prosecutor Kenneth Starr's report on the Clinton-Lewinsky affair.News of a possible extramarital affair between Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky during the 1995–96 period surfaced in January 1998, coming to light in the course of investigations related to Paula Jones' sexual harassment lawsuit against the president. Tapes Linda Tripp made of her conversations with Monica Lewinsky and turned over to Starr's office confirmed the allegations. What followed was a year-long exposé as details of the affair gradually tumbled into the public domain. The year ended with the House voting for impeachment on December 19, 1998, and the new year began with the Senate voting not to remove Clinton on February 12, 1999.

Sex, Politics, and Public Opinion: What Political Scientists Really Learned From the Clinton-Lewinsky Scandal

William Jefferson Clinton is only the second president to have been impeached by the House of Representatives. While he was not removed from office, roughly half of the Senate chamber voted him guilty on the perjury and obstruction of justice charges that the House formulated as articles of impeachment in early February 1999. Although Clinton remains in office, numerous politicians, political pundits, and media commentators continue to condemn his extramarital affair with Monica Lewinsky while she was a White House intern as immoral and reprehensible.Many outspoken Republicans have raised questions about how the American people could continue to have confidence in their political leaders, government institutions, or the rule of law when a president who lied to the public, lied under oath, and obstructed justice remains in office. Others ask how they can explain this immoral behavior and thwarting of the law to their children, especially in light of all the salacious details that were made public in Special Prosecutor Kenneth Starr's report on the Clinton-Lewinsky affair.News of a possible extramarital affair between Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky during the 1995–96 period surfaced in January 1998, coming to light in the course of investigations related to Paula Jones' sexual harassment lawsuit against the president. Tapes Linda Tripp made of her conversations with Monica Lewinsky and turned over to Starr's office confirmed the allegations. What followed was a year-long exposé as details of the affair gradually tumbled into the public domain. The year ended with the House voting for impeachment on December 19, 1998, and the new year began with the Senate voting not to remove Clinton on February 12, 1999.

The Congressional Black Caucus and Vote Cohesion:Placing the Caucus Within House Voting Patterns

Roll-call votes of African American representatives are explored to dis cern more explicitly the ideological cohesiveness of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) and factors that affect vote choice. We use adjusted Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) scores. The adjustment corrects for changes in the ADA's scale from year to year. The analysis is carried out focusing on CBC coherence with respect to ideological voting and potential influences on Caucus unity We pool the CBC data from the period under investigation (1971-1996) to address the impact of vari ables identified as affecting roll call voting. The findings suggest that while there is considerably more diversity within the CBC than we some times imagine, African American representatives are more cohesive with the Black Caucus on roll call behavior than they are with either their regional or state party delegations. In addition, analyses suggest that sen iority, correspondence between the president's party and the CBC, presi dential policy preferences, percent black voters in the district, and elec toral margin of victory in the district may help explain variation in Caucus unity Finally, we conclude high vote cohesion is meaningful for the CBC and the representation of black interests in Congress.

The Congressional Black Caucus and Vote Cohesion: Placing the Caucus within House Voting Patterns

The Congressional Black Caucus and Vote Cohesion: Placing the Caucus within House Voting Patterns

Redistributing Values in Congress: Interest Group Influence Under Sub-Optimal Conditions

Empirical studies on the ability of interest groups to influence legislative voting behavior are mixed. Most legislative researchers, however, have avoided studying culture war issues, such as abortion, school prayer, or homosexuality These issues often exhibit extreme levels of conflict and low levels of public and/or legislative support, precisely those conditions under which interest group influence should be weak. My research fills this gap by examining the influence of lesbian and gay interest groups on legislative voting behavior from the 95th to 104th Congresses. I use an exchange theory of interest group/legislator relationships to construct empirical models of House and Senate voting on lesbian and gay issues. I hypothesize that legislative voting is driven by partisanship, ideology, religious beliefs, and constituency opinion, with interest group influence occurring at the margins. The results of multiple regression analysis suggest that interest groups may be able to influence legislative voting behavior even when conditions are sub-optimal. I suggest that interest group influence on culture war issues is conditional, but may be more visible simply because support has been relatively low.

The Textile, Apparel, and Footwear Act of 1990: Determinants of Congressional Voting

This article uses probit analysis to examine the effect of political and economic variables on the probability of senators and representatives voting favorably on the Textile, Apparel, and Footwear Trade Act of 1990. The results show that voting behavior by senators and representatives was significantly influenced by their party affiliations, the importance of textile and apparel employment in their states, and campaign contributions. Senate voting behavior also was significantly affected by the length of tenure in office. House voting behavior also was negative and signifi cantly affected by the percentages of states' agricultural employment, which is an important export sector.

Explaining house voting on the North American Free Trade Agreement

This paper analyzes representatives'; voting patterns on NAFTA. The public choice model posits that representatives vote to redistribute wealth to constituents. Evidence presented here indicates that the Heckscher–Ohlin model is appropriate to represent the redistributional effects of NAFTA. Using a three-factor variant of the Heckscher–Ohlin model, evidence is presented indicating that representatives voted to redistribute wealth to their geographical and electoral constituents. The ability of geographically concentrated interests and of special interests to influence representatives' votes helps to explain the weak party allegiance demonstrated on the NAFTA vote.

Changing Support for Civil Rights: House and Senate Voting, 1963-1988

Changing Support for Civil Rights: House and Senate Voting, 1963-1988

Changing Support for Civil Rights: House and Senate Voting, 1963-1988

Cohort analysis allows systematic analysis of change in civil rights voting in terms of age, period, and cohort effects. Cohort analysis requires measurements of longitudinal, corss-sectional, and time-lag differences among members of Congress. While offering support for the generational replacement hypothesis, this research suggests that period effects, events in the congressional environment, are important to our understanding of change in civil rights over time.

Campaign Contributions and House Voting on Sugar and Dairy Legislation

AbstractIn this article, I explore the determinants of campaign contributions by sugar and dairy producer PACs and their role in voting on sugar and dairy legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives. Contributions and voting may be linked in two ways. First, a group can buy votes from a legislator who would otherwise not support the group. Second, it can help elect a legislator who is ideologically predisposed to support the group. Results indicate that the first linkage is not important. Virtually the entire observed association between money and voting is a result of the second linkage.

Party Dealignment and Policy Representation in the House of Representatives: Comparing Opinion-Policy Congruence in the 1950s and 1970s

This article compares the level of opinion-policy congruence in the U.S. House of Representatives before and during a period of party dealignment. Public opinion data on domestic and foreign policy issues from the late 1950s and the late 1970s are contrasted with House voting in the periods 1957-1960 and 1977-1980, respectively. Congruence within the Democratic party was lower in the latter period, although congruence within the Republican party improved. Institutional representation of public preferences declined over the period studied, largely as the product of an increasing discrepancy between Democratic identifiers and the Democratic party in the House.

Partisan Representation and the Failure of Realignment in the 1980s

This paper advances the concept of partisan representation and suggests that such representation plays a role in the process of realignment. Partisan representation focuses attention on how well the parties in Congress, as groups, represent their rank-and-file identifiers, as groups. Improved partisan representation within the advantaged party, as well as increased congruence between independents and the advantaged party should be important factors in transforming short-term electoral change into durable new patterns of partisan preference and voting behavior. Failure to represent well both existing identifiers and independents should inhibit the process of realignment. Since the public opinion data necessary to test this hypothesis are unavailable for any period of realignment, the hypothesis is tested by examining the failed realignment of the 1980s with the expectation that the relationship of Republican House voting patterns to the issue preferences of Republicans and independents in the mass public should not improve between 1980 and 1984. A comparison of public opinion with House roll call voting in the 97th and 98th Congresses supports the null hypothesis, as expected.