Republican Members Of Congress Research Articles

Congress, ideological extremity, and Latino demography: understanding congressional adaptability in the face of Latino population change

ABSTRACT As Latinos settle in new locations across the U.S., Republican members of Congress (MCs) are increasingly faced with adapting their behavior to incorporate this ideologically variant group. I argue that Republican MCs adapt to changing district demographics through vigilant assessment of the makeup (percent Latino) and preferences (white racial threat attitudes) of their reelection constituency. Using data from 1971 to 2015, I demonstrate that Republican MCs roll-call behavior is increasingly conservative until the district Latino population reaches 37%, where they begin to incorporate Latino interests and reduce their extreme conservative fervor. Between 30-35% Latinos, Republican MCs exhibit the lowest level of dyadic district congruence, illustrating that they are cross-pressured by conservative whites and liberal Latinos within this range. These findings suggest that Republican members of Congress are already adapting to the growing Latino population in their districts in an unexpected manner and will only incorporate Latinos when electorally necessary.

Mask-Wearing as a Partisan Issue: Social Identity and Communication of Party Norms on Social Media Among Political Elites

This study draws on the social identity approach (SIA), to examine how political elites (i.e., members of the 116th United States Congress) communicated norms about mask-wearing on social media during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using Twitter data collected in 2020, we found that Republican members of Congress were significantly less likely to promote mask-wearing than Democratic members. We also observed some variations in norm-conforming behaviors among the members of each party. For Republicans, increased loyalty to the Trump leadership was significantly associated with a lower level of mask promotion. For Democrats, we found some evidence that loyalty to the party predicted higher levels of mask promotion. On the other hand, interactions with out-group members decreased adherence to party norms for both Republican and Democratic members of Congress. These findings allow us to better understand the social–psychological effects of party membership among political elites as well as the importance of leader–follower relationships and intergroup interactions.

Authors’ Response

Authors’ Response

Vandenberg Vanished: US Congress and the Politicisation of Military Interventions

Abstract This article examines the extent and patterns of politicisation in the field of military interventions for the USA after the end of the Cold War. The analysis shows that key votes on war and peace in the US Congress are contested to a higher degree than in the European parliaments. It finds that Republican members of Congress (MoC) are in general more supportive of military interventions than Democrats. At the same time, party loyalty towards the president influences the level of support. Furthermore, an original content analysis of congressional debates reveals that MoC use specific argumentative frames in line with partisan ideology. Both parts of the analysis point to the relevance of partisanship and partisan ideology for understanding the politicisation of military interventions policies. Thus, the traditional bipartisan spirit, paradigmatically invoked by US Senator Arthur Vandenberg during the Cold War, has almost vanished.

Moral-Language Use by U.S. Political Elites

We used a distributed-language model to examine the moral language employed by U.S. political elites. In Study 1, we analyzed 687,360 Twitter messages (tweets) posted by accounts belonging to Democratic and Republican members of Congress from 2016 to 2018. In Study 2, we analyzed 2,630,688 speeches given on the floor of the House and Senate from 1981 to 2017. We found that partisan differences in moral-language use shifted over time as the parties gained or lost political power. Overall, lower political power was associated with greater use of moral language for both Democrats and Republicans. On Twitter, Democrats used more moral language in the period after Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election. In Congressional transcripts, both Democrats and Republicans used more of most kinds of moral language when they were in the minority.

A New (Republican) Litigation State?

It is a commonplace in American politics that Democrats are far more likely than Republicans to favor access to courts to enforce individual rights with lawsuits. In this article we show that conventional wisdom, long true, no longer reflects party agendas in Congress. We report the results of an empirical examination of bills containing private rights of action with pro-plaintiff fee-shifting provisions that were introduced in Congress from 1989 through 2018. The last eight years of our data document escalating Republican-party support for proposals to create individual rights enforceable by private lawsuits, mobilized with attorney’s fee awards. By 2015-18, there was rough parity in levels of support for such bills by Democratic and Republican members of Congress. This transformation was driven substantially by growing Republican support for private enforcement in bills that were anti-abortion, immigrant, and taxes, and pro-gun and religion. We demonstrate that this surge in Republican support for private lawsuits to implement rights was led by the conservative wing of the Republican party, fueled in part by an apparent belief during the Obama years that the president could not be relied upon to implement their antiabortion, immigrant, and taxes, and pro-gun and religion agenda. We conclude that the contemporary Republican party’s position on civil lawsuits has become bifurcated, reflecting the distinctive preferences of core elements of their coalition. They are the party far more likely to oppose private enforcement when deployed to enforce business regulation, while embracing it when deployed in the service of rights for their social conservative base.

Food Stamp Policy is Failing. Here’s Why.

Nearly 12% of Americans struggle to put food on the table.1 The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly referred to as food stamps, has played a significant role in reducing hunger and the effects of inequality in America. In 2017, SNAP provided aid to 42 million Americans, with ⅔ of the beneficiaries being elderly, caring for children, or being disabled.2,3,4 The program has been threatened by Republican members of Congress whose plan would put millions of Americans in a state of food scarcity by mandating stricter work hour requirements . This initiative is misguided since an expansion of the program, rather than a reduction, is needed to improve the nation’s health, economy and efficiency of tax-payer spending . This article will dive deeper into the comparison between current policy and the ideal expansion, explaining how the latter is necessary for many in the working class to survive.

Dissenting Statement of Commissioners Gail Heriot and Peter Kirsanow in the Report of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights: Increasing Compliance with Section 7 of the National Voter Registration Act

In August of 2016, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights issued a report entitled Increasing Compliance with Section 7 of the National Voter Registration Act. This Dissenting Statement was a part of that report. It discusses the fact that Section 7 of NVRA (which requires certain state agencies, including division of motor vehicles offices, to provide voter registration materials) and Section 8 of NVRA (which requires states to keep their voter rolls up to date and uncluttered) go together. The need for the latter was most acutely felt by Republican members of Congress, while the need for the former was most strongly felt by Democratic Members. In essence, they were a package deal. Nevertheless, in recent years, the Department of Justice has been far more interested in enforcing Section 7 than Section 8. Moreover, it has interpreted Section 7 far beyond its text. The package deal has become unraveled. Such policies make future legislative compromise less likely.

Political Opportunism, Position Taking, and Court-curbing Legislation

ABSTRACTAlthough there is extensive scholarship on court-curbing efforts directed at the U.S. Supreme Court, much less is known about bills targeting the lower federal courts. This article argues that members of Congress also engage in position taking with respect to the U.S. Courts of Appeals, by proposing legislation to divide up the Ninth Circuit. Over seven decades, no other circuit has attracted as much court-curbing legislation as the Ninth Circuit, and yet no bill has succeeded. What accounts for this persistent focus on one court? We argue that bill sponsors are motivated primarily by electoral considerations and capitalize on the perception of the Ninth Circuit as an extremely liberal court. Using an original dataset of all bills to split the Ninth Circuit, we find that sponsorship of splitting bills is linked to legislator party, ideology, and state public mood relative to California, and that only conservative, Republican members of Congress are responsive to performance-related indicators, such as caseload increases and Supreme Court oversight. The results suggest that our current understanding of court curbing as it applies to the Supreme Court can be extended to new judicial contexts.

How the Republican Party Used Supreme Court Attacks to Pursue Catholic Voters

Changes in Catholic voting behavior, as well as Republican Party (GOP) strategy documents, suggests that congressional attacks on the United States Supreme Court played an unrecognized role in the GOP’s efforts to appeal to Catholic voters in the 1960s and 1970s. Republican members of Congress used court-curbing proposals to publicize and take conservative positions on three key social issues: school prayer, busing, and abortion. These stances fit with majority Catholic preferences on these topics. Congressional attacks on the Court—in all three issues—played a heretofore unrecognized role in garnering enough Catholic votes for the GOP to compete for national majorities. Consequently, this research argues that the relationship between attacks and coalition-building deserves future scholarly attention.

Federal performance budgeting and the US system of separation of powers: an examination of the program assessment rating tool

This paper offers insight into how the US system of separation of power may have interfered with the implementation of the Office of Management and Budget's Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART), by examining the extent to which Congress was exposed to PART and how legislators' overall sentiment toward the tool changed during the six years it was utilised. Two sets of analyses were conducted including an aggregate level analysis and a more disaggregated level content analysis of references to PART. The findings of the aggregate analysis suggest that congressional PART exposure was moderate with exposure to PART increasing over time. The more disaggregated level analysis revealed that sentiment toward PART was initially negative, but turned more positive over time; and that legislators' direct involvement in discussions about PART increased over time, particularly among Republican members of Congress. This suggests that continuous exposure to an executive performance tool such as PART may have contributed positively toward removing barriers to implementation.

Institution of Nomination and the Policy Ideology of Primary Electorates

Institution of Nomination and the Policy Ideology of Primary Electorates ∗ Seth J. Hill † September 29, 2015 Abstract Many hypothesize that the divergence between Democratic and Republican members of Congress is partly attributable to partisan primary elections. Yet most empirical evidence on the influ- ence of primary elections finds small to no effect on member behavior. I argue that existing designs that compare members elected out of nomination systems with more open rules of ac- cess to members elected out of more closed systems rest on the crucial and untested assumption that more closed institutions lead to more polarized primary electorates. With survey opinions, turnout validated to voter files, and an IRT model of ideology, I characterize the preferences of Democratic and Republican primary electorates and general electorates in each House district in 2010 and 2012. To the extent that there is a relationship between primary ideology and closed primary institution, it is in the direction opposite that hypothesized. I then show that the primary electorate diverges from the general electorate in every House district and even from supporters of the party in the general election in almost every district, which is consistent with a centrifugal influence of primary voters. These results suggest that institution of nomination may not have a large influence on the type of voters who turn out, and that some other feature of nominating contests must be implicated in polarized primary voters. ∗ I have benefited from comments by seminar participants at Princeton, Stanford, UCLA, and Washington Uni- versity, Andy Hall, Greg Huber, Gary Jacobson, Thad Kousser, Jeff Lewis, Sam Popkin, Chris Tausanovitch, Lynn Vavreck, the editors, and anonymous reviewers. † Department of Political Science, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive #0521, La Jolla, CA 92093-0521; sjhill@ucsd.edu, http://www.sethjhill.com.

Congressional ‘drug warriors’ and U.S. policy towards Colombia

In the late 1990s, the Colombian National Police became the central channel for U.S. material and symbolic support to that country, thanks in large part to the work of a cohort of Republican members of Congress known as the ‘drug warriors.’ In the Congressional sphere, debates over the impact of illicit drug use often began with the abused bodies of American youth, but debates over the appropriate response frequently focused on the bodies of Colombian police and military as the site of suggested state intervention. Drawing on Judith Butler’s analysis of what deaths are grievable in the public sphere, I examine how the Colombian National Police came to be positioned as the central object of policymaker solidarity. Travel played a central role in the construction of distinct sensory, affective and moral geographies: Congressional delegations focused on militarized technology, weaponry and enacted scenarios of counternarcotics operations. These excursions were channeled into larger political fields valorizing militarized expertise and delineating the boundaries of appropriate policy debates. This analysis illuminates the ways in which Congressional debate and practice played a central role in U.S. foreign policy during this period, through an examination of how Congressional expertise was constructed and deployed, which foreign policy actors were selected as the object of U.S. official solidarity, and how the boundaries of policy debate was constructed through a focus on military knowledge.

Fiscal year 2013 energy department budget: Proposed investments in clean energy research

Energy and environmental research programs generally fared well in President Barack Obama's proposed budget for the Department of Energy (DOE) for fiscal year (FY) 2013. In his State of the Union address, Obama called for the United States to pursue an “all of the above” energy strategy that includes fossil fuels, as well as a variety of renewable sources of energy. The DOE budget request supports that strategy, Energy Secretary Steven Chu said in a 13 February press briefing announcing the budget proposal. The proposed budget gives DOE $27.2 billion overall, a 3.2% increase from the FY 2012 enacted budget (see Table 1). This budget “reflects some tough choices,” Chu said. The proposed budget would cut $4 billion in subsidies for oil and gas companies; many Republican members of Congress have already indicated that they oppose such cuts, suggesting that congressional approval of this budget may run into stumbling blocks. The budget would also cut funding for research and development projects that are already attracting private‐sector investment or that are not working, and would reduce some of the department's operational costs.

Jury Discrimination: The Supreme Court, Public Opinion, and a Grassroots Fight for Racial Equality in Mississippi

Jury Discrimination is a book of many parts. In one, Christopher Waldrep tells how two lawyers cooperated in 1906 to achieve, if only for a brief time, the racial integration of juries in Mississippi. This story is told in accessible prose that will appeal to general readers. Other parts of the book deal with the notion that defendants have a right to be tried by a jury of their peers; the congressional debate over the privileges and immunities clause of the Fourteenth Amendment; and the Supreme Court's subsequent interpretation of that clause. The discussion of these matters does justice to the complexity of the points at issue but is written in a way that will appeal only to scholars who specialize in legal history. The Fourteenth Amendment asserted, “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States.” What did that mean? Was this language intended to effect a sweeping change in the relative power of the state and federal governments? Did it authorize the central government to protect the rights of individuals—including the right to serve on juries—from infringement by local authorities and groups? Even among Republican members of Congress, there was no consensus, and Waldrep acknowledges that most people in many ratifying states did not understand that the privileges and immunities clause contained revolutionary possibilities. “The question of just what power the nation now had over the states” was, Waldrep writes, “uncertain, ambiguous, and subject to judicial interpretation” (p. 85).

Health Reform Opponents May Undo MH Access Expansion

Health Reform Opponents May Undo MH Access Expansion

Retirements, Retentions, and the Balance of Partisan Power in Contemporary Congressional Politics

In this paper we extend earlier work on the effects of disparate retirement rates on the partisan composition of the contemporary House of Representatives (1954–2006). Gilmour and Rothstein had posited that the Grand Old Party's (GOP) ‘permanent minority’ status in the House between 1954 and 1994 was the principal cause of this differential. Contrary to expectations, we find that even after their takeover of the House in 1995, Republican Members of Congress (MCs) continued to leave the chamber voluntarily at higher rates than their Democratic colleagues, both to retire completely from public life and to seek higher office. Ceteris paribus, even as the GOP made considerable offsetting gains in its ability to re-elect incumbents and to retain open seats, this continued disparity significantly attenuated the size of their legislative majority and contributed to their ousting as the majority party in the elections of 2006. We conclude the paper with some speculations regarding the reasons for the persistence of relatively high rates of Republican retirements.

APA, AMA Call for Reforms In Medicare Payment Formula

Back to table of contents Previous article Next article Government NewsFull AccessAPA, AMA Call for Reforms In Medicare Payment FormulaRich DalyRich DalySearch for more papers by this authorPublished Online:6 Oct 2006https://doi.org/10.1176/pn.41.19.0017APA has joined other physician groups in urging Congress to replace a 5.1 percent cut to Medicare's physician payments scheduled to take effect in January 2007 with an increase that reflects the actual costs of providing medical services.“This is critical to ensure that Medicare can meet the medical needs of its beneficiaries,” said APA's Department of Government Relations in a statement sent to APA members.APA also urged Congress to replace the formula used to determine physician fees—the sustainable growth rate (SGR)—with a formula more closely linked to the rate of medical inflation.The physician groups are not alone in their crusade. Many senators and representatives have signed letters to congressional leaders asking that the cut be reversed. Although legislative momentum had not materialized by press time, many Republican members of Congress who are facing their tightest re-election races in years said that the issue that affects 700,000 physicians who treat seniors in the Medicare program is an important one to them.AMA leaders regard the physician reimbursement issue as a bipartisan problem and noted that a bill to reverse the payment cut was no more likely to go forward if Democrats took control of the legislature.“Offering a road map on the issue is legislation—HR 5866—that would erase the scheduled payment cut while arming Medicare beneficiaries with more information on the quality of physician care,” said Rep. Michael Burgess (R-Texas) in a House floor speech.The physician fee cut stems from a 1997 measure that sets limits on annual Medicare fee increases for physician services and mandates cuts if the limits are exceeded. Medicare spending has risen dramatically in recent years because of the increasing volume and complexity of services. At the urging of physician groups and others, Congress froze 2006 fees at the previous year's levels to prevent a 4.4 percent cut required by the SGR, which was the fourth consecutive year Congress did so. Members of Congress and Bush administration officials agree that slashing physician fees by 40 percent over the next nine years is not feasible.Although the federal government expects to pay physicians about $60 billion in 2007 under medicare, congressional staff and AMA officials could not agree on the total additional amount needed to reverse the cuts.The AMA aims to convince Congress to delay the physician payment cut for up to two years while a reimbursement system that is fair to physicians and doesn't increase the burden on taxpayers can be developed. APA and other physician groups favor replacement of the SGR with fee updates based on the Medicare Economic Index (MEI), an approach offered under HR 5866.The AMA is working with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to design 140 quality measures as the foundation of a new fee system. But much more work is needed, as only some medical specialty societies have developed potential benchmarks.“It's fantasy to think that we're going to create a system to address quality issues in the next 30 days,” said AMA board member William Hazel Jr., M.D., in a teleconference last month with members of the media.In the short term, the AMA warned that the scheduled cut in Medicare payments to physicians would force many to limit the number of older americans they see as patients. In fact, nearly half of the physicians responding to an AMA survey in March said they would stop taking on new Medicare patients or would reduce the number of Medicare patients they see if the 2007 cut is carried out.The public is concerned as well: The AMA reported that 86 percent of the people responding to a survey it recently conducted were worried that physician payment cuts would hurt their ability to get care (see page 17).“Those cuts could hinder the great strides we have made in health care and healthy living,” said Hazel.CMS officials agree on the need for a revised system, but they said they want an approach that rewards physicians for quality care rather than paying by the quantity of office visits, tests, and procedures they provide.The AMA launched a legislative blitz in September that encouraged physicians and the public to pressure Congress into rescinding the cut to physician fees.“We're hoping the public will now pressure Congress to act,” Hazel said.Further information on the Medicare payment to physicians is posted on APA's Web site at<www.capitolconnect.com/apa/alertdetail.aspx?AlertID=28>.▪ ISSUES NewArchived

The Policy Partnership: Presidential Elections and American Democracy

The Policy Partnership: Presidential Elections and American Democracy. By Bruce Buchanan. New York: Routledge, 2004. 160p. $90.00 cloth, $24.95 paper.Imagine that George W. Bush had run for reelection on a detailed program of Social Security reform that he could point to after his inauguration as a plan that had been considered and endorsed by the American people. Jittery Republican members of Congress, wary of making substantial changes to a popular program, could take comfort in the political shelter afforded them by voters who had, through the vehicle of the presidential election, already ratified the broad blueprints of the Bush plan, and opposition Democrats would feel pressure to come to the table to address the people's will. Similarly, imagine that John Kerry had opposed President Bush with a detailed plan of his own for making Social Security solvent, which, had he been elected, would have for the same set of reasons facilitated broad bipartisan support and congressional action.

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act and What Came After

Editorial| April 01 2003 The Sarbanes-Oxley Act and What Came After Frank O. Bowman, III Frank O. Bowman, III Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Federal Sentencing Reporter (2003) 15 (4): 231–233. https://doi.org/10.1525/fsr.2003.15.4.231 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Frank O. Bowman; The Sarbanes-Oxley Act and What Came After. Federal Sentencing Reporter 1 April 2003; 15 (4): 231–233. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/fsr.2003.15.4.231 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu nav search search input Search input auto suggest search filter All ContentFederal Sentencing Reporter Search This content is only available via PDF. ©© Regents of the University of California Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.