Does Winning Matter in Congress? Connecting Roll Call Success and Electoral Performance in the U.S. House of Representatives

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregory Robinson
Keyword(s):  
House Of Representatives ◽  
Roll Call ◽  
Electoral Performance ◽  
The U.S

scholarly journals When Church Teachings and Policy Commitments Collide: Perspectives on Catholics in the U.S. House of Representatives

2008 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 113-136 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth A. Oldmixon ◽  
William Hudson
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
House Of Representatives ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Catholic Social Teaching ◽  
Small Sample ◽  
Social Teaching ◽  
Roll Call ◽  
The U.S ◽  
Church Teaching

AbstractThis article investigates the influence of religious values on domestic social policy-making, with a particular focus on Catholics. We analyze roll call votes in the 109th Congress and find that Catholic identification is associated with support for Catholic Social Teaching, but both younger Catholics and Republican Catholics are found less supportive. In followup interviews with a small sample of Catholic Republicans, we find that they justify voting contrary to Church teaching by seeing its application to most domestic social issues as less authoritative than Church moral teachings on issues like abortion.

Gender Turnover and Roll-Call Voting in the U.S. House of Representatives

2004 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 215-229 ◽  
Author(s):  
LESLIE A. SCHWINDT-BAYER ◽  
RENATO CORBETTA
Keyword(s):  
House Of Representatives ◽  
Roll Call ◽  
Roll Call Voting ◽  
The U.S

The Dimensionality of Parliamentary Voting

2019 ◽  
pp. 838-852
Author(s):  
Keith T. Poole
Keyword(s):  
House Of Representatives ◽  
General Assembly ◽  
Roll Call ◽  
Berlin Wall ◽  
Dimensional Representation ◽  
National Assembly ◽  
One Dimensional ◽  
Technical Issues ◽  
Un General Assembly ◽  
The U.S

The chapter discusses different ways to estimate the dimensionality of roll-call voting data. These methods use data from the U.S. House of Representatives, and the author shows that there were periods when a two-dimensional representation was necessary and others when a one-dimensional representation captures all but a relatively small percentage of the variance. The author then considers data from the UN General Assembly from before the fall of the Berlin Wall, finding a communist vs. anti-communist dimension and a pro- and anti-Israel dimension, as well as data from the French National Assembly early in the 5th Republic that finds a one-dimensional representation fits nearly perfectly. The author then considers some more technical issues about best methods, concluding that there is no foolproof way of determining the “true” dimensionality of a roll-call matrix, and no substitute for substantive understanding of the politics and policy shaping the roll calls.

A Further Look at Universalism and Partisanship in Congressional Roll Call Voting

2000 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 399-399 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian J. Gaines ◽  
Brian R. Sala
Keyword(s):  
Time Series ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Negative Correlation ◽  
House Of Representatives ◽  
Inverse Relationship ◽  
Time Span ◽  
Roll Call ◽  
Roll Call Voting ◽  
Legislative Activity ◽  
The U.S

This note extends Melissa P. Collie's “Universalism and the Parties in the U.S. House of Representatives, 1921–80,” American Journal of Political Science 32, 4 (November 1988): 865–883. Detecting a strongly negative correlation between the time series of universalism and partisanship in roll call votes for the 67th through 96th U.S. Houses, Collie concluded that consensus and partisanship are alternative, rival means of organizing legislative activity. If robust, this finding ought not to be time- or chamber-specific: it should be in evidence over the whole (partisan) histories of both House and Senate, session by session. Moreover, the inverse relationship should persist under alternative operationalizations of both partisanship and universalism. Using several measures of partisanship and universalism, mostly based on roll call votes tabulated for sessions of Congress, we reassess this relationship for the 43rd through 105th Congresses. Collie's core finding persists for both chambers over the longer time span provided that one uses her measures. But results are weaker when sessions of Congress rather than Congresses are used as units of observation, and alternative operationalizations of partisanship and universalism do not strongly replicate the original finding.

scholarly journals Exploring Responsiveness in the U.S. House of Representatives

2018 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 58-85
Author(s):  
Philip D. Waggoner
Keyword(s):  
House Of Representatives ◽  
Legislative Behavior ◽  
Roll Call ◽  
Roll Call Voting ◽  
Majority Party ◽  
Electoral Connection ◽  
Bill Sponsorship ◽  
The Voice ◽  
The U.S

Legislators are elected to be the voice of their constituents in government. Implicit in this electoral connection is the responsiveness of legislators to the preferences of constituents. Many past approaches only examine successful legislative behavior blessed by the majority party, not all legislative behavior, thereby limiting inference generalizability. I seek to overcome this limitation by considering bill sponsorship as an outlet in which all members are free to engage. Testing expectations on bill sponsorship in the 109th and 110th Congresses, I find that legislators are responsive, though only on “safely-owned” issues. I compare these findings to roll call voting on the same issues in the same Congresses and find a different pattern, suggesting legislators leverage bill sponsorship differently than roll call voting as they signal legislative priorities.

The Electoral Impact of Congressional Roll Call Voting

1971 ◽  
Vol 65 (4) ◽  
pp. 1018-1032 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert S. Erickson
Keyword(s):  
House Of Representatives ◽  
Strong Support ◽  
The Political ◽  
Roll Call ◽  
Electoral Support ◽  
Select Group ◽  
Electoral Impact ◽  
Election Results ◽  
Political Spectrum ◽  
The U.S

This paper presents evidence that candidate issue positions have a measurable impact on elections for the U.S. House of Representatives. For eight election years, electoral margins of Northern incumbent congressional candidates were examined to test the proposition that “moderates” within each party are better vote getters than those whose roll call records reflect their party's ideological extreme. The effects of roll call positions on election results were estimated by examining the relationships between roll call “extremism” and vote margins with district presidential voting held constant as a control for normal constituency voting habits. Although no strong support was found for the proposition that Democratic Representatives lose electoral support when they take extremely liberal roll call positions, a clear pattern emerged for Republicans: the Republican Congressmen who are the best vote getters tend to be the relative moderates and liberals who avoid the extreme conservative end of the political spectrum. An analysis of survey data suggests that the small group of voters whose electoral decisions are influenced by their Republican Congressman's roll call performance are found within the ranks of a select group who are both free of strong partisan motivations and highly politically informed.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document