Political Upheaval and Congressional Voting: The Effects of the 1960s on Voting Patterns in the House of Representatives

1976 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 326-345 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara Sinclair Deckard
Fontanus ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter F. McNally

In Canada and throughout the Western world, the 1960s was a tumultuous decade of student unrest and social/political upheaval. For Quebec, the 1960s was also the decade of la Revolution tranquille/Quiet Revolution, when francophone society’s self-definition underwent fundamental change. For McGill University, the decade’s changing environment required enormous adaptation: maintaining and extending academic programs and standards, restructuring governance and administration, expanding the physical plant, accommodating growing enrolment, seeking adequate funding, and adjusting to Quebec’s changing reality. A wide range of primary and secondary sources is available in recounting the story of McGill’s role in Quebec during the 1960s.ResuméAu Canada ainsi que partout ailleurs dans le monde occidental, les années 1960 furent une décénnie d’agitation étudiante et de perturbations sociales et politiques. Au Québec, les années 1960 furent aussi la décénnie de la Révolution tranquille, durant laquelle la manière dont la société francophone se définissait elle-même a subi un changement fondamental. Dans le cas de l’Université McGill, les transformations de l’environnement durant cette période ont nécessité énormément d’adaptation: le maintien et l’expansion des programmes et des normes académiques, la restructuration de la gouvernance et de l’administration, l’agrandissement des installations, l’accomodation du nombre croissant d’inscriptions, les efforts déployés pour assurer un financement adéquat, et l’ajustement de l’Université aux changements vécus par le Québec. Un large éventail de documentation primaire et secondaire est disponible pour relater l’histoire du rôle de McGill au Québec durant les années 1960.


Author(s):  
Bethany Rex

Max Ernst was a painter, sculptor and printmaker. He was born in Germany, but he lived in Paris and then New York; he returned to France in the 1960s. An encounter with Ernst’s work reveals an unconventional frame of reference marked by a ceaseless search for new forms of expression — forms capable of responding to an era of fragmentation and a loss of faith in the Enlightenment ideals of reason and progress. Ernst was an early leader of Dadaism in Cologne and a central member of the surrealist movement. Indeed, his work is full of intentional contradictions and red herrings, yet it is possible to detect technical and thematic foci throughout his oeuvre: birds, forests, petrified cities and the natural sciences. In order to give form to the visions of his unconscious mind, Ernst developed a number of semi-automatic methods of creation: ‘grattage’ (scraping paint from the canvas); ‘frottage’ (taking rubbings); ‘decalcomania’ (a form of image transfer); and ‘oscillation’ (swinging a pierced paint can so as to drip paint on the canvas). His approach was partly derived from Sigmund Freud’s (1856–1939) psychoanalytic theories, an influence shared by the surrealists Paul Éluard (1895–1952) and André Breton (1896–1966). Taking war as his primordial experience, Ernst wrestled with multiple forms of expression to produce an extensive and enigmatic body of work that limns the experience of living in a period of bewildering social and political upheaval.


ILR Review ◽  
1987 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 163-179 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregory M. Saltzman

This study measures the impact of labor and corporate political action committee (PAC) contributions on the voting of members of the House of Representatives on labor issues during 1979–80. It also analyzes the allocation of labor PAC contributions among House candidates. PAC contributions were found to have a significant direct effect on roll-call voting, even controlling for the Representative's political party and characteristics of the constituency. Since PAC money also affects roll-call voting indirectly (by influencing which party wins elections), the overall impact of PAC money on Congressional voting is probably substantial. The author also finds that labor PACs have focused more on influencing the outcome of elections than on currying favor with powerful members of the House who are likely to be re-elected anyway.


1962 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 58-65 ◽  
Author(s):  
William H. Riker ◽  
Donald Niemi

In some recent discussions of roll calls in Congress a model of interacting blocs has often been adopted and to a considerable degree verified. This model assumes the existence of several fairly cohesive blocs along with, perhaps, some unattached members. Furthermore, it is assumed that some of these blocs are fairly consistently opposed on roll calls, while others ally now with one side, now with the other. This model is attractive, not only because it accords with the usage of journalists, but also because it seems to provide a rational explanation of what sometimes appears to be the almost random confusion of Congressional voting behavior. As the evidence here presented suggests, however, this model is somewhat too neat and requires modification to account for shifting alliances over (often relatively short periods of) time. In a trial, reasoning from the assumptions of this model, we attempted to pick out those blocs and members who shifted from side to side. We were, however, unable to do so except in a few instances, largely, we believe, because the model as heretofore developed is static.


2002 ◽  
Vol 96 (4) ◽  
pp. 819-820
Author(s):  
Nicol C. Rae

The rise of partisanship in Congress has been one of the most conspicuous features of American politics during the 1990s. David Rohde's (1991) Parties and Leaders in the PostReform House demonstrated that much of this rise in partisanship could be attributed to the convergence in congressional voting between Northern and Southern Democrats. Since the New Deal, the latter had traditionally allied with Republicans on many issues in a bipartisan conservative coalition that generally dominated both Houses of Congress and constrained liberal legislative outcomes. While Rohde and Barbara Sinclair (Legislators, Leaders and Lawmaking, 1995) have emphasized how institutional rule changes in the 1970s created a much greater incentive for party loyalty among member of Congress, relatively little attention has been paid to the extent to which enhanced partisanship in Congress has been driven by “bottom-up” electoral imperatives. Stanley Berard's new book on Southern Democrats in the House convincingly shows that major changes in the southern electoral environment were equally important in promoting convergence in the voting records of Northern and Southern Democrats, leading to a more partisan House overall.


1956 ◽  
Vol 50 (4) ◽  
pp. 1023-1045 ◽  
Author(s):  
David B. Truman

Recent controversies over the degree of responsibility displayed by American parties have underscored at least one feature of voting in the Congress. Whatever the merits of the contending interpretations and demands, the facts adduced on both sides suggest relatively fluid, unstructured voting patterns, especially in the House of Representatives. Although the party label is clearly the single most reliable indicator of congressional voting behavior, it is admittedly somewhat less than perfect. The individual Representative may fairly often dissent from the views of most of his party colleagues, not only on matters of local or minor significance but also on issues of national or even global import.The Representative's “independence” is most commonly, and in a good many instances accurately, ascribed to peculiarities of his constituency which generate demands for a non-conforming vote or, perhaps more frequently, are expected to be the source of recriminations and penalities if he does not display independence of his party colleagues on certain types of issues. But the Member of Congress is by no means always able to predict the electoral consequences of his choices even though he is sure that they may produce repercussions in his district.


2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 165-168
Author(s):  
SARAH HILL

We are now reaching the last flurry of half-century commemorations of the 1960s. What is striking in these backwards glances – most recently, fifty years since 1967’s Summer of Love, and fifty years since ‘1968’ – is the truncation of events, the conflation of ideas, the simplification of meaning. Years and eras are impossible to encapsulate in sound bites or longer narratives of public memorialization, so music often serves as a convenient shorthand; yet popular songs of 1967 and 1968 only occasionally spoke to contemporary events, and more often skated over the surface of deep cultural rifts and political upheaval. What we now retain is a sort of shared mythology – 1967 was peaceful, 1968 was violent – that complicates our ability to see the past in the present. As I aim to show here, the 1960s continue to resonate today in ways that force us to confront history, for as William Faulkner wrote, ‘the past is never dead. It's not even past.’


Author(s):  
Adetunji Ogunyemi

This article examines the essential issues in the economic development of Nigeria in the 1960s as shown in all the budget speeches presented to the parliament by her first indigenous Finance Minister, Festus Okotie-Eboh. The study highlights the Minister’s efforts to obtain parliamentary approval for the Appropriation Bills laid by his government before the Nigerian House of Representatives in Lagos. The purpose being to underscore the role of the individual in shaping the course of the development of any nation. Hence, the study identifies the fiscal policy orientation upon which the key programmes and projects reflected in such speeches were built. It also establishes the extent to which the projects were achieved. The study concludes that Chief Okotie-Eboh’s parliamentary speeches on Nigeria’s federal budget, though loaded with oversized literary niceties, were still, rather than depictive of a mere display of endless parliamentary filibustering, indeed, a veritable part of the sources of Nigeria’s public history.


2000 ◽  
Vol 94 (3) ◽  
pp. 665-676 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Stratmann

The proposed model predicts that voting behavior of legislators is more variable early in their career and that junior members are more likely to vote with their party than senior members. The results from the analysis of voting patterns in the House of Representatives and the Senate are consistent with the hypotheses: Party line voting and variability of voting decisions decline with increasing seniority. Changes in voting behavior are also induced by redistricting. The empirical results show that legislators subject to redistricting change their voting behavior to accord better with altered constituency preferences.


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