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Quality deer management (QDM) is the preeminent framework by which white-tailed deer are managed in the eastern USA. Historic differences surrounding the cultures, traditions, and regulations of deer hunting exist regionally between the Midwest and Southeast, yet no published study has investigated regional differences in attitudes and opinions of QDM among deer hunters. We surveyed 9,301 deer hunters across two Midwestern states (Missouri and Ohio) and two Southeastern states (Louisiana and South Carolina) and found that hunters across regions held similar motivations for deer hunting, as well as similar attitudes and opinions of strategies and expected outcomes of QDM. However, there existed several mismatches between the practices and ideology associated with QDM among Southeastern hunters. Southeastern hunters held greater support for greater antlered bag limits, protection of does, and supplemental feeding. We postulate that these mismatches are largely driven by regional differences in cultures, traditions, and regulations surrounding deer hunting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2020 redistricting cycle closely resembled recent cycles in many ways, but also differed substantially in others. I, therefore, begin by discussing some of the new, unique features of redistricting. Next, I extend existing work on the impact of different redistricting methods to 2022 and discuss how the trends in the most recent cycle compare to years past. From there, I discuss how the most recent redistricting plans could impact future elections. Finally, I conclude with a discussion of ideas for future research in the areas of gerrymandering, redistricting reform, and laws around how lines are drawn. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the 2020 election cycle, numerous national, state, and local organizations mounted campaigns designed to counter mis- and disinformation about election activities and to foster public trust in election processes. Local and state election offices focused intently on creating and disseminating accurate messages about when, where, and how to vote. Despite these efforts, trust in the 2020 election remained confoundingly low. This research analyzes this disconnect between messages from election offices and public trust by testing messages collected from election officials around the country using focus groups and a national panel survey experiment. We find that in focus groups, neutral messages that evoke local connections tested better than other types of messages. Further, messenger characteristics influenced whether participants trusted the messages. Using messages based on these findings, we fielded a survey experiment during the 2022 midterm election cycle, finding that the interaction between baseline trust, racial identification, and identification with the messenger moves trust. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research suggests that vetoes can be politically costly for the president. To date, however, these inferences have been made based on either descriptive or aggregate-level data. While prior work demonstrates a correlation between vetoes and evaluations of the president, they have not explored how the public evaluates or responds to veto politics. We seek to address this gap through an original survey experiment that assesses how the public responds to the heightened interbranch conflict that surrounds a veto. Our results indicate that although a veto can cast the president in a negative light for some, there are conditions under which Congress' decision to pass legislation it knows the president would veto can backfire. Citizens who are informed that Congress provoked a veto and those who are more politically knowledgeable are more likely to blame Congress for the legislation's failure, even after controlling for partisanship and approval. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the U.S. House and Senate differ in many significant ways, perhaps the most important is the ability of House leaders to control the legislative process through the usage of special rules, which establish the terms of debate on a bill and can limit the number and content of amendments allowed. House members of both the majority and minority party have complained about their recent increased usage. In contrast, the Senate lacks a comparable tool and scholars have reported sharp increases in the number of floor amendments being proposed. In this paper, we examine the increase in proposed floor amendments in the Senate; arguing that, in addition to an increased value from electoral position-taking, the procedures employed in the House influence the floor behavior of senators. Specifically, we find that senators are more likely to offer amendments to bills that were passed under a restrictive rule in the House. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: We explain evolving policy choices made by all 50 states in response to the coronavirus (COVID‐19) pandemic in the United States against the background of each state's political and public health landscape. Method: We create an index of eight state preventative measures and explain variation in that index by infection and death rates, vaccination rates, support for President Trump in 2020, and the political party of the governor. We control for population density and the health vulnerability of each state. Results: State response was largely driven by three factors: the death rate from COVID‐19, Trump votes in 2020 and Republican control of the governorship. Conclusion: Understanding state response to the pandemic requires going beyond a partisan lens and considering the shifting onus of responsibility for taking action to protect against the virus from states to individual citizens in an increasingly politicized sphere of pandemic response. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite winning the presidency in 2016, Donald Trump alleged "millions of illegal votes" and other election fraud. He continued using this rhetoric throughout his tenure as president and ultimately suggested that if he did not win reelection in 2020, it would be because it somehow was stolen from him. Through an original survey experiment, this article explores how such allegations of fraud influence the public's attitudes toward the conduct of elections, election outcomes, representation, and democracy as a whole. In doing so, we found that respondents expressed significantly and substantively more negative attitudes toward elections and democracy after being exposed to claims of fraud (even without evidence). Additionally, Republican identifiers were more likely than Democrats or Independents to doubt that their vote was counted fairly. These results bear important implications for our current understanding of politics in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The question of the effect of administrative arrangements on program administration and program outcomes is a central question for those interested in policy implementation. In the implementation of federal programs, the specific state-level administrative arrangements can have a significant impact not only on resource distribution patterns, but also on the ability of involved agencies to secure adequate state resources for the program. This paper addresses this question through the lens of the Clean Water State Revolving Loan Fund program designed to fund water quality infrastructure. Employing a dataset covering nearly thirty years of state-level data, we find that measures of administrative structure and state capability are more powerful explanators of state resource decisions than are more standard explanations of politics, needs, and ideology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As calls for renewed efforts to address the state of the nation's infrastructure grow across both partisan and ideological lines, they raise pointed questions regarding the nature of such efforts. For example, how do we pay for needed infrastructure? How do we set priorities among the many and varied needs across the nation? Most critically, should the national government play the central role in such an effort or is this task more appropriately left to the states? With Netzer's article in mind, we examine the core factors that a national infrastructure policy in the 21st century should consider. We illustrate these factors through the use of two exemplar cases: traditional wastewater infrastructure, and the infrastructure required to conduct free, safe, and fair elections. Contrary to Netzer, we contend that there are many advantages to employing a national policy in these areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic has presented many challenges to governments around the world. The federal structure within the United States has further complicated effective responses to mitigate the personal and economic effects of COVID. Here, we argue that the Trump administration's approach to federalism—highlighted by the pandemic—is incapable of efficiently and effectively addressing state needs and those needs are only going to grow as a result, further exacerbating the problem. This form of federalism, which we dub "transactional federalism," is likely to have deleterious effects on state infrastructure, much of which is already in need. The long-term effects of transactional federalism are likely to weaken state efforts to address critical infrastructure needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Legislative scholars have investigated both the growth in the incumbency advantage since the early 1970s and its decline in recent decades, but there are several unanswered questions about this phenomenon. In this paper, we examine the incumbency advantage across a much wider swath of history to better understand its connection with changing levels of electoral nationalization. Based on an analysis of U.S. House elections extending back to the antebellum era, we find that the incumbency advantage fluctuates in predictable ways over time with changes in nationalization, which can be a product of both institutional and political conditions. We also demonstrate that the increased influence of local forces in congressional elections may not be strictly necessary nor sufficient for the existence of an incumbency advantage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Politicians routinely campaign on a large platform of new policies and policy changes they hope to pursue once in office. Presidents, however, are unique in their ability to accomplish this given the multiple avenues by which they can enact policy change. Using each presidential agenda between 1964 and 2010, we evaluate the circumstances under which a president's policy goal is realized via an executive order or a law passed by Congress. Previous studies have only considered these avenues independently, but when we consider them in concert with one another, new patterns emerge. Our results indicate that a president's proposal is most commonly addressed in tandem with Congress through the traditional legislative process. However, the level of polarization, presidential approval, the composition of government, and the type of issue being addressed increase the probability of a proposal being addressed unilaterally via executive order rather than by passing a law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: Scholarship on the U.S. Senate has demonstrated the pivotal role the presiding officer can play when asked to interpret the chamber's rules and precedents. Therefore, our objective is to broadly evaluate how questions of order are arbitrated in the U.S. Senate. Methods: Using a multinomial logistic regression, we estimate the effect of partisanship on adjudicating questions of order in the Senate before and after the institutionalization of the parliamentarian. Results: Our results indicate that while short‐term partisan interests play an important role in determining how presiding officers interpret rules and precedents, the emergence of the Senate parliamentarian in the 1920s served to reduce uncertainty regarding procedural matters in the chamber. Conclusions: This change has led to fewer instances of partisan rulings on questions of order and raised the costs of executing a drastic change in Senate procedure via unorthodox procedures. However, the introduction of the parliamentarian has not reduced the likelihood a ruling is overturned. As such, more narrow procedural changes have been used to support majorities over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2018 House midterm elections saw Democrats regain a majority in the chamber for the first time in almost a decade. Contributing to this partisan change was the difficult situation Republican House incumbents were subject to. This article will examine the different factors contributing to the Republicans' loss including the role of ideology in candidate success in both the primary and general election stage, the effects of retirements and open seats, and the value of presidential endorsements and legislative position taking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In examining the factors that contribute to electoral success in congressional elections, legislative scholars often consider the actions of elected representatives; however, other research suggests that one must consider what challengers are (or are not) doing as well. For instance, inexperience and poor funding can significantly inhibit challenger success. We expand this list of potential shortcomings by arguing that ideological congruence with a constituency may be another factor in explaining challenger defeat. Using ideology measures derived from campaign contributions, we find that unsuccessful challengers in the U.S. House are generally more extreme than those who win, but ideological extremity is not a disadvantage to those seeking to represent an extreme constituency. More importantly, our existing political institutions may actually serve to mitigate the already high levels of partisan polarization in Congress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The constitutional placement of the vice president as the president of the Senate gives procedural control of the Senate to an individual who is not elected by the chamber. We argue that because the vice president frequently acts against the wishes of Senate majorities, senators have been reluctant to allow chamber power to be centralized under their largely unaccountable presiding officer. This fear has had a major influence on Senate development, preventing the Senate from allowing its chair to reduce dilatory action, as the House has done. Accordingly, delay, via the filibuster, has become commonplace in the Senate. Such delay has reduced the Senate's efficiency, but has largely freed it from the potential influence of the executive branch. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A number of states have empowered independent redistricting commissions (IRCs) to redraw legislative districts each decade following the US Census. Reformers see IRCs, which have binding authority and political independence, as a solution to the practice of gerrymandering and have proposed using them throughout the United States. With less incentive to protect incumbents, do IRCs adhere more closely to traditional redistricting principles, such as drawing compact districts, maintaining continuity, and respecting political subdivisions? We examine a large sample of congressional and state legislative districts and find that, relative to legislatures, IRCs tend to draw more compact districts, split fewer political subdivisions, and may also do a better job of preserving the population cores of prior districts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses two unique cases observed during the 115th Congress and discuss what they represent for the current and future state of the U.S. Senate and its changes to rules and practices.