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Within the modern United States Congress, a member of Congress has several pressures that influence their behavior: party, information, re-election, good policy, and personal characteristics. These factors interact and create a set of incentives for a given member of Congress. Partisanship is generally considered the most predictive quality but a steady and increasingly influential body of literature suggests that female members of Congress have different policy opinions than men and act differently as legislators. This paper aims to measure gender's role in the delicate balancing act that manifests in a given member of Congress. Using a series of multiple linear regressions, this paper finds that Republican women are more likely to vote the party line than Democratic women but female Republicans used to vote in a more liberal manner than their male colleagues. Secondly, this paper finds that ideology used to be the dominant factor in predicting support for women's issues but ideology now shares it's importance with party, suggesting a rise in Congressional polarization. Lastly, this paper investigates the role that gender salience in greater American society plays within the institution of the United States House of Representatives. These three broad inquiries attempt to add to the understanding of what goes into a member of Congress' vote choice and describes the relative significance gender holds in this calculus. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper assesses the extent to which Democrats and Republicans disagree over policy in the U.S. Congress. No one disputes that the parties are increasingly voting differently from one another, but this papers calls into question the popular conception that the parties’ policy stances are also becoming more divergent. An examination of cosponsorship reveals that bills, prior to being placed in the meat grinder of the legislative process, are as bipartisan now as they have always been. Furthermore, I present evidence that shows that it is the actual procedural machinations on the floor of both the House and the Senate that have driven the parties apart. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the impact on Congress of many types of collective action-demonstrations, lobbying, speeches, etc.-for 60 policy proposals on the congressional agenda 1989-90. For well over 30 years, researchers have systematically collected data on political activities from newspaper articles and estimated their impact on policy change. Most often the data have been on protest and its impact has been gauged for a single issue. This paper advances this research tradition in four ways. It (1) analyzes congressional action on a stratified random sample of 60 policy proposals; (2) uses data on all forms of political activity aimed at influencing congressional action on those proposals, as described in the press; (3) searches many publications in order to find data on as much political activity as possible; and (4) tests hypotheses about how much collective action there is likely to be, and about which types are especially likely to have an impact. There proves to be very little collective action; most of it is associated with a small number of proposals, while most proposals evoke little or none; the lack of collective action limits its impact. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our objective in this paper is to establish the relevance of informal networks in the diffusion of innovations among members of the U.S. House of Representatives. We do this through a cross sectional analysis of the variation of the quality of members' official Internet home pages, focusing in particular on the timeliness of the information each site makes available. We take timeliness as a good proxy for each office's organizational attention to using this form of communication technology. In this paper, we test for the diffusion of this attention to websites through communication among congressional state delegations. That is, we test whether a member is more (less) likely to attend to her website if others in her state delegation also are more (less) attentive. The inferential challenge in any spatial diffusion study is to distinguish between a spatial diffusion process from effects that merely result from spatial heterogeneity, or unmeasured confounding variables that are spatially correlated with the patterns of communication. We use nonlinear conditional autoregressive models to test for the presence of spatial heterogeneity by making use of district adjacency data, and exploit the (partially) ignorable state boundaries that separate some adjacent districts into different states to distinguish between diffusion and heterogeneity. Using this estimation strategy, and holding constant other determinants of website quality, we find that attention to websites is strongly driven by communication within state delegations, and especially so among co-partisans within states. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is well known in the literature that reputational concerns can cause experts to distort or hide their private information in order to appear competent. In this paper we consider the incentives of a career minded overseer to act in the public interest. The sequential nature of oversight means that once an overseer is called to act - either to accept or veto a proposal - it is already revealed what the executive making the proposal believes should be done. If the executive is thought to be competent, the overseer will be reluctant to reveal that they agreed with the executive's proposal, in which case oversight is useless. We show that a --partisan'' overseer -- i.e., one who cares not only about her own reputation but also seeks to damage the executive's -- would be more willing to block misguided proposals. This prevents the information of the overseer from being wasted and results in a better outcome. The paper can be dowloaded at http://pantheon.yale.edu/~jf398/partisanship.pdf ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I seek to understand the relationship between the objective and subjective indicators of the U.S. economy and the policy process. Specifically, I examine Congressional attention to --recession,'' a general economic constriction characterized by two consecutive quarters of negative growth in a given year. To best understand how Congress goes about tackling such a complex phenomenon as a recession, one must first determine what influences .x000d.Congressional attention, and second, describe the general content of that attention. In this paper, I do both by examining both economic data as well as debates in the Congressional Record, and I argue that citizen concerns about the U.S. economy drive the economic policy-making process in a recession. As a result, Congressional attention to major economic problems often lags market developments considerably, which raises serious questions about the efficacy of any Congressional policy to deal with the issue. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research examining party polarization in Congress has concentrated on documenting the sources of polarization, but little work has been done regarding the consequences of polarization. This paper takes a step towards remedying this oversight by examining the affects of party polarization on the size and content of the legislative agenda. Using time series analysis, the study examined the affects of partisan polarization on the legislative agenda. As the parties in Congress become more ideologically distinct the majority party has more incentive to control the agenda. Additionally, members of the minority party should look to place more significant bills on the agenda to try to force the majority party into a negative voting record. Therefore, it is expected that higher polarization will lead to a larger number of significant issues being placed on the congressional agenda and to an increased effort by the majority party to control the floor agenda. This paper examined the number of significant issues on the agenda and percentage of bills on the House floor introduced by majority members. Time series models using data from the 80th (1947-48) through the 107th (2000-01) found evidence that polarization leads to an increase of majority party bills on the floor agenda, but found no evidence for any effect on the overall size of the significant issue agenda. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the face of substantial growth in the proportion of Latinos in the United States to become this nation's largest minority group, so too has their descriptive representation in the U.S. Congress risen from a handful of members to a number just over twenty in the most recent legislature. But what does this mean for the substantive representation of Latinos? Despite a general literature on Latinos in politics, surprisingly little scholarship exists on Latinos as members of Congress, and, quite naturally as a first important step, that scholarship focuses on substantive policy representation as measured by legislator roll call voting behavior. Focusing on the seven Latino legislators currently serving in and around the Los Angeles area of California, this paper takes a step toward broadening our understanding of substantive representation from policy representation inside the legislature to a consideration of what legislators do and how they portray themselves to their constituents. Building on the work of Richard Fenno on home styles, the paper seeks to understand substantive policy representation over and above the roll-call voting stage and to place that representation in the context of the wider set of legislative activities. Findings indicate that, at least for these seven legislators, the descriptive representation which has brought more Latino members of Congress certainly has translated to increased substantive representation. Additionally, a closer look at home styles of these members demonstrates a variety of styles legislators have used to represent Latino interests. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using never-before-published/cited historical materials from archives holding deceased legislators’ papers around the country, this paper compares the amount and quality of oversight performed by Congress in relation to CIA during the Truman/ Eisenhower presidencies. McCubbins and Schwartz suggested in the 1980s that legislative oversight varies in relation to events/conditons in the American political environment, and that oversight resembles a fire alarm process, rather than systematic police patrols. This paper shows such variation in comparing three years: 1950, 1955, and 1958, with the oversight being by far the most vigorous in 1958, but confirms that congressional oversight in that era was never systematic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this proposed paper we expand on the earlier research by Garand and Procopio (1995), who used data from the 1992 American National Election Study (ANES) to model popular support for term limits as a function of a variety of variables, many of which are found in the scholarly literature. However, unlike previous work Garand and Procopio include independent variables representing the effect of characteristics of U.S. House members, especially seniority. Garand and Procopio suggest that, controlling for the effects of other variables, citizens will respond to the characteristics of their representatives and adjust their support for term limits accordingly. For instance, they find that citizens represented by House members with high seniority are less supportive of term limits than citizens represented by junior members. We propose to extend this general model to data from the 1994 and 1998 ANES surveys. We also propose to consider whether public opinion on congressional term limits is shaped by the configuration of partisan identification and partisan control of Congress. With rare exception, previous research on support for term limits in the mass public has focused on the pre-1994 period in Congress, during which time both the U.S. House and U.S. Senate were controlled by the Democrats. Such a focus does not allow for a full longitudinal test of the connection between partisan attitudes and attitudes toward term limits. Specifically, previous research has found that Republican identifiers are much more likely than Democrats to support term limits, but it is unclear if this is an integral part of being a Republican or if support for term limits would change once the Republicans are in control of the U.S. House and U.S. Senate. We speculate that Republican support for term limits in 1992 was based in part on self-interest, insofar as Republicans did not have majority status in the Congress at that time; on the other hand, we speculate that, once control of Congress shifted to the Republicans with the 1994 congressional elections, support for term limits among Republican citizens should have declined and support for term limits among Democrats should have increased. In this proposed paper we will utilize data from the 1992, 1994, and 1998 ANES surveys, which are the only ANES surveys that include items on support for term limits. We estimate a series of models to explain variation in individuals’ support for congressional term limits. Our core model includes demographic variables, as well as variables measuring political attitudes, system support, legislative support, and political knowledge. We also intend to include characteristics of respondents’ House members in our term limit model; these characteristics will include members’ seniority, the ideological distance between respondents and their House members, and estimates of grant funds brought to each district, among others. Moreover, we consider the mediating effect of political knowledge on the effects of these variables on support for term limits. Following Garand and Procopio, we suggest that high- and low-knowledge citizens use different kinds of information in shaping their attitudes toward term limits. Finally, we focus particular attention on how the effects of partisanship on support for term limits varies under periods of Democratic control of Congress (before 1994) and Republican control of Congress (after 1998). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Substantial effort has been made by scholars of legislative behavior to discover what motivates members of Congress. This literature has evolved from conceptions of members as motivated by reelection interests (Mayhew 1974) to more expansive analyses of legislators? behavior (Parker 1992, Hall 1996, Sinclair 2002). Contemporary scholarship in the field now understands members as acting to maximize a variety of goals and interests, including personal policy objectives. However, few scholars sufficiently account for the influence of members? personal policy interests on their legislative activity, largely because of the methodological difficulties inherent in doing so. Using both quantitative and qualitative analysis, this paper attempts to demonstrate the manner and extent to which personal policy interests are manifested in the legislative activities in which members engage. Informed by participant-observation, the paper relies on member interviews to reveal personal policy reasons for engaging in legislative activity in Congress. Findings suggest that a substantial amount of what members report are their top accomplishments and priorities are those issues that members have a personal interest in because of their previous occupation, experience, or identification with a group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2002 redistricting cycle renewed questions of how districting affects the nature of legislative elections and Congress generally. In this paper, we address several questions. How have congressional districts’ partisan composition changed overtime and why? What are the electoral consequences of these changes overtime and in the foreseeable future? Finally, what can be done to make congressional districts more competitive? This paper is an assessment of partisan stratification. A confluence of social forces has generally contributed to partisan stratification in legislative districting over the last four redistricting cycles. Urban economics and migration studies conclude that ethnic and racial segregation have not only been very slow to break down, but have also been reinforced by white mobility to suburbs (Cutler, et. al. 1999; Massey and Denton 1993). Additionally, the suburbs that blacks and nonwhite Hispanics move to are only slightly less segregated than the urban neighborhoods left behind (Gimpel 2000). Other studies demonstrate growing economic stratification particularly within the largest metropolitan areas (Epples and Platt 1998). Political trends have not slowed this social and economic stratification. The increase in majority minority districts during the 1990 redistricting cycle strengthened the electoral and institutional effect of partisan stratification. Technology has also enabled political cartographers to draw finer district boundaries. Geographic information systems (GIS) programs allow mapmakers to anticipate political implications of smaller unit changes in district boundaries (Monmonier 2001). We show that there has been a clear decline in the proportion of districts that conform with county or other political boundaries over the two several districting cyles particularly as a compactness criteria has given way to demographic and computer-driven districting. The paper is organized as follows. We discuss the concept and evidence of partisan and social stratification in congressional districts overtime. Next, we report a clear decline in the proportion of electorally competitive congressional districts over the preceding 40 years coinciding with stratification, particularly those electorally competitive districts held by congressional moderates. We measure the electoral effect of stratification separate from incumbency, campaign finance and other effects. We then measure the electoral effect of stratification in the 2002 redistricting showing a 20 percent decline in the proportion of electorally competitive congressional districts in the recent cycle alone. Finally, we model where and why these lost competitive districts occurred demonstrating relationships between electoral competitiveness and state districting rules. This study contributes to literatures on districting and political demography generally by measuring the electoral consequences of partisan stratification. It also contributes to existing work by assessing the impact of state districting rules on electoral outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars and pundits alike believe that presidential campaigning in midterm elections can and does make a meaningful difference in electoral outcomes. Moreover, since presidential resources are finite, scholars contend that presidents are strategic in their choices of where and for whom to campaign. Further, the overarching goal of improving future chances of the successful passage of the president?s agenda through Congress is assumed to be the key factor in the crafting of a president?s midterm strategy. Despite the overwhelming acceptance of this logic, little empirical evidence has been accumulated to determine if the president does indeed allocate his resources in such a way that would accomplish his goals, or whether such efforts pay dividends in subsequent sessions of Congress. In this paper, I test the contending explanations for presidential campaigning in midterm elections. I show that conventional scholarly explanations for presidential midterm behavior may be unwarranted, and suggest that we readdress our theoretical expectations for why presidents campaign in midterm elections. I also examine, albeit more casually, the relationship between midterm campaigning and subsequent support in Congress. The results of this analysis suggest that presidential midterm campaigning does not pay very great dividends in terms of subsequent support for the president?s agenda. Overall, the general implication of this paper is that, if presidents are attempting to approach midterm campaigning in a strategic fashion geared toward optimal allocation of their midterm resources and increased future support in Congress, they are not very successful at it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most work on legislators concentrate on what determines their decisions on individual roll calls. This paper instead examines when major policy changes occur. For these changes to occur, the policy coalition that previously rejected the policy must have been altered, and a new coalition forms that passes the legislation. Following Brady and Sinclair (1984) and Asher and Weisberg (1978), I examine whether or not the changes in policy coalitions (and subsequently, policy) are the result of replacement or conversion. Replacement occurs when a new member is elected to Congress, and her preferences are different from the previous occupant of the seat. Conversion occurs when current legislators change their position on a particular issue. The answer to this question indicates whether legislators are responsive to policy demands of their constituents, or major policy change only occurs with substantial electoral turnover. Most previous research is restricted to cases studies on particular policies; this paper tries to generalize the study to examine overall legislative productivity (using measures from Mayhew’s Divided We Govern and subsequent studies). Based on Krehbiel’s critique of Mayhew, legislative productivity is modelled as a function of changes in the gridlock region. The gridlock region shifts when there are changes in the distribution of legislator preferences, which are the result of either replacement or conversion. The paper examines whether the gridlock region primarily changes due to replacement or conversion, and then subsequently examines whether policy changes substantially with changes in the gridlock region. The analysis, which covers the 95th to 107th Congresses, requires estimates of the ideal points of Congressmen and the President that are comparable over time, as well as across institutions (i.e., the the House, Senate, and President must all be on the same scale). These estimates also must be able to separate the conversion and replacement effects. Most ideal point estimates over time either assume legislator ideal points do not change or place strong restrictions how they change, implicitly assuming only replacement effects shift the distribution of preferences. This paper provides such estimates, using methods of ideal point estimation based on Clinton, Jackman, and Rivers (forthcoming). Cross-institutional comparability is established with common votes in the House and Senate and presidential positions on votes in both chambers. The ideal points are modelled over time with either overlapping generational equality constraints or by following some dynamic process, such as those proposed by Poole and Rosenthal (1997), or Martin and Quinn (2002). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much scholarly research has been devoted to explaining why judges retire. Building upon research regarding the United States Congress, the existing literature suggests several reasons why judges might voluntarily depart the federal bench. These inc ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper looks at legislative choices in the judicialization of campaign finance policy. Examining roughly 90 years of campaign finance law prior to the 1974 Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA), I find that Congress usually maintained direct control over the policy, with very little judicial review. An important turning point came in the Watergate years, and my study uncovers an interesting motive behind the extensive judicial review provisions enacted in the 1974 FECA. From Buckley v. Valeo onward, political leaders have sought judicial review as a way of regaining their own control over campaign finance policy. Thus, while scholars often assert that judicial review has foreclosed reform, recourse to legal institutions was actually vital to legislative policymaking in the field. Congress needed to delegate policymaking discretion to courts, both to overcome internal conflicts over the rules and to entrench the policy for the future. In fact, the legislative history on campaign finance policy reveals something of a paradox: the more seriously legislators wish to restrict campaign finance practices among incumbents in the political branches, the less they are able to fashion those rules independently of courts. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates how the social network structure of House institutional arrangements affects legislative behavior. Traditional studies have focused.x000d.on how exogenous ascriptive characteristics affect member behavior. This study incorporates these measures with legislator social network data to see if and to what degree social interaction influences member action. I test the decision to cosponsor.x000d.another Representative's legislation. The results show that increasing social network contact between two members heightens the probability of cosponsorship. When both social network connections and mutual exogenous characteristics are considered together, we observe a substantial increase in the probability of cosponsorship. I use parametric and non-parametric models to arrive at this conclusion. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper assesses attitudes and basic knowledge in Congress about performance management; and identifies new types of institutional congressional performance-based oversight capabilities. Observers such as Elaine Kamarck (End of Government (2007)) dismiss Congress, placing emphasis on presidential initiatives. Prior to GPRA (1993), Congress held a monopoly on accountability-based oversight of agency programs. GPRA placed performance measurement on a different playing field, adding a potentially larger congressional role with a statutory base. Recent presidential initiatives have ignored Congress (presidentialization) while failing to lay a permanent basis for results-oriented government. In 2008, both presidential nominees made government reform a signature part of their campaigns-in 2009, the new President and his administration will encounter a Congress with increased institutional capacity to engage in performance monitoring. This research sheds light on Congress â€" the missing link in results-based government - arguing that performance measurement requires a “Hybrid” Cross-Institutional Method” where policymakers collaborate across both sides of the avenue. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the U. S. Congressional influence on the Agreed Framework between the U. S. and North Korea and its fulfillment in the Clinton administration. Specially, focusing on the Republican role on the agenda, this study will reveal how huge the Congressional influence on the Agreed Framework was. Recent studies on the issue have not paid enough attention to this role of the U. S. Congress in shaping the U. S. foreign policy toward North Korea. Most of these studies were merely descriptive without adequate analysis. As a criticism of such an approach, this study will show that the U. S. domestic factors had a bigger influence in decision making and execution of the policy than external ones. The Republican-led Congress' ideological and political attack on the Clinton administration doomed the engagement policy toward the North. This demonstrates that one has to pay attention to U. S. Congressional influence to understand the essence of the United States' North Korea policy. Revealing the limits of Clinton administration in shaping foreign policy toward North Korea, this study will help solving the North Korea issues by increasing attention to the structural changes in U. S. domestic politics. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The focus of this paper is on the relationship of the Federal Reserve vis-à-vis Congress, and in particular on the motivations of Members of Congress (MCs) as they oversaw the policy making decisions of the Fed from 1976 to 2008. We examine the evolution of congressional oversight of the Fed in order to better understand the thinking of MCs. Our approach is unusual in that it measures statistically the deliberations of Members of Congress in the House and Senate banking committees during the oversight hearings on monetary policy for eight periods (61 hearings) from 1976 to 2008. The reason for choosing this span of the history of US monetary policy is that it coincides with the Great Inflation of the 1970s, the radical action taken to cure that problem (initiated by the so-called Volcker Revolution of 1979), the subsequent period of stability and low inflation and ends with the early days of the current financial crisis. This was a period during which monetary policy also came to the forefront as the tool of macroeconomic stabilization. Some of our findings include: (1) MCs generally showed little interest in the detail of monetary policy making, seemingly willing to leave these details to the Fed; (2) MCs were actively engaged in challenging the Fed in the areas of governance, accountability and transparency; (3) the degree of challenge from Congress to the Fed appears to be negatively related to the success of the Fed in pursuing low inflation and stable economic growth; and (4) MCs of both parties failed to devote much attention to financial stability and bank regulation in the 1990s and early 21st century. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

President Barack Obama took office proclaiming an end to the partisan polarization that characterized presidential-congressional relations during the previous two administrations. I argue, however, that polarization is likely to continue unabated during Obama's first term. This is because the fundamental forces that cause partisan polarization in Congress were largely unaffected by Obama's election. The rise of partisan polarization in Congress, I argue, is traceable to a series of electoral and constituency-related developments dating back at least three decades whose cumulative effect has been to winnow out ideologically-moderate members from both the House and the Senate. That process has produced two ideologically cohesive and opposed congressional parties: liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans. It has also reduced presidents' incentive to reach across the political aisle for support in enacting their legislative agenda. I conclude the paper by exploring the possibilities for presidential influence in Congress during the contemporary era of polarized parties. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last several administrations, signing statements have become a significantly more important feature of executive power. The signing statement, which conveys a last mover advantage, allows the president to change the implementation or interpretation of a law when there is disagreement between the two branches. Prior literature has shown that the frequency of signing statements varies with presidential context. Our paper builds on prior work by focusing on the legislative context. Based on existing theory we empirically test hypotheses related to when and why signing statements occur. This examination will allow us to better understand the dynamic interaction of the president and Congress with respect to legislation. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is widely held among public law scholars and in legal academia that the drafters of Section One of the 14th Amendment worried about and intended to overrule Taney's holding in his per curiam opinion in Dred Scott v. Sanford. Taney held that African Americans never had been nor could ever be citizens of the United States. To prevent his holding from having a future effect Section One of the 14th Amendment voided it. But this view -- when tested using a simple tool from qualitative methods -- does not hold up. After demonstrating that this idea is exaggerated -- and made plausible primarly because of the rise and development of judicial supremacy -- the paper analyzes the legislative sources of constitutional meaning and of the definition of citizenship and links them to the incentives that congressional party politicians have to use Article V for party-building. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I model the effects of congressional members tenure .x000d.on their willingness to support the proposed position of the administration. The underlying logic of the model is straightforward; freshmen members of congress utilize the coattails of the incoming president to propel them into office. As their tenure in office carries on and the safety of their seat is solidified, their need for presidential coattails to secure election will diminish and their willingness to rally behind copartisans in the White House will become more erratic. Using the incoming cohort of freshmen congressmen following the Carter election in 1976 as a “working laboratory”, I test whether tenure in office has a significant effect on the probability that a congressman will support the president on a given roll-call. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Financial event studies are increasingly used to make inferences about political phenomenon. Recent studies applying this methodology to legislative studies suggests that the identity of the majority party in the chambers of the U.S. Congress has a statistically and economically significant effect on asset prices. However, this interpretation relies on an implicit assumption of strong-form market efficiency. This paper documents one potential obstacle to this interpretation: investor overreaction. I posit a political asset pricing model that generates investor overreaction. Using data on firms' campaign contributions and financial performance surrounding the unexpected change in the Senate's majority party in 2001, I find evidence consistent with the hypothesis of overreaction. Generally, the model and empirical findings cast doubt on inferences about political phenomenon drawn from financial event studies and, specifically, the conclusion that a strong-party theory of government explains legislative outcomes in the U.S. Congress. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Congressional conference committees serve a crucial legislative purpose: to reconcile bicameral disagreement. Though we articulate this fact in introductory government courses, in secret we offer a separate detail: conference committees are organized to advance the majority's preferred policies. The purpose of this paper is to assess these competing perspectives. Using data from the 104th - 110th Congresses I find that in the current era of strong parties, the bicameral function of conference committees—coordinating the behavior of both chambers—serves as an institutional constraint on the majority in their pursuit of party median policy. This is not to say that conference committees cannot be marked by party politics: quite the contrary. In assessing the two perspectives (the partisan and coordinating theories) I find that small conference delegations with non-jurisdictional conferees advance the policy goals of the majority party while large conference delegations with policy experts expedite the bicameral reconciliation process. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A critical aspect of policy design for Congress is the decision to allocate policy authority to different levels: national entities, state policy actors, or both. Bureaucratic delegation scholars, though, have not considered multiple levels in a federal system. Moreover, studies of policy decentralization overlook delegation decisions by not considering national, state, and joint national-state partnerships as different choices. In this paper I examine various competing arguments for why legislators delegate authority to national versus state-level actors. I construct an original dataset of authority within laws to investigate these alternative hypotheses. The results from these tests reveal that the reasons for and conditions under which national legislators choose various federal delegation strategies remain open questions. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Too much institutional conflict can inhibit landmark productivity in Congress, but so can too little conflict. Moderate conflict fosters productivity. The paper tests this thesis for all Congresses from 1857 to 1994. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents and analyzes the value of using team drafting games to learn ‘real’ politics. “Fantasy Congress,” an online game, allows students to draft members and examine the nature of Congress through actions of specific representatives. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores black Congresspeople's allegations of government "harassment" over the course of the past seventy years. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines member behavior in the 108th session of the House of Representatives on immigration and education bills to assess whether Latino members offer a greater degree of representation for Latinos than non-Latino members. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how immigration and population change in the U.S. will affect representation in the U.S. Congress. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines President Bush’s actions on stem cell research within the broader scope of changes in the party system. I provide evidence to show that President Bush's actions on stem cell research had an important impact on the public. I show that in this political confrontation with the public, Congress and the Republican leadership in Congress, President Bush's actions sent a clear signal to the Republican Party, which was picked up by rank-and-file Republicans and was translated into their shared policy preference. I argue that, from a party system perspective, when presidents go public they have an important impact on the public. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes (1) House members preferences for seats on oversight-focused subcommittees and (2) relationships between the amount of oversight that a subcommittee engages in and various member- and subcommittee-level covariates. These analyses suggest that participation in oversight hearings is a "second-best" activity for many members of Congress, who for various reasons are not able to otherwise influence policy outcomes. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies of the national media and Congress often gloss over differences between coverage of the majority and minority parties. This paper documents this disparity in the House and offers some insights into why it exists and its implications. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

More than any other institution, Congress has been the focus of theorizing about distributive politics. Canonical models of universalism, majority party control, and the median voter all generate clear and competing predictions about the relative influence that members of Congress wield in the legislative process, and hence their ability to direct benefits to their constituents. To date, though, empirical scholars have not examined the ability of these theories to explain one of the most fundamental functions of Congressâ??namely, how to allot program spending across districts. Using the most comprehensive dataset ever assembled on the geographic distribution of federal outlays, this paper subjects these three theories to a series of critical tests. We find very little support for any them, suggesting that our conventional understandings of legislative bargaining are, at best, incomplete. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we investigate the relationship between the Congress and Supreme Court with regards to congressional overrides. While the relationship between the Congress and Court can be contentious when it comes to judicial appointments and confirmation or charges of judicial activism there is some evidence in the literature that the two branches act in general harmony when dealing with overrides (Hausegger and Baum 1998). We test this proposition with a systematic analysis of the override relationship in the regulatory policy arena. We examine 16 Supreme Court cases between 1980 and 1989 in which the Supreme Court ruled that a federal or state agency erred in interpreting federal regulatory law. Of the 16 cases we examine, four were overridden by Congress. We perform case studies on these 16 cases to learn the commonalities and differences between the cases that might shed light on the extent to which the relationship between the Court and Congress was strained or cordial, and to find factors that might explain the nature of the relationship. We find that in regulatory policy, the relationship between the Congress and Court is not at all strained. In the 16 cases we examined, the Court most often cited clarification of the law as its interest in reversing agency action and often called upon the Congress to fix ambiguity and unclear language in statute. Furthermore, we found three common factors among the cases that might explain this cordial relationship: the mundane nature of regulatory policy, institutional deference through congressional intent, and a lack of inflammatory language in the majority opinion. We conclude that in the arena of regulatory policy, the Congress and Court have a very good relationship that includes none of the institutional rivalry or personal attacks that characterize judicial nominations or the high profile debate over judicial activism. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Do legislators' cognitive limitations affect which lobbyists they listen to and which advocacy arguments they accept or reject? In this paper I report my findings from an original experiment that simulates how lobbyists communicate with members of Congress. I recruited 139 Washington-based staff in House and Senate personal and committee offices to participate in an "in-box" simulation that asked them to learn about several policy issues and recommend a hypothetical health care policy agenda for the 110th Congress. The experiment is a 2 x 2 repeated-measures design with four experimental conditions. The experiment includes two within-subjects factors: (1) Advocacy Argument Quality and (2) Interest Group Credibility. The first factor is the qualitative nature of the advocacy argumentâ??normative or instrumentalâ??conveyed by a hypothetical interest group coalition. The second factor is the homogeneity of organizations that comprise the coalitions, with homogeneous coalitions being credible and heterogeneous coalitions non-credible. The point of the repeated-measures design was to nullify the alternative hypothesis that policy decisions are based entirely on pre-existing issue preferences. I am able to reject the null hypotheses and support my theory that legislative policymakers use argument quality and interest group credibility as cognitive heuristics when making decisions about policy priorities. I discuss the implications of my findings for the lobbying as legislative subsidy model and the deliberative theory of interest representation. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the effects of term limits on incumbent U.S. state legislator career decisions. First, I hypothesize that term limits influence career decisions in advance of the final term, as legislators strategically prepare for subsequent careers. Specifically, I hypothesize that the probabilities of retirement and higher office increase as legislators exhaust eligibility. Second, I posit that legislators serving under term limits are more responsive to open state Senate and U.S. House seats and that the probabilities of running for these open seats increase as legislators consume the term limit. Third, I hypothesize that legislators in term-limited legislatures are more likely to run for local office or accept non-elective political employment. I test these hypotheses employing two datasets of career decisions, electoral, and legislator demographic data in a general model of career choice. The findings support the hypotheses and indicate the intensity of political careerism and the strategic nature of responses to term limits. The results also suggest that while term limits stimulate legislative turnover, they also lead to the recirculation of careerists up and down the political career ladder. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I explain when politicization occurs in the U.S. federal government, focusing on the tradeoff between political control and bureaucratic competence. I analyze data on the percentage of political appointments among managers in 250 federal agencies over the 1988-2004 period. I show that politicization is neither increasing steadily over time nor caused by the actions of Republican presidents. Politicization increases when agency preferences diverge from those of the president and when agency outputs are relatively insensitive to changes in politicization such as when agency tasks are uncomplicated or when outside wages available to career managers are low. Politicization also increases during periods when Congress and the president share similar policy preferences. I conclude that politicization occurs in regular and predictable patterns and that understanding these patterns are essential for an understanding of American politics, public management, and the policy process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For what kind of policies are elected officials more likely to be responsive to public opinion? The limited research in this area has found varying degrees of strength in the relationship between public opinion and policy on different policy domains. But scholarship about this important question has been handicapped by a lack of adequate measures and estimates of constituency opinion on policy issues. In this paper, I use the unprecedented statistical power and breadth of the 2000 National Annenberg Election Study (NAES) to explore the representation of constituency interests in Congress in greater detail than has previously been possible. I examine the relationship between congressional roll-call votes and constituency opinion on 20 different public policy issues. I find that in the House of Representatives between 1999 and 2000, the roll-call votes cast by members of Congress were responsive to public opinion was significant on a wide range of policy issues, including abortion, military spending, education, crime, taxes and the environment. Democratic and Republican lawmakers are responsive to public opinion on substantially different subsets of policies, suggesting a typology of issue responsiveness that is highly dependent on the varying levels of credibility that parties establish with voters on different issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we examine the factors that affect the level of activity within the FCC?s Enforcement Bureau. We seek to determine whether variation in the Bureau?s activities can be attributed to changes in the political environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we collect and analyze individual-level data on a variety of congressional court-curbing measures, and the members who championed them, over the last several decades, in order to assess members? motivations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In its leading case, The Selective Draft Law Cases (1918), the Supreme Court combines bad logic and half-baked history with a result that is ultimately correct. This paper seeks the philosophic/interpretive foundation necessary for that result. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a Congress polarized along a single ideological dimension, the behavior of moderates--members of each party who are relatively close to the ideological center--is key to understanding a basic puzzle of representation: How do members represent multidimensional constituent preferences in a legislative environment that is polarized on a single dimension? On the basis of behavior by members of the 107th House, this paper suggests two components of an answer: First, members who are closer to the middle of the ideological distribution of roll call votes continue to represent distinct combinations of liberal and conservative positions on various issues. Second, different types of moderates engage in distinct patterns of bill sponsorship. Moderate Republicans are the group most likely to sponsor bills; moderate Democrats are least likely to engage in bill sponsorship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The passage of the 1974 Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act (CBICA) was supposed to enhance both legislative responsibility and fiscal prudence, wresting back ?the power of the purse? from the executive branch. But after decades of deficit politics, late or non-existent budgets, and the re-emergence of impoundments ? this time, Congressionally-sanctioned, through the Line-Item Veto Act ? the outgoing head of the Congressional Budget Office opined that ?the Congressional budget process is dead.? This paper explores that claim: thirty years later, has this aspect of post-Watergate resurgence crumbled like so much of its relatives in the resurgence regime? If so, why? I suggest that future study of this topic could gain leverage by systematizing game theoretic frameworks grounded in the conditions underlying the blame avoidance and credit claiming choices of legislators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholarship on the American Presidency seems to have reached a consensus that the largest determinants of Presidential success in the legislative arena is the number of seats controlled by the President’s party, followed by ideological affinity, and presidential public approval [e.g. Bond and Fleisher 2000; Edwards 1989; Jones 1994; Peterson 1990]. However there is still far more variance in Congressional voting behavior on Presidential requests left unexplained than has been explained by these factors. This paper examines the relationship between the relative popular vote received the President and the member of Congress at the District level from 1952-2000 and Congressional voting behavior. By looking at each individual to serve in Congress in the period, I create a panel dataset that can be analyzed with fixed effects for each individual who has served in Congress. The panel data analysis finds that, in addition to the factors identified in the existing literature, relative District level election results are an important indicator in determining the level of support members of Congress give to Presidential legislative requests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent scholarship on campaign financing has found that women are able to compete with men in terms of fundraising and spending in Congressional elections. This research simplifies women as a single block of candidates, obfuscating differences in party, region and political experience. Therefore, it is not clear from this research the context in which women are most well-served by their fundraising, nor whether their fundraising has conferred any advantages. In this paper I provide an in-depth comparison of the performance of female candidates in the House as incumbents, challengers and in open seats. Using campaign finance information from the Federal Election Commission records from 1980 - 2000, I trace women?s competition in elections for funds and the various sources of their campaign receipts. While most recent scholarship suggests that women candidates have realized success in fundraising by measuring their total receipts to those of similarly situated men, there are a number of contextual factors that further sublimate women?s fundraising. By comparing women candidates, this study proposes to determine the environment and context that furnishes women with the greatest opportunities for success. If fund-raising by women is contextual, many lessons can be drawn from this study for further representation of women in the United States Congress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars of the United States Congress have overlooked a major oversight tool available to, and used by, Congress to control executive agencies: limitation riders in appropriations bills. In this paper, I document the use of such riders in appropriations legislation from FY 1994 to FY 2003, argue that they constitute a major tool for political control that is underappreciated by scholars of the policy process, and test hypotheses about their use based on perspectives on congressional oversight, legislative organization, inter-branch policy making and the political environment in which agencies make policy decisions. I find support for majoritarian and conditional party government explanations of the use of limitation riders. I also find that conflict within the policy jurisdiction in which agencies make decisions leads them to be constrained by riders to a greater extent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why has Congress not considered amending the presidential election system since the 2000 election? This paper explores the contribution that the electoral landscape makes to such efforts. Since the last time that a chamber of Congress voted on reforming the Electoral College, several electoral structures have changed. Today, the state of these structures may make calls to reform the national electoral system less persuasive than during the mid-twentieth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]