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Overview:One determinant of the parties' ability to resist the median voter may be constituency size. We test this proposition with a measure of legislator ideology that is directly comparable to voter ideology, using referenda votes as bridging observations.Abstract:At the state and local level throughout the United States, there is considerable variation in the power of parties to control nominations, structure legislative voting, and compel non-median behavior from elected officials. Some of this variation stems from the range of institutional arrangements that govern parties. For example, more stringent rules on primary participation may result in the nomination of more extreme candidates (Fiorina 1974; Gerber and Morton 1998). Long periods out of power may also cause parties to unify while nominating more centrist candidates (Bawn et al 2006). Lee and Oppenheimer (1999) suggest a role for constituency size in determining partisanship. They find that senators from larger states tended to be policy activists, while those from smaller states tended toward more centrist behavior.In this paper, we investigate the role of constituency size in inducing party strength. Masket's (2007) study on this phenomenon was hampered by an important methodological barrier; any study that tries to determine whether legislators are more or less partisan than constituents must make very strong assumptions about the ideological scales of those two populations. Even if we accurately measure preferences with legislative votes and with electoral returns, the scales from both measures are arbitrary, and not the same.This is a common problem in the literature, to which we offer a possible solution. We propose to bridge the two populations using referenda, on which the legislature and the electorate both vote. They thus serve as bridging observations between the two distributions (e.g. Bailey 2007). We explore several critical features of this strategy. First, legislators can only vote yea or nay, but electoral districts can pass or fail a measure by any margin. We develop strategies for using that additional information without compromising the goal of comparability. Second, any further application of this strategy will suffer, since referenda are scarce. So we attempt to quantify the additional leverage gained by adding more bridging observations, and the dangers of having too few. This paper would be appropriate for panels on methodology, political parties, state politics, representation and nominations. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Partisanship is a non-legal factor that could wield considerable influence over the judicial decision-making process of state court judges. This paper considers the effects of partisanship on judicial decision-making by examining Ralph Nader's ballot access litigation in the 2004 presidential election. Specifically, this study analyzes 109 votes cast by state trial, appellate, and supreme court judges from fifteen states regarding the question of whether Nader should be granted ballot access. I hypothesize that Democratic judges would be less likely to rule in Nader's favor compared to Republican judges. After controlling for several factors that could influence judicial decision-making, the preliminary probit analysis suggests that partisanship is not a significant factor that predicts a judge's ruling. Instead, state judges were more likely to defer to the initial ballot access decision of the state election authority when ruling in these cases. Thus, even in a highly partisan electoral environment, it appears that judges did not allow partisanship to influence their legal decisions. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we look again at the distinction between independent voters "leaners" and partisans. We find some important similarities between "pure" independents and independents classified as "leaners." We argue that although independent leaners may be similar to partisans on some measures, they are behaviorally and attitudinally distinct from partisans in important ways. Even more importantly, the behavioral similarity between partisans and leaners changes when there are more than two candidates on offer. The behavioral similarity of leaners to partisans emphasized in previous studies can thus be understood as a product of the forced choice between the two parties that typifies the American political system. When more options are available, independent leaners take advantage of those options and do not remain loyal to the two big parties in the same measure as partisans. The position of independent leaners in the US is thus loosely analogous to the position tactical voters in multi-party systems in that they are compelled by the party system to choose between the lesser of two evils. Our argument suggests that earlier results and interpretations of independents reflected the specific two party choice settings of the 1950s through the 1980s. Furthermore, even assuming a behavioral similarity to partisans, leaners have distinct attitudes towards politics and the political system that put them far away from being standard Michigan model-type voters. We begin by presenting a brief review of the sizable literature on this topic. From here we present some simple evidence that supports an alternative interpretation of leaners as neither partisans nor "pure" independents, but as "critical citizens." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses issues in the political sector in the U.S. as of January 2016, particularly mass partisan polarization, electoral accountability, and congressional representation. Also cited are the alleged negative effects of polarization on the quality and responsiveness of the country's representative government, the effect of social identity polarization on responsible party government theory, and the various types of representation like authoritative representation.

The promise of social media in American politics has been democratization and equality of access, but there is little research into how social media is used to advocate for policy preferences. Morality politics and interest group theories provide a framework for this study which examines the use of 'insider' social media lobbying tactics by state LGBT interest groups. Using content and regression analyses, data collected from the Twitter output of fifty-nine state-level LGBT interest groups for the period January-May 2015 suggest that direct or 'insider' lobbying accounts for only a small portion of LGBT interest group social media activity; and, variation in the use of such tactics can best be explained by state partisanship, partisan competition, and the distributions of citizen and elite values -- not by institutional or environmental factors. This study also highlights a discrepancy in social media tactics within the LGBT movement, as the most significant source of variation appears to be a transgender-specific organizational mission. Finally, this study contradicts the idea that social media provides equality of access as interest groups with more resources are more likely to directly contact elected officials via social media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the oldest and most enduring debates in American Politics involves the endogeneity of party identification to the issue preferences of American citizens. More recent interest in the nature of party identification has shifted the terms of the debate from whether one view or the other dominates individual decision-making to a consideration of factors that condition the direction of causality (Carsey and Layman 2006, p. 645). Carsey and Layman's research points to the need for more theoretical consideration of which factors condition the relationship between policy preferences and partisanship. In this paper, I seek to examine the heterogeneity in the issue-basis of party identification by drawing on another classic literature concerning the uncertainty that citizens have about politics. The empirical analysis will employ an estimation technique used by Alvarez and Brehm (1995, 1997) in which heteroskedastic regression is used to directly model the error variance of the respondent's own issue placement, which is used as a measure of individual uncertainty. After controlling for an extensive list of demographic characteristics, I argue that the error variance encompasses not only lack of knowledge about the respondent's issue position, but also the use of cues and shortcuts from the social environment. Uncertainty in this broader sense of within group variation in issue placement is expected to condition the issue-basis of party identification. The estimated error variances from the first stage regression are then interacted with the respondent's issue placement in a second-stage ordered logit regression of party identification. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research concerning representative relationships between constituents and members of Congress has shown that the opinions of partisans within a district correspond highly with co-partisan representative roll-call voting behavior. However, this congruence, though strong, is rarely perfect. In fact, some legislators stray from their party and partisan opinion within their districts far more often than those who voted them into office would like. When it comes to holding a disloyal representative accountable, however, members of said representative's party within a district have few options; they cannot abstain in the next election or vote for another party for fear of losing the seat and guaranteeing even less opinion correspondence in the future. This paper explores the possibility that engineering and supporting primary challenges serves as one weapon partisans can wield to not only send a signal to their member of Congress that his or her votes do not align with partisan opinion as strongly as they should, but also to, should their member of Congress survive the primary challenge, encourage said member to return to the partisan fold in future terms, chastened by the electoral opposition faced. Using data on House and Senate members that captures ideology, experience, electoral success, and district opinion, this paper will determine whether members of Congress who act out of step with their party and partisans in their district are more likely to face primary challenges and, following such challenges, are more prone to moving back into line with the prevailing party ideology in future voting situations. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Robert P. Steed (email: steedr@citadel.edu) will present this paper, if accepted. Abstract:Partisan change in the South over the past half century has been dramatic. Not surprisingly, research on the southern Republican Party has focused largely on those areas and electoral levels where growth has occurred. Much less attention has been given to those mountain areas of Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee where the party historically enjoyed its main support. Traditionally, mountain Republican activists and organizations differed from their newly developing counterparts in urban/suburban areas of the South in terms of demographics, ideology, and party activity. Analysis of data from the Southern Grassroots Party Activists Survey I (conducted in 1991) suggests that these differences still exist as of the 1990s and still carry potential consequences for intra-party unity in the region (see Steed, Baker and Moreland 1995).The paper proposed here will extend our previous analysis into the early Twenty-first Century. Utilizing data from the Southern Grassroots Party Activists Survey II (conducted in 2001), the paper will compare mountain Republican activists with non-mountain Republican activists in Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee with regard to personal and political backgrounds, activity patterns, ideological and issue orientations, and party perspectives and will examine whether or not there are continuing differences between these two groups of party officials with a view toward understanding the place of mountain Republicans within the southern Republican Party during a period of rapid partisan transformation. The paper will also address the larger issue of the nationalization of southern party politics as it relates to these mountain regions.The data for the paper come from the south-wide survey of local party officials (precinct officers and county chairs) funded by an NSF grant and directed by Charles Prysby and John Clark (for a description of the project, see Clark and Prysby 2004). References:Robert P. Steed, Tod A. Baker, and Laurence W. Moreland, "Forgotten but not Gone: Mountain Republicans and Contemporary Southern Party Politics," Journal of Political Science 23 (1995): 5-27.John A. Clark and Charles Prysby, Southern Political Party Activists: Patterns of Conflict and Change, 1991-2001, University Press of Kentucky, 2004). ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on a study to examine link between economic voting and strong incumbent showings during poor economic times in the U.S. Topics discussed include impact of non-partisan voters on election outcomes, recent partisan trends across the industrialized world, and national election surveys of Great Britain, New Zealand, and Canada. It further discusses micro-level factors affecting economic voting.

The article offers information on a study to examine non-political aspect of citizens' lives in the U.S. related to strength of their partisan identification, and also analyzes the attachment to their political identity and the attachment to their religious identity. It also contributes to the political science research by discussing a theory from the field of psychology and relating it to partisan strength. It also informs about social identity theory.

Utilizing six surveys of political attitudes and behavior for a local community in Ohio (from 1980 to 2005), the author demonstrates that gender based age cohorts change their reported party identity in different directions at different times, suggesting that socialization to political life may vary across time and with gender. It is further suggested that the concept of party identity may embrace multiple meanings and that gender/age cohort groups may attach different meanings to their avowal of attachment or lack of attachment to political parties, meanings that lead to different responses to ongoing political contexts and stimuli. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Harking the calls made by Londregan (2000) and Patty and Penn (2004) for an inclusion of the realities of legislative scheduling and agenda setting into empirical analysis of legislative business, I examine a simple procedure in the United States House of Representatives, approving the Journal, and its implications for legislative business. In particular, following a suggestion made by Sinclair (1995), I examine the hypothesis that such votes are more than simply pro forma motions or dilatory tactics by the minority party. Rather, the taking of such a vote represents a signal (perhaps to members of the House, but at least to the analyst) that the day’s ensuing business is important to at least one party’s leadership and that it is expected to be a close vote. Considering the 102nd-107th Congresses, I show that a recorded vote on the Speaker’s approval of the Journal indicates that the legislative day’s business will be both more contentious (i.e., recorded votes have a smaller margin of passage) and more partisan (i.e., recorded votes are more likely to be “party unity” votes). In addition, the fit of Poole’s Optimal Classification estimates for legislators’ preferences is higher for recorded votes taken on such days. In addition, I discuss the marginal effect of the type and timing of legislative business on these findings, as well as the identity of who calls for the vote on the Journal. Of particular interest are the differential effects for appropriations and “procedural” matters. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This simulation introduces students to the judicial confirmation process, the motives behind various players, and the partisan politics involved in filling vacancies in the federal judiciary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the importance of partisanship in U.S. congressional members' support for environmental measures. Role of partisanship in structuring environmental voting; Factors that influence legislators in voting on environmental legislation; Methodological difficulties associated with including member ideology as an independent variable in environmental voting.

Existing studies of the impact of party pressures on legislative outcomes in the U.S. House have been hampered by a lack of quality evidence about which bills and resolutions considered by Congress are the target of sustained leadership lobbying. Using the archived papers of former party leaders, we have identified all roll call votes that were the subject of formal party whip activity by House Democrats, 1955-86, and House Republicans, 1975-80 and 1989-94. We use these data to categorize all floor roll calls that occurred in the House during these periods by whether or not they were selected as party issues by one or both parties, and then evaluate a number of hypotheses about the roles of parties and leaders in the chamber and the evolving scope and contents of the Democratic and GOP issue agendas. The results shed valuable new light on the foundations of party power in Congress and the explanatory power of leading party theories. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we examine legislative elections over 40 years, particularly in the South. Has the shift from one-party Democratic south to (increasingly) Republican south been one marked by competition or conversion of district seats? That is, as Democratic incumbents retired, did the districts switch from uncontested Democratic incumbents to uncontested Republican seats (conversion), or did the two parties contest the district for some period of time (contestation). In other words, what is the pattern of change in the South as Republicans began to replace Democratic dominance? ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The predictors of party identification in the United States have been extensively examined to determine how certain social groups form attachments to a particular party. Campbell et. al. (1960) showed that mostly Catholic white ethnic groups, such as Italian and Irish Americans, formed strong partisan attachments to the Democratic Party in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century as urban political machines recruited these groups for their votes. And Jelen & Wilcox (1995) demonstrate the residual effect of this psychological tug in more recent elections.However, little has been reported on other, and possibly more relevant, white ethnic groups such as Arab-Americans. A recent survey conducted in 2003 by ICPSR showed that 32% of respondents in the 2003 Detroit Arab American Survey identified as Independent and 20% indicated No Preference, the opposite of earlier predictions. Over half of all Arab Americans now choose not to affiliate with either party, which is much higher than the numbers reported for the general population. A first look indicates that traditional predictors should impact Arab Americans partisanship. For instance, Arab Americans are more conservative on social issues, report higher levels of self-employment and tend to be more religious. Conversely, a solid majority of Arab Americans are foreign-born, albeit naturalized citizens, and a good number have been active or are still active in labor unions. Instead, we believe that other indicators, such as linked-fate, discrimination and foreign policy issues might be driving Arab Americans away from both parties and towards no affiliation and/or no preference. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the elimination of the regularly occurring legislative sessions that convened after the November congressional elections with the ratification of the Twentieth Amendment in 1933, Congress still occasional meets in a lame duck session. In fact, such sessions are becoming commonplace, with the convening of post-election sessions in 5 of the last 6 congresses. These sessions are comprised of a mix of members who will return to serve in the subsequent congress and of lame ducks: defeated members and retirees. As a result, lame duck sessions would seem to differ significantly from the regular sessions that met prior to the elections. Past opponents of the lame duck sessions argued departing members showed dramatic changes in their voting behavior as a result of the severed linkages with constituents. Lame ducks, it was claimed, sought to p! lacate interests other than those they represented. If that is the case, we might expect to find noticeable differences across regular and lame duck sessions in the effectiveness of party leaders to craft an agenda and to keep their fellow partisans in the fold to support that agenda. We analyze roll call behavior and party cohesion across sessions to answer two questions. First, whether departing members make notable changes in their voting behavior in their days in office. Second, we seek to determine whether the nature of party pressures and party leadership changes in lame duck sessions. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Clinton (2006) finds that the revealed preferences of Republican House members are related to the preferences of their Republican constituents, but that the revealed preferences of Democratic House members are most strongly related to the preferences of their constituents that do not self-identify as Democrats. We suggest that Clinton's puzzling results are largely an artifact of his model and measures. The results change significantly when we replace Clinton's measure of constituency preferences based on self-identified ideology with a measure of constituency preferences constructed from responses to a dozen policy specific questions. More importantly, we suggest that the puzzling character of Clinton's results stem from a model that is inconsistent with the theoretical literature on the competing electoral pressures faced by every MC. We offer a model which is consistent with standard accounts of multiple constituencies. The results from our model are readily interpretable in terms of cross pressures on the MC from the median member of the geographic constituency and the median partisan.Clinton, Joshua. 2006. "Constituents and Roll Calls in the 106th House," Journal of Politics, Vol. 68(2): 397-409. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on political party networks, especially the national party networks in Washington to better understand today's intensely partisan environment in the U.S. The principal players in the Washington party networks include elected officials, congressional staffers, fundraisers, lobbyists, interest group representatives, political consultants, think tank researchers and some figures in the mass media.