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Objective: In this article, we explore the deaths in office of U.S. senators between 1919 and 2015, examining both historical trends at the aggregate level and at the individual level searching for partisan and other patterns in mortality rates. Methods: We employ Cox proportional hazard models to examine the effects of factors such as age, tenure in office, electoral factors, and legislative engagement, as well as partisanship and ideology. Results: Notably, we find no significant partisan or ideological effects. When we examine the parties separately, we find that other institutional factors (tenure in office, vote share, bill sponsorship) matter for Democrats, while expectation of who would replace them in office matters for Republicans. Conclusion: Our findings contribute to previous work on legislative turnover in Congress by taking the first step to analyze deaths among U.S. senators from almost the entire history of the elected Senate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research examines two referenda in the Deep South, both of which can be categorized as antiblack. Specifically, we analyze a 2001 Mississippi flag referendum (in which the electorate rejected a new flag and retained the old state flag containing a Confederate insignia) and a 2004 referendum in Alabama (in which citizens voted to retain unenforceable constitutional language requiring separate educational facilities for black and white students, and a poll tax on voting). Using state election returns and census data, we employ weighted least squares regression to analyze voting patterns. The results reveal that across both states, white voters displayed significantly greater 'antiblack' voting behavior in those areas with larger black populations and more urbanized environments. Our findings pose a direct challenge to both those who insist that the 'racial threat' perceived by whites is diminishing and those who hold that urbanization will ultimately be corrosive of racist attitudes and behavior. Esta investigación examina dos referendos en el sur de Estados Unidos, cada uno de ellos puede ser categorizado como anti afroamericano. Específicamente, se analizó el referendo en 2001 a la bandera de Mississippi (en el que el electorado rechazó una nueva bandera y decidieron conservar la bandera anterior que contenía una insignia del ejército confederado) y un referendo en 2004 en Alabama (en el que los ciudadanos votaron para conservar un lenguaje constitucional imposible de aplicar que requería separar las instalaciones educativas para blancos y afroamericanos, y un impuesto al voto).Usando los resultados de las elecciones estatales e información estadística, empleamos un modelo de regresión de cuadrados mínimos comunes para analizar patrones electorales. Los resultados revelan que a través de ambos estados los votantes blancos mostraron un comportamiento electoral 'anti afroamericano' significativamente mayor en áreas con una gran población afroamericana y entornos más urbanizados. Nuestros hallazgos plantean un desafío directo a quienes insisten que la 'amenaza racial' percibida por la población blanca está disminuyendo, y aquellos que afirman que la urbanización eliminará actitudes y comportamiento racista. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although discharge petitions lie at the confluence of personal preferences, committee prerogatives, and party leadership in Congress, these procedures have received little scholarly scrutiny. We capitalize on the public nature of petition signatures since 1993 to examine the behavior of the most cross-pressured members in discharge battles: bill sponsors and cosponsors belonging to the majority party who personally prefer the bills they have sponsored but who face party pressure not to sign the petitions that threaten the leadership's control of the legislative agenda. After controlling for personal preferences, we find a statistically significant partisan effect in the U.S. House, which further illuminates the "Where's the party?" debate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective. In this article, we explore whether African-American state legislators have been able to translate election to office into positions of power, particularly as committee chairs. Methods. We cull data from all state legislative chambers that contained a black legislator during two time periods, 1989 and 1999. In doing so, we compare the observed numbers of African-American chairs with their expected numbers. We also examine each state's percentage of black chairs using multiple regression to determine what factors—political, partisan, institutional, cultural—influence the selection of black committee chairs. Results. Overall, our descriptive analysis reveals that blacks are underrepresented as chairs. They are not, however, significantly underrepresented as chairs of the most important committees and they are generally overrepresented as chairs of committees with jurisdiction over social services. Our multivariate analyses show that the prevalence of black chairs is driven primarily by factors related to partisan control of legislative chambers and size of the black legislative delegation, and that these dynamics have changed over time. Conclusion. Although the increase in African-American state legislators has led to an increase in substantive leadership roles, these positions have been limited almost entirely to chambers where the black caucus is a critical element of a Democratic majority. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent studies of the impact of black elite electoral success on the system-supporting attitudes of black citizens have yielded mixed, but generally unimpressive, empirical results. We extend this limited research by examining the effects of the presence of black judicial officials on public attitudes toward a state judicial system.We employ data from a telephone survey of citizens in Mississippi and develop multivariate models to test for the effects of black judges on citizens' evaluations of the fairness of judges, equity in sentences, and overall impartiality of the state judicial system.We find no systematic evidence that the election of black judicial officials ameliorates the suspicions of the black public regarding the fairness of the state courts.Our findings are in line with other recent studies on the limited effects of black elite electoral success on the attitudes of the black public and generally support a“political reality” model of political trust rather than an“empowerment model.” [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on committee outliers in State Legislatures. This paper focuses on recent work exploring the prevalence of outlying committees in The U.S. state legislatures. Using an expanded sample of 45 states and measures of legislator preferences generated by a single, federated group, it has been found that most legislative committees are representative of the parent chambers from which their members are selected. Furthermore, multivariate models designed to account for theoretically relevant patterns in variations in outlier percentages among control and non-control committees have been tested

Using a logistical regression model and an analysis of the legislative history of the nuclear freeze proposals in the U.S. House of Representatives, this paper disputes previous findings and argues that constituency preferences exercised considerable influence on the disposition of the freeze issue. This influence was visible at the roll-call stage in 1982 and at earlier stages of the legislative process in 1983. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]