Search

This review examines the role of race in the decennial process of redistricting. I review the scholarly literature on three related questions: What role should racial redistricting play in the representation of racial interests, how may racial redistricting be used, and what is the connection between racial redistricting and the substantive representation of racial minorities? The review briefly examines the normative question of racial representation and then focuses on the last two topics: empirical research on how racial interests are represented in legislatures and legal questions concerning the use of redistricting to produce descriptive representation. Racial redistricting enhances the representation of racial interests in legislatures, and the legal status of the districts is complex; therefore, litigation will proceed on a heavily fact-based, case-by-case basis in which political scientists will continue to play a vital role with their research on racially polarized voting and representation.

The democratic process in the United States was sorely tested in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election Our electoral institutions survived that test, but the fragility of our democracy was exposed by a concerted effort to overturn the results of the presidential election, first in the courts and then with an insurrection at the nation's Capitol on January 6, 2021 We examine how this happened Specifically, we will attempt to answer the following questions: How did the big lie evolve and what were its claims? How did the COVID pandemic and foreign interference complicate the voting process and contribute to the claims of fraud? How did the courts adjudicate the claims of fraud? Finally, how do we restore trust in the voting process?

Conventional political wisdom holds that policies that make voting easier will increase turnout and ultimately benefit Democratic candidates. We challenge this assumption, questioning the ability of party strategists to predict which changes to election law will advantage them. Drawing on previous research, we theorize that voting laws affect who votes in diverse ways depending on the specific ways that they reduce the costs of participating. We assemble datasets of county-level vote returns in the 2004, 2008, and 2012 presidential elections and model these outcomes as a function of early voting and registration laws, using both cross-sectional regression and difference-in-difference models. Unlike Election Day registration, and contrary to conventional wisdom, the results show that early voting generally helps Republicans. We conclude with implications for partisan manipulation of election laws.

Southern politics has confounded scholars of elections, parties, and representation since the publication of V.O. Key’s seminal book in 1949, Southern Politics in State and Nation. How to make sens...

Tremendous attention has been paid to local election administration since the 2000 presidential election meltdown, yet policy makers still lack basic information about what happens at the polling place. One strategy to understand the interactions between citizens and street-level election bureaucrats is to turn to administrative data. Using logs collected by polling place workers, the authors analyze more than 66,000 individual incidents recorded from four different statewide elections. Such data provide novel insights and guidance for the administration of elections. Findings indicate that task scale (in terms of the number of ballots) and complexity (in terms of absentee ballots) increase the incident rate. Managerial choices about how polling places are run also matter: the use of electronic voting machines and central count processing of ballots reduce the incident rate, while splitting poll worker shifts increases it. Operator capacity, measured in terms of experience, also reduces the number of incidents.

State governments have experimented with a variety of election laws to make voting more convenient and increase turnout. The impacts of these reforms vary in surprising ways, providing insight into the mechanisms by which states can encourage or reduce turnout. Our theory focuses on mobilization and distinguishes between the direct and indirect effects of election laws. We conduct both aggregate and individual-level statistical analyses of voter turnout in the 2004 and 2008 presidential elections. The results show that Election Day registration has a consistently positive effect on turnout, whereas the most popular reform-early voting-is actually associated with lower turnout when it is implemented by itself We propose that early voting has created negative unanticipated consequences by reducing the civic significance of elections for individuals and altering the incentives for political campaigns to invest in mobilization. dvocates, journalists, and politicians frequently propose changes to election laws out of the belief that making voting easier will increase voter turnout. It seems logical that making voting more convenient-through relaxed registration rules, registra­ tion on Election Day, voting prior to Election Day, or ex­ panded absentee voting-will encourage more people to cast ballots. We challenge this notion and show that the most popular reform-early voting-actually decreases turnout when implemented by itself, an unanticipated consequence that has significant implications for policy and for theories of how state governments can influence turnout. This result is counterintuitive, and it certainly runs against the grain of conventional wisdom. Our expla

The methods used to select public officials affect the preferences they bring to office, the incentives they face while in office, and, ultimately, the policy goals they pursue. We argue that the preferences and actions of local election officials (LEOs) differ depending on whether they are elected or appointed. We test these expectations with a data set that includes the survey responses of 1,200 Wisconsin LEOs, structured interviews, census data, and returns from the 2008 presidential election. Drawing upon a natural experiment in how officials are selected, we find that, compared to appointed officials, elected officials express greater support for voter access and expressless concern about ballot security and administrative costs. For appointed officials, we find that voter turnout in a municipality is lower when the LEO’s self-reported partisanship differs from the partisanship of the electorate but only in cases where the official is a Republican.

This article argues that administrative burden—that is, an individual's experience of policy implementation as onerous—is an important consideration for administrators and influences their views on policy and governance options. The authors test this proposition in the policy area of election administration using a mixed-method assessment of local election officials. They find that the perceived administrative burden of policies is associated with a preference to shift responsibilities to others, perceptions of greater flaws and lesser merit in policies that have created the burden (to the point that such judgments are demonstrably wrong), and opposition to related policy innovations.

When states consider adopting new election laws, policy makers often take into account public opinion and the financial costs of reforms but not the receptivity of those most responsible for implementation. Implementation theory suggests that the potential success of a new law depends on the motivation and ability of local election officials to administer it. To examine these attitudes, we conducted face-to-face interviews with an extensive survey of municipal election officials in Wisconsin. The responses show a significant bias in favor of the status quo, with election clerks generally supporting existing practices (Election Day registration) but opposing new proposals (early voting). Election officials are more likely to believe that Election Day registration is a right and increases turnout compared to early voting, and that early voting would increase their workload compared to Election Day registration. Multivariate analysis demonstrates that resistance to early voting is not merely a refle...

Previous work on voting behavior in Congress leads to an expectation of stability in roll-call voting. Yet, there remains a degree of unexplained variability in roll-call voting. Utilizing a unique set of data from the 103rd Congress of vote switching on revotes, we seek to account for the random component of congressional voting. We offer four categories of variables to explain this instability: leeway effects, error correction, reduction in uncertainty, and bandwagon effects. While these variables explain some of the variation in vote switching, our findings show that the individual random component of roll-call voting may be more significant than previous theory has indicated.

Andrew Rehfeld's The Concept of Constituency argues for a fundamental rethinking of the relationship between constituents and politicians. This is a creative and original argument that deserves serious discussion. Before participating in that discussion, I would like to take a small detour to address the broader significance of this symposium: the collaboration between normative theorists and an empirical scholar on an issue of mutual interest. Far too often political theorists and empirical scholars do not engage each other's work and it is even more unusual for them to be co-authors. In my book on race and representation I included a chapter that explored the implications of the political theory literature on representation for my work.1 My work was enriched by the ideas and arguments of scholars such as Anne Phillips, Will Kymlicka, Iris Young, Lani Guinier, Amy Gutmann, and Charles Taylor. At the same time, empirical political scientists have much to offer political theorists. In some cases it may be as simple as offering systematic evidence in support of a normative argument, as Katherine Tate, David Lublin, Kenneth Whitby, Carol Swain, and I have done (among many others) with questions of the "politics of presence" and the value of descriptive representation. In other cases, empirical scholars may provide the technical know-how to bring an idea to life, as with the collaboration between Robert Luskin and James Fishkin on deliberative polling. This forum takes this type of interaction between normative and empirical scholars one step further by directly engaging one another. Rehfeld makes two central contributions: he separates the concept of constituency from the method of voting and he points out the weaknesses of

For the past 20 years, congressional scholars have focused a great deal of attention on describing and explaining the impact of political parties in Congress. Much of this effort has tackled the pr...

Biographical Directory of the American Congress. Washington, DC: CQ Staff Directories, 1997. Pp. xii, 2,108. $295, hardbound. Metz, Allan, ed. National Service and AmeriCorps: An Annotated Bibliography. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1997. Pp. xi, 269. $69.50, hardbound. Sharp, Michael, ed. Directory of Congressional Voting Scores and Interest Croups Ratings, 2nd ed., 1996. Washington, DC: CO Press. 2-volume set, 1,542 pages. $269, hardbound. Dodd, Lawrence C, and Bruce I. Oppenheimer. Congress Reconsidered, 6th ed. Washington, DC: CQ Press, 1997. Pp. xix, 450. $32.95, softbound. Foley, Michael, and John E. Owens. Congress and the Presidency: Institutional Politics in a Separated System. Manchester, U.K.: Manchester University Press, 1996. Pp. xiv, 432. $74.95, hardbound; $29.95 softbound. Reischauer, Robert D., ed. Setting National Priorities: Budget Choices for the Next Century. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1997. Pp. xiii, 316. $42.95, hardbound; $14.95, softbound. Sundquist, James L. Back to ...

The goal of empowering minorities through redistricting has been attacked from all sides. The Supreme Court recently called the North Carolina redistricting plan "political apartheid" (Shaw v. Reno 1993) while critics on the left reject the approach because it merely provides descriptive rather than substantive representation (Guinier 1991a, 1134-53). This article offers a new perspective from which to assess the viability of this approach to black empowerment: the supply side of redistricting. Using a unique data set from the 1972, 1982, and 1992 congressional elections in black districts, we examine how individual politicians respond to the changing electoral context imposed by new district lines and how, in turn, their decisions shape the electoral choices and outcomes in a given district. We argue that individual politicians acting in their own self-interest may tip the balance of electoral power to black and white moderates in the district. We find that this outcome prevails in approximately half of ...

This paper argues that existing research on divided government has ig nored the intergovernmental dimensions and implications of this phe nomenon. We address the intergovernmental case by exploring the historical rise and micro-level foundations of divided outcomes among same-state U.S. senator and governor pairs. The electoral results for senator-governor pairs lie at the intersection of state and national-level divided government, and are subject to the same historical and electoral forces that have shaped these other divided outcomes. We trace the histor ical rise of split outcomes in these contests, outline the theoretical and policy implications of these results, and offer an analysis of individual- level voting behavior intended to compare two competing explanations for divided outcomes: the "simple party loyalty model" and our own "com parative informational relevance model."

In this article I explore the impact of the new Black-majority House districts on the power of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) and the nature of Black representation in those districts. These districts are controversial, largely because they are viewed as an embodiment of a "politics of difference" (i.e., Blacks must represent Blacks), rather than a "politics of commonality." My preliminary research contradicts this common view. I conclude that (a) the new size of the CBC has substantially increased its political clout while simultaneously pushing it into the political mainstream; and (b) newly elected African Americans in Congress are more likely to promote the politics of commonality than the politics of difference. These conclusions are based on an examination of the CBC's role in passing legislation, their patterns of roll call voting, committee assignments, and participation in the Democratic party leadership.

Bacon, Donald C., Roger H. Davidson, and Morton Keller. The Encyclopedia of the United States Congress. New York: Simon and Schuster. Pp. Iviii, 2359 (4 volumes). $355.00 hardbound. Congressional Quarterly. Guide to U.S. Elections, 3rd ed. Washington, DC: CQ Press, 1994. Pp. xii, 1543. $229.00 hardbound. Congressional Quarterly. National Party Conventions, 1831-1992. Washington, DC: CQ Press, 1995. Pp. vii, 301. $28.95 softbound. Congressional Quarterly. Presidential Elections, 1789-1992. Washington, DC: CQ Press, 1995. Pp. viii, 274. $28.95 softbound. Goehlert, Robert U. and Fenton S. Martin. The United States Congress: An Annotated Bibliography. Washington, DC: CQ Press, 1995. Pp. xxix, 640. $185.00 hardbound. Makinson, Larry and Joshua F. Goldstein. Open Secrets: The Encyclopedia of Congressional Money and Politics, 3rd ed. Washington, DC: CQ Press, 1994. Pp. xi, 1362. $169.95 hardbound. Makinson, Larry and Joshua F. Goldstein. The Cash Constituents of Congress, 2nd ed. Washington, DC: CQ Press, 1994. ...

The 2010 elections produced the largest number of political amateurs elected to Congress in more than sixty years. This article will examine both the popular fascination with amateur candidates and the scholarly interest in political careers. Specifically, I will discuss celebrity politicians, amateurs who become celebrities because of their unusual campaigns, the impact of the Tea Party, and the implications of the large class of amateurs for ambition theory and the strategic-politicians hypothesis.

State governments have experimented with a variety of election laws to make voting more convenient and increase turnout. But the impact of these reforms vary, often in surprising ways that cast insights into the mechanisms by which states can encourage or reduce turnout. Our theory focuses on mobilization and distinguishes between the direct and indirect effects of election laws. We conduct both aggregate and individual level statistical analyses of voter turnout in the 2008 presidential election. The results show that reforms such as election day registration have a consistently positive effect on turnout. By contrast, the most popular reform – early voting – is actually associated with lower turnout. We propose that early voting has created negative unanticipated consequences, reducing the civic significance of elections for individuals, and altering the incentives for political campaigns to invest in mobilization.

The method by which we select public officials can have a significant effect on their incentives, the constraints they face, and ultimately the policy goals they pursue. We explore this phenomenon using election administration as a case. We examine differences in the policy preferences among elected and appointed election officials, and explore the relationship between those attitudes and the administrative outcomes they may engender. We employ a uniquely rich dataset that includes the survey responses of over 1,200 Wisconsin election officials, structured interviews with dozens of these officials, and data from the 2008 presidential election. Drawing upon a natural experiment in how clerks are selected, we find that elected officials support policies that emphasize voter access rather than ballot security, and that their municipalities are associated with higher voter turnout. For appointed officials, we find that voter turnout in a municipality is noticeably lower when the local election official’s partisanship differs from the partisanship of the electorate. Overall, our results support the notion that selection methods, and the incentives that flow from those methods, matter a great deal. Elected officials are more likely to express attitudes and generate outcomes that reflect their direct exposure to voters, in contrast to the more insulated position of appointed officials.

The rules and institutions used to translate preferences into electoral outcomes have a profound impact on the nature of representation provided in a political system. This is especially true when it comes to representing divergent racial and ethnic group interests. This essay examines the range of alternatives that nations have used to address this fundamental problem, with a focus on the representation of minority interests within U.S. legislatures. After a brief review of related issues, I examine the following questions: how should representation be provided to minorities within a majority rule system (the normative literature); how can representation be provided (the legal literature); and, how are minority interests represented (the partisan implications of racial redistricting and the broader empirical literature on representation).

Why do hundreds of amateurs challenge entrenched U.S. House incumbents every two years? Previous work offers a range of explanations, from naivetd to love of politics. The most systematic study of this question concluded that amateurs challenge incumbents because it maximizes their chances of being elected to the House. This article argues that distinctions must be drawn between "ambitious" and "experience-seeking" amateurs because no single theory can explain amateurs' motivations. Ambitious amateurs respond to favorable district and national conditions in their decision to run, like their experienced counterparts, while experience-seeking amateurs do not.