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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 ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Amending bills on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives is an inherently partisan process that greatly affects the level of observed polarization. In this paper, I argue that the suite of reforms in the 1970s resulted in flooding the House with amendments that not only instigated procedural polarization later but contributed to polarization in their own right. By "fighting fire with fire", the amendment process that resulted from the reforms, which opened up the floor to minority party and junior members, began the steady rise in party polarization we observe today. I conclude by speculating on the causal relationship between the proportion of votes in the House that are amendment votes and income inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a research paper which analyzes the factors affecting lower-income individuals' vote choice and their preference for Democratic presidential candidates in two elections in the U.S. It focuses on how discussing politics and involvement in organizations like labor unions, affect the voters' vote selection.

The article investigates the role of trust in government and voting behavior among Latin-Americans and Anglo-Americans. The author argues that other studies have underestimated the role of trust due to failure to consider how different ethnic backgrounds influence trust in government. He adds that lack of acculturation as evident in higher trust levels, can improve voting registry and voting.

In this paper, we argue that a government enforced shift to mandatory mail voting could lead to lower levels of efficacy and perhaps lower levels of participation, despite the promise of lower costs making it easier to vote. Contrary to previous theories about the costs of voting, specifically related to absentee voting, we argue that when voters are forced to switch to vote-by-mail, as opposed to simply having it as an option, the possibility exists for a backlash against the political system. Indeed, our results suggest that many polling place voters were opposed to the transition to mail balloting and many voters raised questions about government accountability under such a system. Through multivariate regression analysis, we model political efficacy and likelihood of turnout, to determine what impact, if any, a mandatory vote-by-mail system has on the voting public. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extant examinations of Congressional polarization have centered on the electorate, offering that redistricting and income inequality since the 1970s have changed the people and the electoral incentives in the U.S. House. These explanations offered by Smith (2007) and McCarty, Poole and Rosenthal (2006) undoubtedly clarify some variation in polarization. But these explanations are often in tension with models that show large, bipartisan majorities on most measures, especially at the final-passage stage of legislation (Krehbiel 1998). A full accounting of polarization, then, must consider both bipartisanship and extreme partisan difference and homogeneity. At this conflicting intersection, I posit that the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1970 changed the rules of institutional game, altering incentives and providing an endogenous source of polarization at differing stages of the legislative process. I use a new, stratified DW-NOMINATE estimator to show a qualitative and quantitative difference in amendment, procedural, and final passage votes between the pre- and post-reform House of Representatives. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The political processing of policy problems that span multiple policy areas is distinctive for American politics because the issues and their solutions crosscut the traditional bases for policymaking. We analyze the political processing of a dozen such problems. These include the thorny problems of the financial crisis, global climate change, health care, and immigration; the persistent problems of K-12 education, drug abuse, and food safety; and the looming problems associated with critical infrastructure, the obesity epidemic, ocean health, terrorism, and the national debt. Based on secondary accounts of the contours of these problems, we identify different patterns of policymaking that we label disintegrative, integrative, bureaucratic, and anemic policymaking. We discuss how the underlying political properties limit opportunities to fashion cohesive policies and the prospects for overcoming these limits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]