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The recent rise in descriptive representation in Congress has led to a growing literature focused on how race and ethnicity influence congressional behavior. Still, an important question has yet to be addressed adequately within the congressional literature: are minority members of Congress (MCs) as effective at passing legislation as nonminority MCs? We analyze all non-minor bills introduced between the 101st and 105th Congresses and find that bills sponsored by minorities are at least as likely to pass as those sponsored by non-minorities. This finding runs against extant research that generally depicts minorities as disadvantaged members of the House of Representatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2012 presidential election saw a 426% increase in independent expenditures from the 2008 election ($202.8 million in 2008 to $1067 million in 2012), leaving little doubt that the Supreme Court's landmark 2010 Citizens United decision opened the campaign spending floodgates. To what extent are corporations, the main subject of the ruling, the source of the increase? We argue that while Citizens alters the ability of corporations to contribute to campaigns, it does not alter their substantial risk in doing so. As a result, we do not expect major corporations to be a source of the dramatic increase in independent spending in the 2012 election. In fact, contrary to popular opinion we expect Citizens United to have very little effect on corporations' overall contribution strategies. We test our expectations utilizing an original dataset of political activity and campaign contributions to political action committees (PACs) and Super PACs by Fortune 500 companies. Our findings support our expectation; corporate spending did not change as result of the Citizens United ruling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The "opinion leadership" perspective holds that the "rally-around-the-flag" phenomenon is a function of elite behavior. That is, a president's approval rating rallies when members of the opposing party stop criticizing the president. A rally dies when they resume their criticism. I suggest that examining elite behavior during presidential rallies is important if it is, in fact, a driving force behind rallies. Thus I examine how members of Congress (MCs) voted on roll call votes in which President Bush took a position in the 107th Congress. I am particularly interested in how their support for the president changed after 9/11. I analyze 86 roll call votes and find that, overall, MCs' support for President Bush did in fact increase immediately following 9/11. But the support did not last long; within one month some legislators - particularly Democrats from liberal districts - resumed their opposition. These findings, I believe, have important implications for the study of rally effects specifically and congressional-executive relations in general. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The "opinion leadership" perspective holds that the "rally-around-the-flag" phenomenon is a function of elite behavior. That is, a president's approval rating rallies when members of the opposing party stop criticizing the president. A rally dies when they resume their criticism. We suggest that examining elite behavior during presidential rallies is important if it is, in fact, a driving force behind rallies. Thus we examine how members of Congress responded to the Iraq War and President George W. Bush during early months of 2003. We conduct a descriptive analysis of the 415 one-minute speeches delivered in the U.S. House between February 5th and June 22nd and find, among other things, that Democrats did not stop criticizing President Bush in total. While they remained relatively silent and vaguely supportive of the President on the Iraq War, they continued to criticize him on domestic issues such as his economic package. This finding, we believe, has important implications for the study of rally effects specifically and congressional-executive relations in general. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research has found that members of the minority use floor debate more heavily than members of the majority (Maltzman and Sigelman 1996; Morris 2001; Rocca 2003; Rocca 2002; Rocca, Sala, and Greenwald 2003). There are two competing explanations for the finding. One camp argues that minority members turn to floor debate more often because they are ignored during other forms of legislative action. This argument fits squarely with Hall's (1996) theory of legislative participation. I argue, on the other hand, that members of the minority gain more benefit from floor action than do members of the majority because of a negativity effect. In this paper, I derive competing hypotheses from these theories regarding how members use floor debate. The latter theory suggests that minority members are more likely to use floor debate to attack the majority than the converse. The former suggests that they should use the forum for positive reasons such as promoting their party's agenda. I use an original dataset of content analyzed non-legislative debate, in the form of one-minute speeches and special order addresses, to test the hypotheses. My findings indicate support for the negativity effect theory of floor debate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The minority party’s disadvantages in the House of Representatives are well documented (Binder 1997; Cox and McCubbins 1993; Rohde 1991). According to Hall (1996), members of the minority emphasize ‘formal’ participation more heavily because they are excluded from ‘informal’ activities (i.e. behind-the-scenes activities). One such formal activity, the so-called ‘safety-valve’ of congressional activities (Maltzman and Sigelman 1996), is non-legislative debate (NLD) in the form of one-minute speeches and special order addresses. Drawing from Rocca (2002), this paper reexamines the use of non-legislative debate in the House of Representatives. I present and test an alternative theory for non-legislative participation. My theory is simple: unlike off-floor activities where minority members receive fewer benefits than majority members, minority members receive more benefits than majority members during NLD (and floor activities in general). From this theory, I derive my central, testable hypothesis that rank-and-file minority members are more likely to deliver policy oriented speeches during NLD than the majority. The results support my theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Few issues attract the attention of members of Congress as quickly as the possibility military base closures in their home state or district. And for good reason; a base closure can result in the loss of hundreds or even thousands of jobs in a community. In this paper I investigate whose bases close in Congress and why. I argue that it behooves parties to adopt proactive base realignment and closure (BRAC) strategies that include bargaining with Defense and BRAC Commission officials. Using an original dataset, I examine how BRAC affects the minority and majority parties in Congress. I find that while institutional resources (or lack thereof) explain who in the minority party gets hit with base closures, electoral security plays an important role for majority party members. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]