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GOVT 312: Parties and Campaigns

GOVT 312: Parties and Campaigns. Lecture 22: Party Cohesion in the Legislature. Measuring the Concept of Party Unity. Roll call voting: All of the votes that occur in Congress are recorded in the Congressional Record, and are now available in electronic form.

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GOVT 312: Parties and Campaigns

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  1. GOVT 312: Parties and Campaigns Lecture 22: Party Cohesion in the Legislature

  2. Measuring the Concept ofParty Unity • Roll call voting: All of the votes that occur in Congress are recorded in the Congressional Record, and are now available in electronic form. • Complication: there are many votes where everyone votes in favor of the bill (such as Michael Jordan day). Exclude these.

  3. Measuring the Concept ofParty Unity • Party Voting: Percentage of time that a majority of Democrats voted against a majority of Republicans • Party Cohesion: Average of percentage of members voting in agreement with a majority of their party. • Support of President: percentage of times that members support the position of the president (measured in terms of which party controls presidency) • Other Measures: support of party leadership, NOMINATE scores

  4. Party Voting in the House(H p. 254) • Party voting was comparatively high in the House of Representatives during the era of strong legislative parties in the 1800s. • Party voting entered a new era with the revolt against Speaker Cannon in 1910. • Party voting rose during the New Deal • Party voting declined to a low point in the late 1960s, early 1970s. • Party voting increased since, though declined in the most recent years.

  5. Party Cohesion in the House(H p. 256) • Shorter time span on graph: 1961-2004. • Cohesion has generally been on the rise • Democrats and Republicans have similar party cohesion • Democrats more cohesive in the 1980s • Republicans more cohesive since 1994

  6. Support of President • Members of president’s party are more supportive of president than other party (duh) • Senators are more supportive than House members (Why?) • Seen increase of opposition between two parties during Reagan/Bush(41) and Clinton. Slight decrease under Bush(43)

  7. Poole and Rosenthal NOMINATE scores • Compute the ideology of members of Congress from their roll call votes. • See: http://voteview.com/dwnl.htm • Also see p.258

  8. The Dual Nature of Representation • Representative of the district: Candidates appeal to the median voter of their district. Representatives are district-oriented, building a “home-style” connection with their district to help their reelection. (The Electoral Connection) • Representative of the party: if the party label is to mean anything, the party needs to implement coherent policies, some of which may be at odds with the district. (Downs: the median voter)

  9. Three reasons why we do not have strong parties in the U.S. The Electoral Connection (Mayhew) • Districts and primaries mean that “All Politics is Local” • Candidates must construct their own campaign organizations • Congress does not need to form a cabinet like parliamentary systems • Predicts that parties (and indeed Congress as aw whole) only exists to further the reelection needs of the members.

  10. Conditional Party Government • Explains the effect on party organization in government that we observe from the patterns in party cohesion, party voting, NOMINATE scores. • Theory: When member’s ideology is spread out, members want weak leadership. When ideology is homogenous, members want strong leadership. • Explains why the Democrats embarked upon reforms in the early 1970s. • Explains why Republicans strengthened the Democratic reforms in the 1990s.

  11. Democratic reforms of the 1970s • Designed to reduce power of conservative chairmen from the South. • Increased influence of leadership over committee assignments by creating the Steering and Policy committee. Formerly, assignments were made by the Ways and Means committee. • Exception: Speaker given power over rules committee. • Terminated seniority system: party caucus would hold secret ballot votes for chairmen. • Created more sub-committees and restricted committee chair’s influence over sub-committee chairs.

  12. Gingrich Reforms of 1995 • Republicans needed to adopt new rules in 1995 since they had not been in the majority since 1954. • Increased the weight of votes cast on the Republican Committee on Committees. (Gingrich got 5 votes, Armey 2, everyone else 1) • Gingrich given power to appoint Rules Committee • Gingrich asserted authority to appoint committee chairs without any approval from party caucus. Violated seniority for loyalty. • Increased the use of task forces that bypass the committee system entirely.

  13. State Parties • What determines party cohesion in state parties? • Conditional Party Government theory suggests that strong parties will occur in heterogeneous states, when one party is elected from a different constituency base than the other party.

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