GOVT 312: Parties and Campaigns

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GOVT 312 Parties and Campaigns

• Lecture 22 Party Cohesion in the Legislature

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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.

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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

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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.

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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

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Support of President

• Members of presidents 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)

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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

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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)

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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.

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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 members 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.

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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 chairs influence over sub-committee
  chairs.

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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.

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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.