How Representatives Place Their Votes Essay Research

How Representatives Place Their Votes Essay, Research Paper

Many studies have been done to determine what has the strongest influence on a Representative s vote, particularly on social issues. Examining just a few of these, it is apparent that there is no strong consensus on this issue. Party, ideology, race, constituency, or any combination of these has been suggested as the major influence on the modern Congressperson.

Jerrold Schneider argues that ideology has the strongest impact on how a Representative will vote. He says that by understanding their ideology you will be more likely to predict their future voting patterns. Schneider says, The results show very high ideological consistency among all policy dimensions. (pg. 195)> Although, he does not deny that other factors perhaps party, can have an impact on a vote as well.

Another study, done by Morris Fiorina, disagrees with this conclusion, though. Fiorina believes that a Representative s primary goal is reelection and, therefore, votes for his constituents. A Representative s votes are not simply passive responses to role expectations, group memberships, and interest group pressures. Rather, the representative votes with an eye toward achieving valued consequences (pg. 29). But once again it is not denied that party loyalty does have an impact on a Representatives decisions and votes.

Another scholar, Aage R. Clausen, has a different theory. He believes that both constituency and party loyalty play major roles in how Representatives cast a vote. He argues, Party is a link with the past and with the constituency, and it provides a basis for establishing new friendships and working relations in the confusing whirlpools of Washington politics (pg. 120). He believes that because of the way Representatives are grouped and associated within Congress party cohesion is inevitable.

Looking at two other studies on this issue has lead to similar conclusions. Both of these studies concluded that both party and ideology were deciding factors when a Representative votes. This is because Democrats tend to have shared ideologies just as Republicans have shared ideologies. William Shaffer s study showed that the party differences were substantial in all sections of the country, particularly in the Midwest and Far West regions. The associated eta coefficients indicate that the correlation between party and ideology was moderate-to-strong (pg. 330). While Rosenthal and Poole state that efforts aimed at explaining congressional voting behavior on the basis of constituency, economic interests, or other preferences for that matter, is likely to perform relatively poorly analysis leads them to the conclusion that the great bulk of roll call voting can be accounted for by party affiliation (pg. 600).

As these scholars have suggested, I believe that party is the most important variable influencing voting on social issues in Congress. This hypothesis will be tested using data from the 105th House of Representatives. Five dependent variables that involve social issues that this House voted on will be analyzed. The first vote involved whether the Ten Commandments should be displayed in public buildings, the second vote was on banning partial birth abortions, the third makes it easier to try juveniles who have committed federal crimes, the fourth would ban flag desecration, and the last would eliminate NEA funding.

After determining whether each dependent variable was voted on in a partisan manner, control variables will be introduced. If the results remained consistent after introducing a control variable then party did have strong impact. Otherwise, the control variable might be a determining factor in the Representative s vote. Control variables will look at ideology, constituency, and Representatives background.

After analyzing this extensive data, it is evident to me that party does play a major role in Congressional votes on social issues. On these issues in particular, Republicans were almost unanimously in agreement on every vote. Democratic partisanship was not as intense on all issues but was still very evident. Looking more closely at each issue will further illustrate this.

Without a control variable 97.7 percent of Republicans voted yes on the bill to desplay the Ten Commandments. By adding control variables there is no impact on their voting decisions. Republicans are strongly partisan on this issue. Democrats, on the other hand, are less influenced by party. Without a control variable, 60.4 percent of Democrats voted no on this bill. This leads to the conclusion that some control variables must have had an impact, along with party, on their votes.

Region appears to have some impact on the Democratic vote. The Eastern and Western regions strongly oppose this bill while the midwest and south remain neutral. Also, 85.3 percent of female Democrats voted no on this issue which is much higher than without a control variable. It also appears that race might have played a role in the Democrats decisions. Nonwhite Democrats were strongly against the bill. Democrats who belonged to upper income districts and districts with high house values were also more likely to vote no. This leads to the conclusion that, on this bill, Republicans were strongly unified while Democrats did not place a high importance on party. Other variables influenced their votes.