Articles

Kanthak & Woon 2014 Women don't run? Election Aversion and Candidate Entry

"· Ambition · #**** this article· Lab experiment: control incentives of potential candidates and features of electoral environment; measure beliefs and preferences· Find: men and women equally like to volunteer when chosen randomly, but women are less likely to be chosen / run in elections· This arises not from diff abilities, risk aversion or beliefs, but from the competitive and strategic context of elections· Women are election averse, except when campaigns are both costless and completely truthful."

Rohde 1979 Risk-bearing and Progressive Ambition: The Case of Members of the US House of Representatives

"· Ambition · Choose to run or not for higher office (senate or governor) from 1954-1974· A predictive, not just analytical approach, based on prob. winning, value of higher office, value of present office, impact of "risk-taking" preferencs· Assume all HOR members have progressive ambition at least if there were no costs or risks to taking higher positions, they would"

Banks & Kiewiet 1989 Explaining Patterns of Candidate Competition in Congressional Elections

"· Ambition · Why aren't weak challengers deterred from running against incumbents when they have a very small chance to win? Strong challengers ARE deterred.· Look at congressional primaries 1970-1984· Weak candidates run in order to maximize their chances of getting elected to Congress· Open seats favor quality candidates, so this may be weak challengers' only chance to actually get elected."

Krasno & Green 1988 Preempting Quality Challengers in House Elections

"· Ambition · Why do strong challengers oppose incumbents in some districts but not in others?· Look at national political tides, district-level political forces * , and preemptive spending by incumbents· Local forces matter, other two don't.· Challenger quality here measured by attractiveness and political skill"

Canes-Wrone & de Marchi 2002 Presidential Approval and Legislative Success

"· Approval · When does approval generate policy influence? When the issue is salient and complex; this determines when the pres can capitalize on approval· Look at House RCs from 1989-2000; mixed findings on how approval translates into legislative success; hypotheses: high approval leads to high successful legislation when 1. Issue is salient, 2. Issue is too complex for general electorate to have opinions (i.e., only when there is public concern and public uncertainty on the issue); in these circumstances, presidential approval is a proxy for citizen's preferences"

Holmes 2007 Presidential Strategy in the Judicial Appointment Process: "Going Public" in Support of Nominees to the US Courts of Appeals

"· Bureaucracy · 1977-2005 public appeals on behalf of US courts of appeals nominees; when do president go public? More from Clinton and Bush 43, more for difficult confirmations, more for diversifying the bench; nominees for whom the pres when public are less likely to be confirmed; presidents may be motivated by factors other than confirmation success when deciding to go public (i.e., to appeal to certain constituencies)"

McCubbins & Schwartz 1984 Congressional Oversight Overlooked: Police Patrols vs. Fire Alarms

"· Bureaucracy · Does Congress neglect its oversight responsibilities? No, what appears to be neglect is really the rational preference for one form of oversight (fire-alarm oversight) over another form (police-patrol oversight); analysis finds support for this neglected way of looking at legislators' strategies.· Fire-alarm oversight (i.e., let citizens and interest groups sound the alarm) is less efficient, but still optimal for legislators given opportunity costs, available technology, and human cognitive limits· Evidence: 1. fire-alarm system leads to complaints brought to Congress by lobbyists (subcommittees), 2. Disorganized groups can still bring complaints, 3. Constituent services are not limited to cutting red tape, 4. Fire alarms allow for redress of gov't grievances, 5. Violations brought to Congress have been redressed."

McCubbins et al 1987 Administrative Procedures as Instruments of Political Control

"· Bureaucracy · How do MCs control Bureaucrats? Oversight: monitoring, rewarding, and punishing behavior; Adminsitrative procedures: affect environment in which agencies make decisions, limit range of feasible actions on policy· Effects of procedure: mitigate informational disadvantages, enfranchise important constituents in agency decision-making processing, ensuring responsiveness· Most administrative law is written for the purpose of helping elected politicians retain control of policy-making· Lit review—monitoring and sanctions=mechanisms for controlling bureaucracy (but this is too costly)· Legal constraints imposed by APA enable politicians to overcome informational asymmetries by requiring agencies to collect and disseminate politically relevant info (some costs of enforcement are not borne by politicians but by constituents and the courts)· Examples; admin system is affected by and affects the prerogatives of the courts; how the system creates a form of representative democracy in administrative proceedings."

Howell & Lewis 2002 Agencies by Presidential Design

"· Bureaucracy · Scholars have ignored creation of agencies by executive order· Look at 425 agencies from 1946 - 1995· Find: agencies created by administrative action are less insulated from presidential control than agencies created by legislation; ease of congressional legislative actions predicts number of agencies created by EO· Institutional constraints on Congress make it easier for presidents to create new agencies and design them for maximum executive control· When congress is weak (due to war, divided government or polarized preferences), presidents create more agencies"

Hollibaugh et al 2014 Presidents and Patronage

"· Bureaucracy · Where do Presidents place patronage appointments? Based on differences in ideology, competence, and non-policy patronage benefits· Look at 1307 persons appointed in the first 6 months of Obama administration· Find: Obama was more likely to place appointees selected for non-policy patronage reasons in agencies off his agenda, in agencies that shared his policy views, and where appointees were least able to affect agency performance· Patronage plays a role in American politics of consequences for campaigns, pres politics, and governance· Agencies measured by proportions of professional*, clerical, and blue collar employees à professional employees lead to fewer patronage appointments; Agencies on president's agenda are mentioned in speeches"

McCarty & Razaghian 1999 Advice & Consent: Senate Responses to Executive Branch Nominations 1885-1996

"· Bureaucracy · While nominees are regularly confirmed, confirmation time varies greatly· Long delays are made possible by Senate procedures that encourage partisan polarization· Look at 3500 nominations and find evidence for hypotheses: confirmations take longer in divided government and when the Senate is ideologically polarized· Unconfirmed nominations are not uncommon, but they are mostly due to the Senate session ending, killing the nomination"

Krehbiel; Shepsle & Weingast 1987 Why Are Congressional Committees Powerful?

"· Committees · Abstract: Krehbiel argues against the claim that power is not bc of deference, but bc of an ex post veto at conference committee; committees have never possessed an ex post veto and they are very constrained by the House; Shepsle and Weingast: defense of ex post veto as foundation of committee power· From Krehbiel:· Ex post veto argument: 4-stage spatial model—1. Committee proposes bill, 2. House considers bill under open rule, 3. Committee negotiates in conference committee, either uses or partially uses ex post veto, 4. House considers conference report -no amendments· Krehbiel: steps 3 and 4 in ex post veto argument need qualification and are not supported empirically; accept without going to conference, motions to recommit, suspension of the rules; instead of the House being constrained by the committee, it is reversed· From Shepsle and Weingast· Reciprocal deference—the sequence of moves in the game allows earlier committee movements to become effective· Model was constructed so that committees get the penultimate word and House can only vote yea or nay· Krehbiel is right to point out that the real world doesn't always work like this· Are alternatives to conference committees used as frequently as Krehbiel suggests so as to make committee ex post veto powers illusory? No. Just like the President's veto is still important even if it is not so frequently used officially."

Krehbiel 1990 Are Congressional Committees Composed of Preference Outliers

"· Committees · Abstract: the lit thinks of committee members as "high demanders" or preference outliers relative to members of the large Congress; use interest group scores to test whether committee members are more extreme and more homogenous than the floor as a whole; null findings do not lend support to this hypothesis. Rather committees = the floor; this supports incomplete info models of Congress· Types of preference outliers: classical homogenous high-demand outliers, bipolar outlier, intense interest (aka high salience) outlier· 1979-1980s—committee reforms were just beginning to take effect in these Congresses. Maybe not the best time to test classical theories of committees from the 1960s."

Fenno 1962 The House Appropriations Committee as a Political System: The Problem of Integration

"· Committees · From 1947-1961; diversity creates the problem of integration among the differentiated parts; how well does the committee work together / minimize conflict? What are the control mechanisms to ensure coorperation? The problem of integration is both structural and functional· Five characteristics of the appropriations committee explain integration: 1. Consensus on committee goals, 2. Nature of subject matter, 3. Legislative orientation of members, 4. & 5. Attractiveness and stability of committee membership· Goals: Guard the US treasury, cut whatever budget estimates are submitted, and serve your own constituency· Attractiveness: where the money is, there too is power· Two subgroups: 1. Subcommittees, 2. Majority & minority party groups; require specialization, reciprocity, and subcommittee unity· Seniority (significant) vs. junior committee members (in 1960s); low degree of partisanship; high adherence to traditional norms (= source of influence); seniors held in check by other seniors and majority rule"

Groseclose 1994 Testing Committee Composition Hypotheses for the US Congress

"· Committees · Problems with other studies: presume normality of the data, presume cardinal meaning of data, and use mean committee preference instead of median· Test 5 hypotheses: 1. Committees are preference outliers, 2. Dems stack their committee slots with liberal outliers, 3. Republicans stack their committee slots with conservative outliers, 4. Committees are representative of the whole House, 5. Dem contingents on committees are representative of the whole Dem. Caucus· Find no strong support for any of the 5 hypotheses. Use monte carlo estimation to avoid assumptions about the distribution of the data. From this article, we cannot reject the idea that committee assignment is random. If high-demanders are giving up lower priorities, than they may look like moderates in ideal point estimation—an artifact of the way we measure RCs."

Shepsle & Weingast 1994 Positive Theories of Congressional Institutions

"· Committees · Survey lit on legislative practices; blend old and new theories based on the weight each places on the demand side and supply side of legislative decision making· Evolution of positive legislative theory: 1st gen—problems with pure majority rule; 2nd gen—why aren't theoretical problems also empirical ones?; 3rd gen—what did 2nd gen ignore?· View from the demand side: Distribution and gains from the exchange; heterogeneous tastes make logrolling necessary and complicated; committees help coordinate this; 2 alternative theories to this 2nd gen view in section 3 of the article.· A view from the supply side: an informational rationale for congressional institutions· Note to self: "Are committees evil? -use their closed rule powers to give interest groups and particularistic benefits? Or are they the means to keep expertise, elite good-intentions protected from the majority?""

McCubbins et al 1987 Administrative Procedures as Instruments of Political Control

"· Courts · How do MCs control Bureaucrats? Oversight: monitoring, rewarding, and punishing behavior; Adminsitrative procedures: affect environment in which agencies make decisions, limit range of feasible actions on policy· Effects of procedure: mitigate informational disadvantages, enfranchise important constituents in agency decision-making processing, ensuring responsiveness· Most administrative law is written for the purpose of helping elected politicians retain control of policy-making· Lit review—monitoring and sanctions=mechanisms for controlling bureaucracy (but this is too costly)· Legal constraints imposed by APA enable politicians to overcome informational asymmetries by requiring agencies to collect and disseminate politically relevant info (some costs of enforcement are not borne by politicians but by constituents and the courts)· Examples; admin system is affected by and affects the prerogatives of the courts; how the system creates a form of representative democracy in administrative proceedings."

"Binder & Maltzman 2002 Senatorial Delay in Confirming Federal Judges, 1947-1998"

"· Courts · Huge increase in time to confirm Presidential appointees to lower federal bench· Look here at these appointees from 1947 to 1998 to the US Circuit Court of Appeals· Ideological incentives and institutional opportunities combine to affect the timing of Senate confirmations· Confirmation process = fierce competition among Presidnet, parties, and senators seeking to shape the ideological makeup of the federal bench; all this leads to Presidents who are constrained ideologically and institutionally· Causes of slowdown: divided gov't, procedural rights to parties and committees (which interested Senators use to their advantage) -scheduling powers, hold critical nominations hostage when they tilt the ideological structure of a bench."

"Clark 2009 The Separation of Powers, Court Curbing, and Judicial Legitimacy"

"· Courts · Ideological distance b/w Congress and SCOTUS can explain variation in Supreme Court decision making.· Interviews of Justices and former law clerks points to a relationship between the 2 institutions that incorporates judicial preferences for institutional legitimacy + role of public opinion in congressional hostility to SCOTUS· Look at court-curbing legislation from 1877 to 2006 to assess influence of congressional hostility on judicial review· Find public discontent with courts leads to court self-restraint; when congress is hostile, the court uses judicial review to invalidate Acts of Congress less frequently than when Congress is not hostile towards the court."

Bailey et al 2005 Signals from the Tenth Justice: The Political Role of the Solicitor General in Supreme Court Decision Making

"· Courts · Justices will be more receptive to signals from the SG when either the Justice and SG have proximate ideal points, or when the SG's signal is contrary to his own ideological predisposition· Test 1952-2002 using a new measure that puts executive and judicial branches on same ideological scale· Results support hypotheses"

Hitt 2013 Presidential Success in Supreme Court Appointments: Informational Effects and Institutional Constraints

"· Courts · Other models assume P is only constrained by S when attempting to nominate J=P.· Nominees vary in the amount of available information at time of nomination regarding their ideologies· Those judges with more relevant professional experience are more congruent with P over time· Institutional factors, such as S != P exert less influence on congruence· If S != P, President is constrained by S from appointing highly experienced judges"

Cameron & Park 2011 Going Public When Opinion is Contested: Evidence from Presidents' Campaigns for Supreme Court Nominees 1930-2009

"· Courts · Presidents aren't the only ones who "go public"; their opponents sometimes do too, resulting in an opinion contest· Use data on supreme court nominations 1930-2009 of Presidents going public when other groups mobilize against the nominee· Especially for Republican Presidents moving the court median to the Right· When going public, presidents engage in "crafted talk"· Going public is associated with more negative votes in the Senate· Political capital theory vs. opinion contest theory"

Moraski & Shipan 1999 The Politics of Supreme Court Nominations: A Theory of Institutional Constraints and Choices

"· Courts · The President faces 2 constraints when attempting to use his power of nomination to strategically brings SCOTUS toward his ideal point: 1. Continuing judges and the existing court median, 2. Senate approval· This paper examines the conditions under which a president is constrained in his choice of nominees and shows that presidents can and do behave strategically· 3 regimes: 1. unconstrained president S—P=J4—J5---New justice (J); 2. Semi-constrained president P—J4—J5—S—J; 3. Fully constrained president: P—J—S"

Moraski & Shippan 1999 The Politics of Supreme Court Nominations: A Theory of Institutional Constraints and Choices

"· Courts · The President faces 2 constraints when attempting to use his power of nomination to strategically brings SCOTUS toward his ideal point: 1. Continuing judges and the existing court median, 2. Senate approval· This paper examines the conditions under which a president is constrained in his choice of nominees and shows that presidents can and do behave strategically· 3 regimes: 1. unconstrained president S—P=J4—J5---New justice (J); 2. Semi-constrained president P—J4—J5—S—J; 3. Fully constrained president: P—J—S"

Shippan & Shannon 2003 Delaying Justice(s): A Duration Analysis of Supreme Court Confirmations

"· Courts · There is variance in the amount of time it takes to confirm· Use a spatial model on data for nominees since the civil war· As distance between P & S increases, time to confirmation increases· Also, duration increases for critical nominees and chief justices, decreases for older nominees, current and previous senators, and nominees with prior experience on district courts"

Caldeira 1987 Public Opinion and the US Supreme Court: FDR's Court-packing Plan

"· Courts · Use Gallup poll from 3 months in 1937 to see how judicial behavior and mass media shape public opinion toward the Supreme Cort· A series of well-timed decisions by the Justices helped shape positive approval ratings; specifically, 2 actions thwarted FDR's plans to pack the court; 4 events shaped public opinion· Do the media influence what people think about? Do the media persuade the public in one direction or another? Both yes."

Gerber 1998 Estimating the Effect of Campaign Spending on Senate Election Outcomes Using Instrumental Variables

"· Elections · Add to the debate of incumbent v challenger $ by adding candidate wealth variable· Marginal $ incumbent and $ challenger are equal· In an average senate election, incumbent spending leads to a 6% increase in votes· Incumbent spending wins elections; thus, we need spending limits for more competition· 1974-1992 elections, no open seats = 229 elections; quality measure sucks; instrumental vars: challenger wealth, state population, lagged spending by all candidates from previous senate election in State."

Citrin et al 2003 What if Everyone Voted? Simulating the Impact of Increased Turnout in Senate Elections

"· Elections · Conventional wisdom says increased turnout helps Dems· Use state level exit polls and census data to estimate preferences of non-voters· Nonvoters are generally more democratic, but lack of competitive elections means that even if they voted there would be no real change in Senate election outcomes· The gap b/w voters and nonvoters varies across states"

Jones 2003 Position-taking and Position Avoidance in the US Senate

"· Elections · Do different electoral considerations affect level of position-taking in senators?· Do some avoid taking positions to hide their preferences from voters?· Senate, 1979-1996; find: unwillingness to take a position on roll calls is related to constituency—diversity of opinions, pursuit of higher office, electoral marginality, retirement decisions, and visibility within the institution"

Ansolabehere & Jones 2010 Constituents' Responses to Congressional Roll Call Voting

"· Elections · Do voters hold legislators accountable? 2 problems—inconsistent measures from noncomparable indicators of legislators' & constituents' preferences + potential similitude b/w constituents' beliefs about and approval of their representatives; 2 new national surveys address this· Find: electorate responds strongly to substantive representation; nearly all respondents have preferences over important bills; constituents hold beliefs about their legislators' roll call votes that reflect legislators' actual behavior and party policy reputation; and constituents use those beliefs to hold their reps accountable· Note: I have trouble w/ their conclusions about roll calls causing and affecting constituents' beliefs, approval ratings, and voting behavior; their data is from a survey where they did not ask respondents if they actually knew how their rep voted, only how they think their rep voted."

Gimpel et al 2008 The Check is in the Mail: Interdistrict Funding Flows in Congressional Elections

"· Elections · Examine financial ties b/w congressional candidates and donors residing outside those candidates' districts· More than 2/3rds of donations are extra-district and are strategic, partisan, rather than access-oriented· Funds are redistricted from wealthy, highly-educated districts to competitive districts all over the country to help secure party victory in competitive districts· Data: FEC individual contributions 1996-2004, track donors through zip codes· Who do representatives represent—their districts or their surrogate donating constituents? Really, this question doesn't apply because donors are not contributing to one or another individual to whom he/she is now beholden, but rather they donate to and through the party."

Moon 2006 The Paradox of Less Effective Incumbent Spending: Theory & Tests

"· Elections · Explanation for why effect of inc $ < effect of challenger $--inc $ efficiency depends on the marginality of seats; safe inc. $ is less effective than marginal inc. $ because safe incumbents have fewer voters to "buy", while marginal incumbents can easily "buy" swing voters· 1974-2000: Safe inc $ < effective than challenger $ < effective than marginal inc. $· The aggregation of safe and marginal incumbents led to the confusion in past debates"

Jacobson & Carson 2016 The Politics of Congressional Elections

"· Elections · Goals: what goes on in congressional elections? How elections connect in myriad ways with other aspects of American political life; examination of complex business of elections to see why politicians in Washington find it so difficult to fashion measured solutions to pressing national problems; examine important questions individually and interrelatedly on a micro & macro & middle level· Ch 2: recent partisan coherence and power still leaves most of the risks, pains, and rewards of mounting a campaign in the hands of individuals; whether to have an elected legislature was never a question in 1787, just how to implement elections; Republicans have an advantage in House districts because they are spread more evenly throughout each state while Democrats are concentrated in cities; election laws—once diverse between states, now largely uniform, the single election date encourages national campaigns, evolving balloting methods are controversial and can have differing effects depending on format; Decline of parties (1950s-1970s) starts with method of primary elections· Ch3: Congressional candidates—the incumbency factor: after 1960s candidate-centered, rather than party-centered, campaigns gave incumbents a major advantage, scholarly research devoted an entire generation to studying incumbency advantage even after it began to fade in the '90s, Reps have a greater, more consistent incumbency advantage than senators; incumbent's winning higher vote shares leads to fewer marginal seats (the vanishing marginals); Sources of the incumbency advantage: 1. institutional characteristics of Congress (a la Mayhew), 2. changes in voting behavior (are voters just simple-mindedly substituting incumbency for party or is something else going on with a more educated electorate nowadays?), and 3. constituency service (Fiorina—members change the kinds of services they perform and thus change the content of their messages); variability of the incumbency advantage: decline of party line voting plus disassociation of congressional and presidential elections lead to the incumbency advantage and candidate-centered campaigns, parties have regained coherence and popularity and this has affected the incumbency advantage; discouraging the competition: incumbency affects how potential opponents and their potential supporters think, experienced challengers do not challenge incumbents (run mostly for open seats), in the past, far more experienced candidates challenged incumbents bc they were backed by strong party bosses/machines, since dismantled by the 1900s progressive reforms; money in congressional elections comes from interest groups looking to secure influence; the more a challenger spends the better his chances of reelection—the more an incumbent spends (a sign of weakness) the worse his chances of reelection; campaign money is subject to diminishing returns· Ch4: congressional campaigns—candidate-centered, not party-centered; require strategies and organization; recent laws & decisions have given wealthy donors and PACs a legal framework in which to work where there are no funding restrictions; campaign organizations are basically professional campaign specialists for hire; campaign messages—challengers: "I'm qualified for office and the incumbent isn't", negative messaging works; incumbents: "I am one of you, so you can trust me" don't make obvious mistakes; candidates for open seats are usually more experienced· Ch5: congressional voters—turnout is low. Who votes? Educated*, richer, older, and married; partisanship (2 views): 1. Partisanship is a component of social identity, 2. (Fiorina) people attach themselves to a party b/c they have found through past experience that its candidates produce the kinds of results they prefer (i.e., practicality more than psychological); incumbency has lost its value as party power has increased in recent elections; the shift away from personal, individual, candidate-centered campaigns to party-oriented ones has been detrimental to incumbent's good perception; national issues tied to policy failures & unpopular leaders; political issues shape party identification· Ch6: National politics & Congressional elections—"The electoral politics of Congress may center largely on individual candidates and campaigns, but it is the collective results of Congressional elections that shape the course of national politics"; national events controlled by national political conditions; models of aggregate congressional election results focus on economic situation of the country, individuals' economic situation, and economic rationality; presidential coattails; campaign themes build support for challengers and undermine support for incumbents· Ch7: elections, representation, and the politics of congress—how members win and hold office has a profound effect on the internal organization of the houses of congress, the kind of legislation they produce, and the kind of representation Americans receive; Representation—members chosen by competitive elections with voters' ability to vote them out; particularized benefits = representation; representation by referendum—public's chance to respond to national issues and send signals to MCs; descriptive representation? Not very much; Congressional Parties (decline & renewal)—the revival of party cohesion (1980-2014) stems from ideological polarization and the electorate, polarization in presidential support, party polarization due to the electoral connection, and diverging electoral constituencies (chicken or the egg?); downside of strong party government: partisan polarization + divided government = gridlock."

Schaffner 2005 Priming Gender: Campaigning on Women's Issues in US Senate Elections

"· Elections · How do campaign strategies mask or highlight differences b/w men and women and their effect on voting behavior? Senate candidates act strategically in deciding whether and how to target women voters· 1. Importance of these issues to states' voters & 2. Whether gender gaps affected previous contests· Use exit-poll data, find: when campaigns focused on women's issues, women voted democratic, men were not affected."

Karol & Miguel 2007 The Electoral Cost of War: Iraq Casualties and the 2004 US Presidential Election

"· Elections · Iraq casualties from a state depressed President Bush's vote share· Were it not for the 10,000 US casualties, Bush would have won 2% more of the popular vote· Casualty effects were largest in "Blue" states"

Green & Krasno 1988 Salvation for the Spendthrift Incumbent: Reestimating the Effects of Campaign Spending in House Elections

"· Elections · Jacobson used 3 forms of model misspecification causing him to underestimate the effect of incumbent spending· Control for quality challengers, interaction effects, and reciprocal effects leads to a marginal effect for incumbent spending that is significant in certain circumstances· Jacobson's policy recommendations should be revised if we want to have more competitive elections· Measure candidate quality on an 8-point scale to disassociate it from spending variables· Increased spending for challengers only helps if they are "quality" challengers"

Green & Krasno 1990 Rebuttal to Jacobson's "New Evidence for Old Arguments"

"· Elections · Jacobson's criticisms: 1. Incumbent spending var is invalid, 2. Model doesn't account for diminishing marginal returns, 3. Findings only hold for 1978· Use data from 1976-86 to show Jacobson is wrong; incumbent spending has a substantial influence on votes; Jacobson's individual-level analysis has faulty assumptions and there is little evidence for his conclusions re: insignificance of incumbent spending; Jacobson focuses on relative strength of incumbent $ to challenger $, but Krasno & Green do not—in this respect, Jacobson is right, marginal challenger $ > marginal incumbent $; this is not the only way to measure impact of incumbent $; look at yield of spending in terms of votes· Response to criticisms: 1. Even if this is true, their estimates would underestimate the effect of inc $, not overestimate as J. claims; 2. This doesn't matter for 1978, plus they specifically note that they do this and why. They will take it into account for years after 1978; 3. This is demonstrably false. J. did not replicate the model in its entirety· Incumbents are better off spending than not spending; J's survey result analyses are unreliable in various ways."

Johnson et al 2012 The House as a Stepping Stone to the Senate: Why Do So Few African American House Members Run?

"· Elections · Only 4 African American House members have run for the Senate since the passage of the 17th Amendment and none have been elected.· Look at 102-110th Congresses· No direct race-based explanation· Contextual factors linked with race à decision to run, state population, ability to raise campaign funds, ideological extremity"

Cohen et al 2016 Party versus Faction in the Reformed Presidential Nominating System

"· Elections · Parties cannot be counted on to nominate generic representatives of their traditions· Reform in 1970s à sometimes extreme outsiders win nominations· When and why do party regulars win nominations? Incentives built into the 1970s reforms make outsider nominations more likely; following factional nominations in the 1970s party leaders learned to steer nominations to insider favorites· X = {rise of new political media, early $ in presidential nominations, conflict among party factions} à Y = {factional candidates and outsiders with easier nominations that challenge elite control of party nominations}· Presidential nominations present incentives for both party unity and factional division depending on intra-party harmony levels, opportunities for insurgents to communicate with voters, and availability of $."

Doherty 2007 The Politics of the Permanent Campaign: Presidential Travel and the Electoral College

"· Elections · Presidential travel targets large, competitive states· Strategic targeting has increased overtime à permanent campaign· The permanent campaign theory would indicate that electoral concerns permeate patterns of presidential activity throughout a president's years in office· Differences in reelection and other years, breadth of presidential travel, and proportional attention to the states indicate that electoral concerns are not as thoroughly important as the permanent campaign theory would suggest· Permanent campaign: The line between campaigning and governing has all but disappeared, with campaigning dominant."

Goodliffe 2001 The Effect of War Chests on Challenger Entry in House Elections

"· Elections · Previous studies of war chests suffer omitted variable bias; use 1984 - 1998 House elections & bivariate probit; once omitted variables are included, find war chests do not deter challengers.· Flaws in previous studies: measure war chests when they are endogenous; omitting incumbent's previous challenger and strategic dependence b/w different types of challengers· Solution: measure war chests right after the previous election or at the beginning of next election cycle (this removes endogeneity from fund-raising and spending behavior during election cycle); find: challenger entry is affected by previous election challenger; deterrent effect of war chests disappears· Note: this shit is dumb bc measuring a "war chest" right after an election when the old war chest was just depleted by spending to overcome the previous challenger means you are not actually measuring a war chest. While his measure may address endogeneity, it may not actually answer the question."

Vavreck 2009 The Message Matters: The Economy and Presidential Campaigns

"· Elections · Prologue: national economic conditions matter to aggregate election outcomes; argument: the message matters too (i.e., campaigns); clarifying candidate = an economic forecast done well before the election predicts that his/her party will win; insurgent (the one predicted to lose based on the economy) is the one whose message matters, the one who can change the outcome; insurgent candidate must move the message off of the economy and onto something else. They must be closer to the people on the issue than the other candidate and the other candidate must be stuck in an unpopular position on the issue· It is impossible to isolate the cause and effect pattern of one campaign event or one decision because everything is highly interrelated; the economy is important because it cues voters to think retrospectively about their own lives and make rational choices based on how well or poorly they are doing; context matters"

Jacobson 1993 Deficit-Cutting Politics and Congressional Elections

"· Elections · Puzzle: even though congress passed a really unpopular bill (raising taxes), only 15 incumbents lost their seats in 1990àwhere's the electoral connection?· Answer: the bill passed bc only few members faced serious challengers; most were in a position to absorb the anticipated electoral damage w/o risking their careers· Voters make decisions on policy positions, policy-effects, party & candidates. ALSO against incumbents bc of evaluations of Congress overall; greater electoral risk leads to less likely to vote for deficit-bill (also influenced by ideology); electoral concerns were more important.· In general, incumbents only lose with the confluence of an issue that voters don't like, an acceptable replacement, and enough money to acquaint voters with both; there were very few challengers against the potentially weakened incumbents in 1990; if there were more high-quality challengers that year, more incumbents would probably have been defeated."

Mann & Wolfinger 1980 Candidates and Parties in Congressional Elections

"· Elections · Scholars underestimate the levels of public awareness of candidates due to faulty measurements· Communication resources make incumbents better liked than challengers, even if incumbent's name is unrecognized· Seriousness of the challenger is important, makes incumbency more important in the House than in the Senate· Local choices are more important than presidential ratings, although these are still modestly effect· Questions: What do voters know about congressional candidates? How do voters decide b/w candidates? Why are House incumbents so good at winning with wide margins? How are elections won or lost?· Use 1978 election data; underrepresentation in the sample of incumbents who lost in the House; survey respondents are not randomly distributed, especially for Senate races, so they focus their conclusions on the House; party, incumbency, candidate familiarity, candidate reputation, and candidate preference lead to voter defection, vote choice, and incumbency advantage"

Jacobson 1990 The Effects of Spending in House Elections: New Evidence for Old Arguments

"· Elections · Simultaneity problem confuses the effect of incumbent spending· Krasno & Green came up short—1. Their supposedly exogenous "incumbent expenditures" variable is highly correlated with other key variables (incumbent spending = party strength + candidate quality); 2. Linear models are inadequate, but they still treat incumbent spending as linear; 3. Their results only hold for 1978· Analyze changes in voting intentions during final 6 weeks of elections to show that challenger spending is more important in accounting for voters' decisions than incumbent spending· Incumbents spend more the more they are challenged and the stronger the challenger the worse they do· If incumbents don't have diminishing returns on spending (as Krasno & Green suggest), there is no reason they should ever lose; just spend more money to increase the margin of victory each time."

Jacobson 1978 The Effects of Campaign Spending in Congressional Elections

"· Elections · Spending by challengers has a greater impact than spending by incumbents· The more incumbents spend the worse they do—they raise money in proportion to challenger threat· Campaign spending buys voter recognition as measured by survey data· The more both candidates spend, the better the challenger does· Aggregate effect of campaign spending assessed with OLS· Reciprocal relationship of spending by incumbents and challengers estimated by 2sls· Reactive spending by incumbents does not offset the gains already accrued by challengers from the spending that inspired the reaction"

Box-Steffensmeier 1996 A Dynamic Analysis of the Role of War Chests in Campaign Strategy

"· Elections · Theory: War chest dynamics affect challenger entry· Hypothesis: Large war chests deter challengers from entering, especially high-quality challengers· Methods: ANOVA + duration models· Results: war chests affect entry decisions of high-quality challengers"

Sellers 1997 Fiscal Consistency and Federal District Spending in Congressional Elections

"· Elections · Theory: conventional wisdom = legislators win votes through pork-barrel spending for their constituents; electoral performance hinges on legislators' constituency; i.e., whether their votes on federal spending are consistent with their credit-claiming for pork· Hypothesis: in districts receiving substantial pork, fiscally liberal incumbents perform better electorally than fiscal conservatives. In low-pork districts, fiscal conservatives perform better· Methods: 1984-90 House elections + individual level data from 1988 Senate elections study· Results: Hypotheses are supported. Consistent legislators receive more votes than inconsistent ones."

Wlezien & Erikson 2002 The Timeline of Presidential Election Campaigns

"· Elections · To what extent does the observable variation in aggregate polls translate into real movement in electoral preferences?· If these movements in polls do represent movements in preferences and are the result of shocks of campaign events, do the effects last or decay?· Use 1944-2000 pres elections· Find that campaigns do have a real effect on outcomes; electorate's aggregate preferences do not change much over the fall campaign (about 6% points on average); preferences are more volatile in summer than fall; in the last 100 days of election, shocks are large, but temporary; news re: campaign affects voters, but then is forgotten."

Carson et al 2010 The Electoral Costs of Party Loyalty in Congress

"· Elections · To what extent is party loyalty a liability for incumbent legislators?· Estimate effects of each legislator's party unity on vote margin when running for reelection· Find: Party loyalty on divisive votes can be a liability for House incumbents suggesting that voters are not punishing too ideological, but too partisan behavior."

Baum 2005 Talking the Vote: Why Presidential Candidates Hit the Talk Show Circuit

"· Elections · Use 2000 as a case study to examine impact of entertainment-oriented talk show interviews of presidential candidates on public attitudes and voting behavior.· Why shows cover presidential politics, why candidates appear on them, and who is watching.· Results: politically unengaged voters who watch entertainment shows are more likely to find the opposition party candidate likeable and to cross party lines to vote for him, relative to their counterparts who are more politically aware or who do not watch such shows· Supported hypotheses: entertainment shows à fewer references to political parties / partisan themes, higher favorable coverage of interview subject, and lower emphasis on substantive issues or comparisons of candidate positions on the issues."

Fouirnaies & Hall 2014 The Financial Incumbency Advantage: Causes and Consequences

"· Elections · Use RDD, estimate effect of incumbency on campaign contributions in House and State legislatures· Incumbency leads to 20-25 % point increase in share of donations to incumbent's party· Money comes from access-oriented interest groups· Look at 1980-2006 (House); 1990-2010 (state leg.)· Why this financial incumbency advantage? Theories of interest group access***(2/3 of financial incumbency advantage comes from this explanation)*** vs. theories of office-holder benefits vs. theories of experience"

Herrick et al 1994 Unfastening the Electoral Connection: The Behavior of US Representatives when Reelection is no longer a Factor

"· Electoral Connection · Compare reps who did not run for reelection to those who did· Elections cause reps to go back to district more often, employ more staff assistants, attend roll call voting more fastidiously, and be more legislatively active (on topics they may not be familiar with)· No elections lead reps to successful and tightly focused legislative agenda.· 2 views of elections: 1. Source of Restraint—electorate places a check on legislators and keeps them accountable through their ability to deny a representative reelection; 2. Source of Excess—Mayhew: it is better to look good than to do good, Tufte: politicians readily sacrifice sound fiscal policy for improved reelection prospects, Fiorina: politicians deliberately enlarge the bureaucracy to make it harder for the layman to wade through it so that they can get reelection "points" for cutting through red tape. Policy decisions based on reelection concerns. Both views of elections gain support in this article.· Potential selection bias in who is NOT seeking reelection; also a problem in that he throws out ppl seeking higher office"

Grimmer 2013 Appropriators not Position Takers: The Distorting Effects of Electoral Incentives on Congressional Representation

"· Electoral Connection · Congressional districts = 2 levels of representation· Use new measures of home styles to look at aggregate representation· Safe districts (ideologically extreme) dominate policy debates· Responsiveness to constituents negatively impacts the quality of collective representation in terms of party positions during policy debate· Expect safe MCs to articulate more positions than marginal MCs (measure positions via press releases)· Types of homestyles in the Senate: issue-oriented, domestic policy, pork and policy, appropriators· Marginal legislators systematically emphasize appropriations and avoid policy; senators who take positions are more extreme than senators who do not (note: this comports with Lynch and Madonna re: extremists more likely to offer failing amendments in modern congresses)."

Jones 2003 Position-taking and Position Avoidance in the US Senate

"· Electoral Connection · Do different electoral considerations affect level of position-taking in senators?· Do some avoid taking positions to hide their preferences from voters?· Senate, 1979-1996; find: unwillingness to take a position on roll calls is related to constituency—diversity of opinions, pursuit of higher office, electoral marginality, retirement decisions, and visibility within the institution"

Clemens et al 2015 The Political Geography of Distributive Politics

"· Electoral Connection · Geography plays a part in the behavior of representatives· Use Geographic weighted regression to reveal spatial heterogeneity in traditional models of pork-barrel spending· Challenge the one-size-fits-all modelling assumptions for the behavior of MCs in distributive politics (i.e., challenge the premise that "all legislators in vulnerable districts will want (and receive) more pork", or "more conservative members will uniformly receive less pork)· Find: conservatives want/receive less pork; seniority, district vote share %, district demand for pork, and appropriations committee seats all lead to more earmarks."

Grimmer et al 2012 How Words and Money Cultivate a Personal Vote: The Effect of Legislator Credit Claiming on Constituent Credit Allocation

"· Electoral Connection · Most literature equates money spent in a district to credit allocated by constituents, but this has not been conclusively shown· Legislators must actively claim credit through worded messages and not just spend money· Constituents are more responsive to the total number of messages sent rather than the amount claimed.· Particularistic spending should cultivate a large personal vote, but the mechanism for this support is understudied· Constituents may fail to notice spending, fail to identify spending as gov't spending, or by the rep· Vote can only be cultivated if the legislator actually claims credit in words for the money spent.· Use 170,000 House press releases from 2005-2010; find variation among reps in how often they claim credit, constituents keep an "online" running tally of total credit· Results: marginal mcs claim more credit, not just monetary allocations, but lots of other things too; 2 experiments show how/why credit claiming is important: 1. Facebook—credit claiming works better than advertising, 2. Dollar amount doesn't matter, frequency does.· Credit claims affect mc's votes."

Mayhew 1974 Congress: The Electoral Connection

"· Electoral Connection · Rational choice assumption: politicians are single-minded seekers of reelection· Functions of Congress: legislating, overseeing the executive, expressing public opinion, and servicing constituents· Part 1: The electoral connection· Modern MCs want to stay in Congress; "Successful pursuit of a career requires continual reelection"; is reelection a plausible primary (only?) goal?—accountability link; can single minded seekers of reelection do anything about this goal? Shouldn't parties be the unit of analysis instead?—no, teamwork is not a model that fits all representative assemblies; no. time before elections, fund-raising, unequal resources, etc. undermine the cohesiveness & unity of parties; no, not on a national % of partisanship; but, YES, when it comes to their own local primaries and elections· "What characterizes 'safe' MCs is not that they are beyond electoral reach, but that their efforts are very likely to bring them uninterrupted electoral success"; "What a congressman has to try to do is insure that in primary and general elections the resource balance (with all other deployed resources finally translated into votes) favors himself rather than someone else"; Are MCs maximizers of vote %? No, the goal is just to stay in office, not to get as many votes as possible. Due to uncertainty, minimax models fit better than simple max.· 3 kinds of electorally useful activities: 1. Advertising—any effort to disseminate one's name among constituents in such a fashion as to create a favorable image but in messages having little or no issue content; 2. Credit claiming—acting so as to generate a belief in a relevant political actor that one is personally responsible for causing the gov't to do something the actor wants through particularized benefits; 3. Position-taking—the public enunciation of a judgmental statement on anything likely to be of interest to political actors· Part 2: Processes and policies· What happens when members who need to engage in these activities assemble for collective action?· Outline: 1. Salient structural units of Congress (offices, committees, parties) and how they are organized to meet electoral needs; 2. Exploration of the "functions" of congress; 3. Structural arrangements in Congress that serve the end of institutional maintenance; 4. Place of assemblies in governance in US & elsewhere; 5. Consideration of "reform" efforts provoked by dissatisfaction with congressional performance.· Functions of Congress: 1. Expressing public opinion—allows for position-taking; 2. Handling constituent requests—credit claiming; 3. Legislating and overseeing administration—both credit claiming and position taking, mobilization activities, determine content to be voted on, and post-enactment cues to bureaucracies· The pressure to win is only modest. You have to be on the "right" side more than on the "winning" side· Effects of legislating & overseeing: Assembly coherence—delay, particularism, servicing of the organized, and symbolism· Institutional maintenance: a collective goods problem—if all MCs only focused on reelection activities only and all of the time, congress would fall apart. 3 maintenance problems in the handling of money: 1. Allocation, 2. Overall economic effects, 3. Spending is always better than taxes on public opinion; solved by the prestige & power of the hierarchy among MCs and committees· "Responsible legislator" = one whose abilities, attitudes, and relationships with his colleagues serve to enhance the prestige and importance of the House of Representatives.· Congressional reform: "Reform demands on government are an important class of popular preferences expressed or discussed in the language of efficiency or universalism"; Resources: 1. Strengthen the Presidential office in the interest of democratic accountability, 2. Strengthen political parties, 3. Exposure, 4. Regulate the deployment of resources in congressional election campaigns."

Carson et al 2004 Shirking in the Contemporary Congress: A Reappraisal

"· Electoral Connection · Reexamine Rothenberg & Sanders (2000) which found evidence of ideological shirking where no one else had.· Using their model, but with Congress-specific factors (fixed effects), find that their results no longer hold.· Challenge their assertion that their "results are robust to any Congress-to-Congress measurement error in ideological positions"· W-NOMINATE scores are static, estimated separately by Congress, not across Congress; need to account for the electoral context, distribution of members, and the issue-agenda; in addition, partisan control of the House changed in the original sample, there was also a presidential election; by not accounting for these congress-specific effects there is a potential omitted variable bias which can inflate the significance of their results."

Rothenberg & Sanders 2000 Severing the Electoral Connection: Shirking in the Contemporary Congress

"· Electoral Connection · Resolve tension between ideological shirking (doesn't happen) and participatory shirking (does happen) in exiting members of congress· Compare those who seek reelection to those who are definitely leaving from 1991-1996 using roll call data from the last 6 months of election years· Show that while selection effects are unimportant, members do both ideological and participatory shirking· Suggest that policies affecting number turnover, like term limits, can interfere with representation· Notes: This is evidence that elections do constrain representatives, making them more attentive to voters' concerns when seeking reelection than when not; support for moral hazard theories—when legislators will take advantage of freedom from electoral constraints; an argument against term limits; these results fly in the face of every other piece of scholarship on this topic (i.e., ideological shirking does not happen)"

Miller & Stokes 1963 Constituency Influence in Congress

"· Electoral Connection · This article takes up from Burke: "reps should serve constituents' interests, not their will". So, should reps be compelled to follow electoral mandates? · Constituency control is also opposite to government by responsible national parties· Do different models of representation apply to different public issues?· Miller and Stokes conduct interview of incumbents, challengers, and constituents in 116 districts and couple these interviews with roll call votes and demographic data to find out if representatives are focused on things other than policy in their connections to their constituents (e.g., race). They look at three issue domains (race, foreign relations, and economics)· The conditions of constituency influence—two ways for constituents to view their reps: 1. Choose a rep who shares their views, or 2. Choose a rep who does not share views, but is willing to vote against his or her own preferences in order to secure reelection.· Conclude: there is evidence for constituency control in congressional attitudes and perceptions as well as in electoral behavior or the public. Constituents do exert some control over reps."

Mayhew 1974 Congress: The Electoral Connection

"· Electoral Connection · US legislators are single minded seekers of reelection· Reelection is plausible as a primary goal because it must be achieved before any other goal can be attempted.· MCs engage in reelection-oriented behaviors: advertising, credit-claiming, and position-taking· Congress is organized so as to promote the reelection of its members. If reelection is the goal, what would congress look like?1. Structure of Congress— offices, committees, and parties all geared toward incumbency advantage2. Functions of Congress—voicing public opinion, handling constituent requests, legislating, overseeing administration (mobilization of votes, determine content of bills, post-enactment cues to bureaucracy); these functions lead to delay, particularism, servicing of the organized, and symbolism in policy.3. Institutional Maintenance—rules, ways & means, appropriations; someone has to take care of these tasks, and this is left up to MCs who have electoral security via seniority and/or leadership.4. Assemblies in governance—France5. "Reform" efforts bc of dissatisfaction with CongressArgument Flaws:· Focus on politicians and not party downplays the importance of parties in Congress; this is a relic of the time period in which Mayhew was writing.· Mayhew's description of institutional maintenance undermines his argument about the primacy of reelection. Someone has to maintain the prestige, reputation, and functionality of Congress (this falls to the leaders in Mayhew's opinion & seniors) but that means that they do not put their own reelection first."

Carson & Engstrom 2005 Assessing the Electoral Connection: Evidence from the Early United States

"· Electoral Connection · Use the presidential election of 1824; look at connection bw representative behavior, district public opinion, and electoral outcomes· Find that reps who voted for John Q. Adams but represented districts supporting Andrew Jackson did poorly in the next midterm election· Also find that the appearance of a qualified challenger impacted the performance of affected incumbents· Results indicate that representatives could be held accountable by elections during the antebellum era (i.e., Mayhew's theory does not only apply to modern congresses, but to older ones as well)"

Schaffner 2005 Priming Gender: Campaigning on Women's Issues in US Senate Elections

"· Gender · How do campaign strategies mask or highlight differences b/w men and women and their effect on voting behavior? Senate candidates act strategically in deciding whether and how to target women voters· 1. Importance of these issues to states' voters & 2. Whether gender gaps affected previous contests· Use exit-poll data, find: when campaigns focused on women's issues, women voted democratic, men were not affected."

Polsby & Schickler 2002 Landmarks in the Study of Congress Since 1945

"· History of POLS · Reviews the history of the study of Congress· Agenda of political science is formed both by literature and events· History:1. "Responsible Party" Tradition—Woodrow Wilson: we need to be more like Britain, we need responsible parties, parties should present coherent platforms and promote executive and legislative unity.2. Sociologically Oriented Research: The first generation—combine study of Congress with interest in public administration; empirical focus—gain a firsthand view of Congress (qualitative); assimilate Congress into organizational theory; study Congress from the perspective of its inhabitants, not academic outsiders (as in the Responsible Party Tradition)3. Sociologically Oriented Research: The second generation—Richard Fenno: How to turn the study of representation in a large-scale society into an empirical inquiry; from 1945-1970s five features stand out: 1. Turn from party organization to behavior; 2. Individual studies of the structures of Congress; 3. Explication of the complex process by which bills become laws; 4. Study institutional structures and historical deviation of Congress (House and Senate emerge as independent entities); 5. Use of roll calls facilitates studies; rise of rational choice.4. The Influence of reform (1970s)—overthrow of seniority for chairman selection; decentralizing trends, strengthened parties, House committees as weathervanes for important changes to come.5. Rational choice and "New Institutionalism"—take up Mayhew: if they all seek reelection, how does (major) legislation happen?; Congress' influence on the bureaucracy; New Institutionalism/Social choice theory: institutions prevent chaos theory and majority cycles, promote stability (Krehbiel), committees, parties, etc."

Poole and Rosenthal 2007 Ideology and Congress (Chapters 1 & 2)

"· Ideology · Chapter 1: Introduction—The Liberal/Conservative Structure:· Roll calls typically split one or both of the parties· Voting is ideological when positions are predictable across a wide set of issues· Caveats: the simple ideological structure does not predict individual issues; just one continuum of positions may not be enough; the method is blind to party ID and issue content; even omnibus bills fit the model; strategic voting messes up the model (it assumes each vote is indicative of underlying preferences)· Chapter 2: The Spatial Model and Congressional Voting· We can line up the legislators from left to right and predict their voting coalitions· Constraint hypothesis: all issues can be mapped onto a fixed ordering of legislators· Assumes single-peaked and symmetric preferences· A strategic vote on an amendment vs a bill is really a sincere vote on an amendment vs SQ; this is why constraint may operate in the presence of strategic behavior· Multidimensionality: 2 dimensions are sometimes required & do not mess up the model; a third dimension is hardly ever necessary· Estimation: Optimal classification (works for errorless voting) finds cutpoints, not distances bw legislators; NOMINATE· Legislators positions are stable over time."

Bonica 2014 Mapping the Ideological Marketplace

"· Ideology · Create a new method to measure ideology of candidates and contributors using campaign finance data· Common pool of contributors allows for estimates of ideology for Congress, the Pres & executive branch, state legislators, governors, and other state officials, interest groups, and individual donors; incumbents and challengers, too· Article addresses some validity issues and concerns re: strategic behavior; looks at promising avenues for furture research· Common Space Campaign Finance Scores (CF Scores): Contributors distribute funds in accordance with their evaluations of candidate ideology (endogeneity?); look at both receivers and donors to estimate ideology for all parties involved.· Same underlying structure as NOMINATE is recovered (small differences exist); both scores have similar predictive power, but CF Scores allow for inclusion of data beyond the legislators themselves."

Hall 2015 What Happens When Extremists Win Primaries?

"· Ideology · Interplay of primaries and general elections from 1980-2010· Nomination of an extremist changes the general election and legislative behavior· Findings: when an extremist wins a primary, that party's vote share decreases in the general election by as much as 9-13%; probability that the party wins the seat decreases 35-45%; and nominating extreme primary candidates causes the district's subsequent roll call representation to reverse (i.e., Republicans vote more liberally, etc.);· This shows that general election voters act as a moderating force."

Brady et al 2007 Primary Elections and Candidate Ideology: Out of Step with the Primary Electorate?

"· Ideology · Look at House primary and general elections (1956-98); primary elections vs. candidate ideology; find that congressional candidates face a strategic positioning dilemma: align w/ primary or general constituents? Since primary constituencies are more extreme, MCs align themselves more extremely and are pulled away from median district preferences· Primary losses are most likely to occur among ideologically moderate legislators· Use presidential vote as measure of district's general preferences & DW-NOMINATE scores for ideology; find evidence that there are two different constituencies"

Snyder & Groseclose 2000 Estimating Party Influence in Congressional Roll Call Voting

"· Ideology · Look for party influence in Congress and find it in both House and Senate from 1871 to 1998· Party influences both House and Senate in the same ways; in the House, party is especially influential on key procedural votes (rules on bills, motions to stop debate, and motions to recommit)—substantive issues w/ party influence include budget resolutions, tax policy, social security, social welfare policy, and the nat'l debt limit; Rarely does party influence moral & religious issues and never gun control issues; variable influence on agriculture, public works, and nuclear energy· How to separate party vs. preferences in Roll Calls? Assume that on lopsided RCs, parties generally know the outcome; assume that on those RCs parties do not try to influence their members and allow them to vote their preferences (i.e., lopsided votes yield true preferences, close votes show party pressure) #****thispaper."

McGhee et al 2014 A Primary Cause of Partisanship? Nomination Systems and Legislator Ideology

"· Ideology · Many argue that primaries lead to increased polarization, so we should open primaries up in order to attract more moderate candidates· Use data on state legislator ideal points + primary systems by state to show the effect of primary systems on polarization· Find openness of primaries has little, if any, effect on the extremism of politicians"

Carson et al 2004 Shirking in the Contemporary Congress: A Reappraisal

"· Ideology · Reexamine Rothenberg & Sanders (2000) which found evidence of ideological shirking where no one else had.· Using their model, but with Congress-specific factors (fixed effects), find that their results no longer hold.· Challenge their assertion that their "results are robust to any Congress-to-Congress measurement error in ideological positions"· W-NOMINATE scores are static, estimated separately by Congress, not across Congress; need to account for the electoral context, distribution of members, and the issue-agenda; in addition, partisan control of the House changed in the original sample, there was also a presidential election; by not accounting for these congress-specific effects there is a potential omitted variable bias which can inflate the significance of their results."

Anderson 2012 Policy Domain-Specific Ideology: When Interest Group Scores Offer More Insight

"· Ideology · Use 10 interest group scores to analyze domain-specific ideology· While correlations b/w DW-NOMINATE and interest group scores are usually high, some concerns still arise: 1. Correlations have increased over time, so note this for historical analysis, 2. Policy-specific scores differ from DW-NOMINATE on aggregate measures like the median, 3. NOMINATE does not capture agriculture well· Domain-specific socres can shed more light on the role of party and constituency in voting."

"Howell & Rogowski 2012 War, the President, and Legislative Voting Behavior",

"· Ideology · War is responsible for the modern presidency because MCs line up ideologically behind the president in war time· Ideal point estimates for MCs at beginning and end of major wars support this theory· Wartime effect à MC ideal points to move toward president's; in aftermath of war, mc's ideal points shifted back away.· Use interest groups (supposedly unaffected by war) to bridge the gap between wartime and peace and allow for comparisons of ideal points across time.· 2 concerns: 1. Wartime agenda shift à shift in ideal points (not wartime effects); 2. Wartime is a new dimension beyond lib-con; authors do not find evidence for either concern in 107th Congress."

Bertelli & Grose 2011 The Lengthened Shadow of Another Institution? Ideal Point Estimates for the Executive Branch and Congress

"· Ideology · While we know about Congress-Pres, we don't know about Congress-Executive branch· Estimate ideal points of Congress, Pres, and Cabinet heads from 1991-2004· Use examples to show diversity (ideological) in executive branch, and importance of this kind of estimation for studies of separation of power· Assess impact of Congress and Pres ideologies on cabinet members, find: Senate controls executive branch with confirmation and oversight powers, House with budgetary oversight and appropriations."

Alford & Hibbing 1981 Increased Incumbency Advantage in the House

"· Incumbency Advantage · Literature says incumbents are responsible for declining marginal districts; untested explanations for incumbents' improved electoral performance; we need analysis not more explanation· This paper: which incumbents have improved electoral performance? When did they experience these improvements? Has it been uniform across levels of tenure or restricted to freshmen seeking 1st reelection? Generational replacement, relative increases in advantage for old or now?· Results: incumbency advantage is uniform across tenure levels; additional term of tenure yields diminishing positive electoral returns; the old dichotomous measure of incumbent tenure (sophomore yes/no) still explains the largest shifts in electoral performance; results cast doubt on mailing theory of marginality and seniority being unrelated"

"Carson 2005 Strategy, Selection, and Candidate Competition in US House and Senate Elections"

,"· Ambition · Strategic interaction between congressional challengers and incumbents, 1976-2000 leads to unified approach to candidate competition· Other literature is incomplete in its treatment of only or the other of these actors· We should use a strategic model to avoid selection bias: Challenger (enter vs not enter) à incumbent (run vs retire)· Are quality challengers more likely to run in response to incumbents' positions on salient RCs?· Increased party unity score leads to higher likelihood of a quality challenger."

"Jacobson 1989 Strategic Politicians and the Dynamics of US House Elections, 1946-86"

,"· Ambition · Strategic political elites translate national conditions into election results, helping to hold Congress collectively accountable for government performance· High quality candidates run when their party is in favor, and win more votes than low quality candidates· Strategic politicians increase with candidate-centered elections· Candidate centered elections lead to too much focus on local politics."

"Lublin 1994 Quality, Not Quantity: Strategic Politicians in US Senate Elections"

,"· Elections · 1952-1990, estimate the impact of challenger experience on vote for the incumbent· Find US reps gain higher proportion of votes than other elected officials· Proportion of challenger quality and marginal seats remains stable in the Senate over time· New challenger quality scale (L) à candidates take national and local factors into account when deciding to run"

"Maestas & Rugeley 2008 Assessing the "Experience Bonus" Through Examining Strategic Entry, Candidate Quality, and Campaign Receipts in US House Elections"

,"· Elections · Are quality candidates really experienced fund-raisers?· The only fundraising difference b/w amateur challengers and quality ones stems from a selection process wherein strong candidates seek the best races· Money determines visibility and viability and thus enhances challengers' performance· *if candidates enter only when fundraising prospects are good, then evidence linking candidate experience to fundraising may be the spurious results of strong candidates' strategic choices.· Find: evidence of experience bonus to quality challengers but this gap narrows in competitive races"

"Canes-Wrone et al 2002 Out of Step, Out of Office: Electoral Accountability and House Members' Voting"

,"· Elections · Do house roll calls really matter? Controls: district ideology, challenger quality, campaign spending, other factors; look at relation between incumbents' electoral preference and roll call support for their party; findings: 1. In each election, an incumbent receives a lower vote share the more he supports his party 2. This effect is comparable to other electoral determinants; 3. Probability of retaining office decreases as he offers increased support for his party, for marginal and safe members alike."

"Holbrook & McClury 2005 The Mobilization of Core Supporters: Campaigns, Turnout, Electoral Composition in US Presidential Elections"

,"· Elections · Look at relation of presidential campaign activities and mobilization of core supporters· Data: campaign visits, media purchases, and party transfers to states 1992, 1996, and 2000· Patterns: voter turnout is positively related to presidential campaigns, but not by all activities; campaigns have direct effects on the participation of core partisan groups; the ability of parties to mobilize core groups affects state electoral success· In sum, political mobilization and party transfers to states affect elections and campaign effects.· Core party voters are more likely to receive and respond to campaign information àsuccessful campaigns translate natural predisposition into actual votes; mobilization efforts are geared toward partisan, not undecided, voters; need to examine tv ads and party monetary transfers; campaign information use depends on partisan bias of voters, expenditure of campaign resources, the preferences of other voters"

"Burden & Hillygus 2009 Polls and Elections: Opinion Formation, Polarization, and Presidential Reelection"

,"· Elections · Public opinion formation and change for a sitting president <-> reelection contests· 2 effects of citizen learning: 1. Those with prior opinions—learning -> increased polarized opinions; 2. Those without prior opinions—learning -> opinion formation, favors the incumbent· Races with an incumbent president à increased polarization of public opinion and an incumbency advantage· Use NES data + other survey data of 6 most recent pres elections"

"Holbrook 1994 Campaigns, National Conditions, and US Presidential Elections"

,"· Elections · Test campaign variables and national conditions with data from '84, '88, and '92 pres elections· Find: both campaign vars and nat'l conditions affect public opinion; national conditions have a greater impact on election outcomes.· Most voters decide early on who they will vot for, so do campaigns really matter?· In aggregate models, accurate predictions can be made without reference to campaigns, only using economy and pres popularity· There is movement in public opinion during campaign season; there are also party support differences across election years; both are a function of national conditions; but public opinion changes are also due to campaigns.· General level of support for a candidate is due to national conditions; within years, fluctuations in support are due to campaigns."

"Gomez et al 2007 The Republicans Should Pray for Rain: Weather, Turnout, and Voting in US Presidential Elections"

,"· Elections · When compared to normal conditions, rain significantly reduces voter participation by a rate of almost 1% per inch of rain. Snowfall lowers turnout by almost .5%· Poor turnout benefits Republicans· Weather may have contributed to 2 electoral outcomes: 1960 & 2000 Presidential elections· The costs of participation are a major obstacle to citizen involvement; bad weather adds to the costs· Data: pre. Elections 1948-2000 + NWS rainfall data."

"Crespin & Rohde 2010 Dimensions, Issues, and Bills: Appropriations Voting on the House Floor"

,"· Ideology · One (sometimes 2) dimensions can successfully describe roll-call voting· Can we reach the same conclusion about low dimensionality when we divide the roll call agenda into subsets of relatively homogenous subject matter? To what extent is the same ordering of legislators found across these different groups of votes? Focus on all RCs on 13 annual appropriations bills across 8 congresses· Find: when you concentrate on smaller areas, voting is multidimensional and members do not vote in a consistent ideological fashion across all issue areas.· Focusing on order of legislators is important because of importance of medians and pivots; if these positions change with specific issues, it may be inappropriate to use full NOMINATE scores to test some hypotheses.· In multidimensional Congress, MCs do not vote consistently on all issues; if Congress were truly unidimensional, the same ordering would be found for every issue· Hypothesis: voting in Congress is moderately consistent· Why this variation? Heterogeneous districts (a la Fenno), local salience vs. party, personal preference vs. district or party (NOTE: The authors only posit, and do not test, these explanations)· Example: Lapinski—most conservative on abortion, most liberal on labor (NOMINATE categorizes him as a moderate on average)· It is possible for preferences to be multidimensional, but not reveal themselves because the issues do not receive enough RC votes in normal analysis; test by pooling votes in appropriations billsacross Congresses. From 100th-107th Congresses jurisdictions of the subcommittees stayed the same. This should produce a measure of variation from one issue to another by MC. Estimate scores for each subcommittee separately: they are not directly comparable to one another. Not all members are conservative or liberal across all issues· Lots of measure and comparisons and different presentations of results, no one conclusive "smoking gun" but a good amount of ancillary evidence to support their claims.· NOMINATE is good for voting behavior and decision making patterns. But you need to fine tune the measure for predicting behavior or examining medians or pivots on specific bills."

"Pyeatt 2015 Party Unity, Ideology, and Polarization in Primary Elections for the House of Representatives, 1956-2012"

,"· Ideology · Puzzle: Congress is more and more polarized even though public punishes excessive partisanship electorally· Explained by benefits members get from primaries; members get primary benefits from partisanship but not ideological extremity· Most remaining moderates are vestiges from an earlier ear· Primary elections create incentives to be extreme· Strong partisanship hurts general election vote share, but also reduces likelihood of primary challenges & increases primary vote share: all of this leads to increased polarization in Congress"

"Abramowitz 1991 Incumbency, Campaign Spending, and the Decline of Competition in US House Elections"

,"· Incumbency Advantage · Low levels of competition result from increased campaign costs and the declining ability of challengers to raise the funds· Controlling for inflation, a dollar spent in the 80s yields lower electoral returns than in the 70s· 1980s challengers' avg spending declined by 30% over the decade· Public financing of campaigns at high levels could increase competition.· Challenger spending matters the most; increased spending decreases incumbent margins"

"Abramowitz et al 2006 Incumbency, Redistricting, and the Decline of Competition in US House Elections"

,"· Incumbency Advantage · Test redistricting, partisan polarization*, and incumbency* to explain declining competition· No support for redistricting, rather than demographic change, and ideological realignment· Lack of challenger funds leads to lower competition· Hypotheses: 1. If redistricting is right, we should see an increase in safe districts and a decrease in marginal districts in years ending in 2; 2. If partisan polarization is right, we should see the number of safe districts steadily increasing with most changes occurring between redistricting cycles; 3. Incumbency advantage leads to even marginal districts see declining competition due to challenger finances & competition declines most in contests with incumbents, not open seats"

"Maestas et al 2006 When to Risk it? Institutions

Ambitions, and the Decision to Run for the US House","· Ambition · Most literature assumes "ambition"· We model ambition separately from the decision to run· Costs and benefits for running and holding office affect ambition, but not the decision to run· For ambitious legislators the question is when to run, not whether to run"

"Kriner & Shickler 2014 Investigating the President: Committee Probes and Presidential Approval, 1953-2006"

· Approval · Congressional investigations of the executive branch damage president's support among the public· Increased investigative activity in the hearing room significantly deceases approval ratings· Survey experiment confirms their arguments and shows that committee-led charges of misconduct have a greater influence on public opinion than identical charges not by Congress· Low approval ratings make it more difficult for presidents to pursue their policy and political agendas; if congressional activity can undermine this public support, they can affect presidential power and agendas without the high transaction costs of legislating"

Johnson & Roberts 2004 Presidential Capital and the Supreme Court Confirmation Process

· Courts · Can Presidents overcome an ideologically hostile Senate by spending political capital to support a nominee?· Content analysis of public statements by presidents during confirmation battles shows support for presidents "going public" strategically· This strategy influences president's ability to win confirmation for important nominees

Cohen et al 1991 The Impact of Presidential Campaigning on Midterm US Senate Elections

· Elections · Conventional wisdom says presidential campaigning in midterm elections has a negative impact· This paper: president's campaigning can be strategic and can have a positive impact by mobilizing non-voters; this may have been the turning point for several elections in the president's party

Hayes 2005 Candidate Quality through a Partisan Lens: A Theory of Trait Ownership

· Elections · Origins of candidate trait perceptions and their effect on voters· Direct connection b/w issues owned by a party and evaluations of the personal attributes of its candidates· Reps = strong leaders + moral; Dems = compassion + empathy· Candidates can gain by "trespassing" on opponents' trait territory· Use NES 1980-2004 pres elections; people infer candidate traits from issue information

Jones 2010 Partisan Polarization and Congressional Accountability in House Elections

· Elections · Puzzle: low ratings of Congress does not affect reelection· Find: 1. Low congressional approval ratings generally reduce the electoral margins of majority party incumbents and increase margins for minority party incumbents; 2. Partisan polarization increases the magnitude of this partisan differential; 3. Electoral effects of congressional performance ratings hold irrespective of a member's individual party loyalty or seat safety· Debate in literature: CPG—increased cohesion within parties is needed in order for there to be electoral accountability for congressional performance vs. Procedural Cartel Theory—there is always a link between the legislative record and electoral fortunes of majority party leaders

"Highton 2000 Senate Elections in the US, 1920-94"

· Elections · State partisan competition + incumbency + national partisan tides = Senate election outcomes

Kahn & Kenney 1999 Do Negative Campaigns Mobilize or Suppress Turnout? Clarify the Relationship between Negativity and Participation

· Elections · Useful negative informative critiques lead to increased turnout· Unsubstantial mudslinging lowers turnout· Tone of ads is more important for independents and those with less interest or knowledge of politics· Negative information is more exciting and memorable; mobilizes voters to minimize risk· Data: 564 ads for 30 senate races in 1990.