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TRANSNATIONALISM, AFRICAN American legislators, LEGISLATIVE bills, AFRICA-United States relations, UNITED States, UNITED States -- Politics & government, and AFRICA -- Social conditions

This article proposes a theory of transnational surrogate representation to explain the representation of African interests in the U.S. Congress. The argument is supported through analyses of bill sponsorship and committee hearings between 1979 and 2008. Compared with non-African-American members of Congress, black representatives sponsored significantly more bills related to African issues, and black committee chairs held significantly more hearings on African issues. These findings suggest affective ties associated with transnationalism motivate black representatives to act for an international black constituency. This extends the concept of surrogate representation beyond geopolitical borders, and implies that legislative diversity influences the content of Congress's foreign-policy agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

REPRESENTATIVE government, AFRICAN American politicians, POLITICIANS -- United States, AFRICAN American legislators, MINORITY politicians, LIBERALISM, COMMITTEES, and UNITED States. Congress

This paper analyzes the effect of race on deliberations inside congressional committees. It investigates whether black representatives are more or less likely to use liberal policy frames and mention marginalized groups during committee debates. The results suggest that black legislators are more likely than whites to present liberal policy frames for black interest bills and they often take a more active role during committee debates. However, black legislators are no more likely than white Democrats to mention blacks and other marginalized groups during committee deliberations. When it comes to mentioning marginalized groups during committee deliberations, party is the most important explanatory factor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

REPRESENTATIVE government, HISPANIC Americans, UNITED States legislators, CONSTITUENTS (Persons), LEGISLATIVE voting, PARTISANSHIP, HISPANIC American legislators, AFRICAN American legislators, DEMOCRATS, and UNITED States

Using an original data set of roll call votes and bill co-sponsorships across three high salience issues (immigration, labor, and education) and one low salience issue (social security), this article analyzes the 111th Congress to assess representation of Latinos. Partisanship is the key determinant in member behavior on voting, not the member’s race or ethnicity or constituent demographics. For bill co-sponsorships, Latino members are only more active on high salience issue areas compared with non-Latino members. Increases in Latino population do not influence behavior. The results also indicate that African American and Democratic legislators offer Latinos considerable amounts of substantive representation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

POLITICS & ethnic relations, REPRESENTATIVE government, AFRICAN American legislators, HISPANIC American legislators, and COALITIONS

Political relations between racial/ethnic groups in America have (a) been commonly examined in terms of the degree of "cooperation" or "conflict" and (b) have most frequently been studied in the arena of urban politics; this has been especially so in the case of Hispanics/Latinos and African Americans. This article represents the first effort to pose and to systematically assess the question of inter--minority group relations in Congress by examining roll call behavior in the U.S. House of Representatives. Using Black and Latino interest group ratings and associated roll call votes from the 104th to 108th Congresses as indicators of Black and Latino interests, we show that Black representatives have voting records very supportive of the most salient concerns of Latinos and that Latino representatives have voting records at least modestly supportive of the most salient concerns of Blacks. At minimum, the findings suggest that Black and Latino representatives support the "other" group at the same level (or higher) than party affiliation alone would suggest and also indicate an absence of conflict that is found in local-level studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

REPRESENTATIVE government, UNITED States legislators, RACE & politics, ETHNICITY & politics, MINORITIES, AFRICAN American legislators, HISPANIC American legislators, CONSTITUENTS (Persons), and UNITED States

The 113th Congress has a record number of racial and ethnic minorities serving on Capitol Hill. Using the 2008 Cooperative Congressional Election Study (CCES), we examine what this increased descriptive representation of racial minorities means for legislative responsiveness and citizen-representative communication in the U.S. House. We argue that descriptive representation will improve the constituent-legislator relationship across racial groups, but that shared race should matter more for blacks and Latinos as racial minorities unaccustomed to legislative responsiveness. Our findings follow these expectations and suggest that the presence or lack of descriptive representation is an integral part of how citizens experience representation in the U.S. House. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AFRICAN American legislators, REPRESENTATIVE government, RACE relations, AFRICAN American politicians, and ECONOMIC competition

The authors relate the racial composition of districts to five measures of legislative activity and position in the 101st to 106th Congresses: bill introduction, colleague cosponsorship, bill passage, committee portfolio, and party leadership. The authors find that African American constituents generally are represented by less active and less well-positioned legislators on four of the five measures. They also explore the origin of these disparities. Two of the disparities (bill passage and party leadership) are partly explained by the tendency of districts with larger African American populations to be less electorally competitive. A third disparity (committee portfolio) is accounted for by the tendency of larger African American populations to be represented by African American members of Congress. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

AFRICAN American legislators, VOTING research, RADICALISM, POLITICAL leadership, and UNITED States legislators

This paper argues that African-American House legislators have become less radical, engaging in less forceful ideological battles with the Democratic Party over its policy leadership. They have become simultaneously more prone to support policy leadership from Democratic presidents as well. This argument is based on a study of floor votes by black legislators on budget resolutions in the Carter and Clinton administrations, as well as an analysis of presidential support and party unity scores from 1977 to 2008 in CQ Almanacs. Since the 1990s, based on a number of factors, black House members are less likely to challenge Democratic presidential and party leadership as radical voices on the political left. This decline in black radicalism, I contend, has implications for the concept of African-American politics as an organized challenge to the racial status of blacks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AFRICAN Americans -- Political activity, DEMOGRAPHY, UNITED States legislators, AFRICAN American legislators, and UNITED States elections

We examined the effects of subjective and objective descriptive representation and district demography on African Americans' attitudes toward their member of Congress and the U.S. Congress as an institution. We investigated whether or not African Americans in more-racially homogeneous districts differ in their attitudes from counterparts in districts with fewer African Americans. We also studied the effects of descriptive representation and district demography to determine if these effects are contingent on voters' perceptions of descriptive representation. We found that living in a district with a higher proportion of blacks enhances African American voters' feelings toward their representative and marginally elevates these voters' evaluations of Congress. This effect is mediated, however, by the election of a black representative to Congress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AFRICAN American legislators, AFRICAN Americans -- Politics & government, RACE discrimination, UNITED States elections, POLITICAL science, and ELECTIONS

Explores the success of Afro-American incumbents Sanford Bishop, Cynthia McKinney and Corrine Brown from Southern U.S. in the 1996 congressional elections despite losing their majority-Afro-American election districts. Examination of the extent of bias against Afro-American candidates; Extent of backlash against Afro-American voters; Extent to which nonracial factors, particularly incumbency, explain racial voting patterns.

AFRICAN American legislators, VOTING research, VOTING, UNITED States legislators, REPRESENTATIVE government, IDEOLOGY, and UNITED States. Congress

In this research note, the authors explore the extent to which personal attributes influence voting behavior for African American members of Congress. The authors test the relationship between legislators' personal attributes and Poole and Rosenthal's DW-NOMINATE scores for black members of the 101st to 108th Congresses. The results suggest that personal attributes matter. They increase the explained variance in the models, and factors such as generational cohort, religion, and military experience are statistically significant. These results suggest that while descriptive members of Congress share much in common, they should not be interpreted as monolithic with respect to congressional voting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

VOTING, AFRICAN American legislators, and UNITED States. Congress

Examines the ideological cohesiveness of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) and factors affecting vote choice in the United States. Analysis on roll-call votes of African-American representatives; Factors responsible for variations in Caucus unity; Relevance of vote cohesion on the CBC and representation of black interest in Congress.