articles+ search results

POLITICAL parties, PARTISANSHIP, CITIZENS, IDEOLOGICAL conflict, COLLECTIVE representation, FORTUNE, and IDEOLOGY

While scholars posit an electoral link between congressional approval and majority party electoral fortunes, it is unclear whether citizens are grounding their assessments of approval on policy or valence grounds, such as retrospective economic evaluations. Whereas it is commonly understood that there is an ideological component to constituents' job approval of their individual members of Congress, in addition to a strong partisan effect, the ideological basis of institutional approval has not been established. Using cross-sectional and panel survey data, which allow for scaling citizens and the congressional parties in the same ideological space, I demonstrate that, distinct from the partisan basis of congressional approval, citizens' ideological distance from the majority party has a separate and distinct effect. These results suggest that the link between congressional approval and majority party fortunes is rooted in the collective ideological representation provided by the legislative majority in an increasingly responsible U.S. Congress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

POLITICAL science, ACTIVISM, PRESIDENTIAL administrations, HISTORICAL analysis, CONTENT analysis, and CHINA-United States relations

The Sino-U.S. relations tumbled during the Trump Administration. The talk of decoupling permeated the decision-making circle in Washington D.C. Many factors have contributed to the free fall. The roles Congress has played are undoubtedly one of them. Based on the new institutionalist approach, this study provides three analyses of recent China-related legislative activities. First, the historical analysis of legislative data illustrates a surge in congressional activism on China-related legislative activities. Second, the content analysis reveals some of the triggers in the deterioration of bilateral relations in recent years. Third, the political analysis of the critical congressional players and the structures and procedures Congress created provides some insight into the domestic and political logic of the congressional crusade against China. Finally, the paper ends with assessing the impact of the surge in Congressional activism on the new Biden Administration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

LEGISLATIVE bodies, UNITED States legislators, LEGISLATIVE committees, LEADERSHIP, and LOBBYISTS

The article provides a blueprint for making the U.S. Congress great again and re-empowering the legislature. Topics discussed are disappearance of legislative victories of the Congress starting in the late 1970s with the shrinking of the size and effectiveness of the Congressional Representative and crumbling committees, as well as the rise of powerful leadership staff and lobbyists, and atrophy of the Congress driven by the Republican Revolution of 1994 and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

UNITED States legislators, REPRESENTATIVE government, DEMOCRACY, RESPECT, POLITICAL parties, and MEDIATION

Canonical theories of democratic representation envision legislators cultivating familiarity to enhance esteem among their constituents. Some scholars, however, argue that familiarity breeds contempt, which if true would undermine incentives for effective representation. Survey respondents who are unfamiliar with their legislator tend not to provide substantive answers to attitude questions, and so we are missing key evidence necessary to adjudicate this important debate. We solve this problem with a randomized field experiment that gave some constituents an opportunity to gain familiarity with their Member of Congress through an online Deliberative Town Hall. Relative to controls, respondents who interacted with their member reported higher esteem as a result of enhanced familiarity, a mediation effect supporting canonical theories of representation. This effect is statistically significant among constituents who are the same political party as the member but not among those of the opposite party, although in neither case did familiarity breed contempt. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

POLITICIANS, WITNESSES, LEGISLATIVE hearings, and LEGISLATIVE committees

How are politicians informed and who do politicians seek information from? The role of information has been at the center for research on legislative organizations but there is a lack of systematic empirical work on the information that Congress seeks to acquire and consider. To examine the information flow between Congress and external groups, we construct the most comprehensive dataset to date on 74,082 congressional committee hearings and 755,540 witnesses spanning 1960–2018. We show descriptive patterns of how witness composition varies across time and committee and how different types of witnesses provide varying levels of analytical information. We develop theoretical expectations for why committees may invite different types of witnesses based on committee intent, interbranch relations, and congressional capacity. Our empirical evidence shows how committees' partisan considerations can affect how much committees turn to outsiders for information and from whom they seek information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

LOBBYING, CAMPAIGN funds, POLITICAL elites, PUBLIC interest groups, CONSTITUENTS (Persons), LOBBYISTS, and PARTISANSHIP

Campaign donors and corporate interests have greater access to Congress, and the legislative agenda and policy outcomes reflect their preferences. How this privileged access converts into influence remains unclear because petitioner-legislator interactions are unobserved. In this article, we report the results of an original survey experiment of 436 congressional staffers. The vignette manipulates a petitioner's identity, the substance of the request, and the supporting evidence being offered. We test how likely staff are to take a meeting, to use the information being offered, and to recommend taking a position consistent with the request, as well as whether they perceive the request to be congruent with constituent preferences. Donors and lobbyists are no more likely to be granted access than constituents, but staffers are more likely to use information and to make legislative action recommendations when the information source is an ideologically aligned think tank. Subgroup analysis suggests these effects are particularly strong among ideological extremists and strong partisans. And, information offered by aligned think tanks are thought to be representative of constituent opinion. Our results reveal the partisan and ideological predispositions that motivate legislative action that is more costly than merely granting access. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

POLITICAL parties, AGENDA setting theory (Communication), and MACHINE learning

Both Congressional parties compete to promote their own reputations while damaging the opposition party's brand. This behavior affects both policy-making agendas and the party members' communications with the media and constituents. While there has been ample study of partisan influence on legislative agenda-setting and roll call voting behavior, much less is known about the parties' efforts to shape the public debate. This paper analyzes two strategic decisions of parties: the timing of collective efforts to influence the public policy debate and the substantive content of these "party messaging" events. These dynamics are analyzed using a unique dataset of 50,195 one-minute speeches delivered on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1989 to 2016. We find a pattern of strategic matching—both parties are more likely to engage in concurrent messaging efforts, often on the same issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

LEGISLATIVE voting, CONSUMER preferences, SELF-perception, and ELECTIONS

For years, countless scholars have posited the role of constituency and party pressure on legislators' roll call voting records. Indeed, though popular estimates of legislators' preferences often come from roll call data (e.g., DW-NOMINATE scores), most scholars are careful to note that these are not necessarily measures of ideology per se but rather of legislators' revealed preferences—that is, they reflect both legislators' ideological commitments as well as the influence of party and constituency. In this paper, we offer fairly robust evidence that existing measures of legislator behavior may be closer to their preferences than once thought. Using a novel survey of former members of the House of Representatives, we leverage the severing of the electoral connection and lack of institutional party pressure to show that legislators' preferences as measured by existing methods closely mirror their own perceptions of themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

QUANTITATIVE research, LEGISLATION, ACTIVISM, GOVERNMENTALITY, and CHINA-United States relations

Through a quantitative analysis of Taiwan–related legislation between 1979 and 2020, the article finds that the degree of Taiwan–related legislation is significantly correlated with the degree of tension in U.S.—China relations. While a deteriorating cross–Taiwan Strait relationship is clearly associated with the increasing legislative activities for the sake of Taiwan, an improving relationship from the state of fair to good cannot guarantee a decrease of such activities. A unified government and the extent of the Taiwan lobby are both helpful in passing pro–Taiwan acts but statistically insignificant. A content analysis of pro–Taiwan bills approved by the Trump administration suggests a creeping movement to "normalize" U.S–Taiwan relations with congressional activism and the less-restrained White House as a co–engine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

YOUNG women, CRITICAL theory, BABY boom generation, and ELECTIONS

Critical mass theories predict that women in government will sponsor and vote for more women and feminist bills as their numbers increase. Using Voteview.com data of roll-call votes measuring left–right ideology from 1977 to 2019 this paper shows that ideological divides among women in the U.S. House of Representatives have deepened rather than veered in a liberal direction. Republican women have moved rightward over time and more conservative ones are winning elections. Belonging to a politicized generation, older Silent Generation and Boomer women are more ideologically extreme than younger women. Parties are also elevating their more ideological female members. As their numbers increase, female House members are expected to remain ideologically diverse in a polarized legislative environment. Critical mass theories are deficient in failing to place female political actors in a dynamic workplace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ELECTIONS, VETERANS, DEMOCRATS (United States), MILITARY service, and UNITED States Senate elections

The belief that a military veteran candidate receives an electoral benefit at the polls based on a history of military service remains a widely held assumption in American politics. However, this assumption of a veteran electoral bonus has rarely been studied by scholars and the limited literature displays mixed results. This article presents the findings of a new study that addresses the mixed results in the literature and presents evidence that demonstrates that certain types of military veteran candidates do gain a veteran bonus in congressional elections. This advantage over nonveterans is conditioned by party, the type of race, and the nature of military service. By analyzing general election races for the United States Senate over 34 years (1982–2016), the study uncovers support for Democratic candidates with military service receiving an electoral bonus at the polls. This electoral bonus is most widely enjoyed by Democratic veterans in open Senate races and with experience in deployed warzones. The key findings suggest that previous conclusions in the literature with respect to establishing a veteran bonus in congressional elections should be reexamined to expand the time period of analysis, restructure the characterization of military experience beyond a binary variable, and include both House and Senate elections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

RACE, DEMOCRATS (United States), POLITICAL affiliation, ELECTIONS, and ELECTION Day

Previous literature suggests that Democratic candidates of color receive less support than white Democrats on Election Day. It has been suggested that this reduced support is due to voters' ideological perceptions of people of color being more liberal than whites, which translates into perceptions of candidates. However, these studies are frequently limited to white voters' perceptions of Democratic candidates of color, and the full relationship linking race/ethnicity, to ideological placement, to vote choice has rarely been tested. In the current study, we examine how both the race/ethnicity and party affiliation of Senate candidates shape perceptions of their ideology and vote choice among people of all race and ethnicities. Using the 2006–2018 Cooperative Congressional Election Study, we find support for our hypothesis that Black Democrats are generally perceived as more liberal than white Democrats. These perceptions have real consequences, resulting in fewer votes. Conversely, Black Republican candidates are perceived to be just as conservative—and Hispanic Republicans even more conservative—than white Republican candidates. Findings suggest that the link between race/ethnicity, perceptions of ideology, and electoral success vary according to the race/ethnicity and party of candidates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

LEGISLATORS, TRAVEL, GIFTS, and PRESSURE groups

Members of Congress take more than 2,000 trips sponsored by private organizations and interest groups every congress. Using a new data set of gift travel from 2007 to 2019 and interviews with former members of Congress, current and former congressional staffers, and staffers from interest groups that fund trips, we attempt to answer two core questions about this increasingly frequent behavior. Why do members take privately sponsored trips and what types of groups are driving this behavior? We argue that members of Congress take trips because they believe it makes them more effective legislators by exposing them to real-world consequences of their policy decisions and forcing them to build relationships with their fellow members. Trip sponsors, alternatively, seek to persuade and build relationships with members of Congress that ultimately shape their legislative coalitions. We find that trip-taking is associated with greater legislative effectiveness, in particular for Democrats, and that the provision of policy-specific information is a valuable benefit from taking these trips. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

HEGEMONY, BUDGET, ELECTRONIC records, ELECTRONIC publishing, and MILITARY bases

From a neo-Gramscian approach, this research analyses the military institution of the Southern Command as a strategic instrument to U.S. hegemonic maintenance in Latin America. To this end, this article seeks to present an X-ray of the Southern Command from the 2000s, paying attention to its organization, budget structure, and its operating strategies - in particular, in the use of military bases, in the development of 'partnerships' for defense and public security, and in the analysis of military education and training in the schools where this institution operates. To conduct the analysis, primary data were collected from documents and electronic sites published by the same institution and by high level institutions, such as the Department of Defense and the U.S. Congress. As a result, we conclude that the Southern Command is characterized by a hybrid mechanism for hegemonic maintenance through a combination that simultaneously encompasses the use of force and consensus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

INTERVENTION (International law), WAR, PARTISANSHIP, COLD War, 1945-1991, MILITARY policy, and CONTENT analysis

This article examines the extent and patterns of politicisation in the field of military interventions for the USA after the end of the Cold War. The analysis shows that key votes on war and peace in the US Congress are contested to a higher degree than in the European parliaments. It finds that Republican members of Congress (MoC) are in general more supportive of military interventions than Democrats. At the same time, party loyalty towards the president influences the level of support. Furthermore, an original content analysis of congressional debates reveals that MoC use specific argumentative frames in line with partisan ideology. Both parts of the analysis point to the relevance of partisanship and partisan ideology for understanding the politicisation of military interventions policies. Thus, the traditional bipartisan spirit, paradigmatically invoked by US Senator Arthur Vandenberg during the Cold War, has almost vanished. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

GENDER, WOMEN legislators, WOMEN'S rights, VIOLENCE against women, and ABORTION laws

As critical mass theorists have argued, the number of female legislators is important in the enactment of gender-status laws. Female legislators share strong beliefs on women's rights and have easily coordinated their legislative activities on gender issues. In addition, their strong coordination and consequent political influence have often allowed them to form a legislative majority by influencing male legislators. Gender policies, however, are frequently associated with non-gender policy dimensions on which female legislators tend to have different ideas. Thus, when a gender issue is interpreted in terms of a conspicuous non-gender policy dimension, critical mass theory may not work properly; the heterogeneity of female legislators regarding non-gender policy dimensions can weaken their legislative coordination, thereby hampering gender-status lawmaking. This article examines these propositions by reviewing the legislative histories of violence against women and the legality of abortion in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

RUNOFF elections, ELECTIONS, PARTISANSHIP, DEMOCRATS (United States), VOTING, PRESIDENTIAL elections, and FEDERAL government

Recent work on American presidential elections suggests that voters engage in anticipatory balancing, which occurs when voters split their ticket in order to moderate collective policy outcomes by forcing agreement among institutions controlled by opposing parties. We use the 2021 Georgia U.S. Senate runoffs, which determined whether Democrats would have unified control of the federal government given preceding November victories by President-elect Biden and House Democrats, to evaluate support for anticipatory balancing. Leveraging an original survey of Georgia voters, we find no evidence of balancing within the general electorate and among partisans across differing model specifications. We use qualitative content analysis of voter electoral runoff intentions to support our findings and contextualize the lack of evidence for balancing withan original analysis showing the unprecedented partisan nature of contemporary Senate elections since direct-election began in 1914. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

JUDICIAL selection & appointment, JUDICIAL process, CONSERVATISM, CIRCUIT courts, PRACTICAL politics, and UNITED States presidential elections

Significant changes to the federal judicial confirmation process have manifested over the past decade, including multiple procedural reforms in the United States Senate. We argue the "nuclear option," the reduction of the vote-threshold required to proceed to a final confirmation vote on judicial nominees (i.e., to invoke cloture) from three-fifths to a simple majority, contributed to a renewed escalation of partisan confirmation battles on which the Federalist Society capitalized. Pundits and politicians alike show growing concern about the role of interest groups, especially those associated with the conservative legal movement, in judicial nominations. The intersection of these two sets of changes raises questions about the contemporary judicial nominations process. Utilizing a novel dataset of Federalist Society (FedSoc) affiliates drawn from event listings (1993–2020), we analyze the interactive role of FedSoc affiliation with Senate procedural changes to the judicial confirmation process. We find affiliation with the Federalist Society, after the initial nuclear option was implemented, increases the probability of a circuit court nominee's confirmation by approximately 20%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

MILITARY intelligence, RESEARCH & development, HISTORY, WAR reparations, and UNITED States. Air Force

This article explains how exploitation of research and development (R&D) configured into the post–World War II policies of the U.S. Army Air Forces (AAF) and U.S. Air Force (USAF). The narrative follows the coordination of operations LUSTY, OVERCAST, and PAPERCLIP and the Scientific Advisory Group (SAG) in the AAF’s exploitation of intelligence and reparations for postwar policies and politics. The history of the SAG’s efforts from 1944 to 1947 reveals the intensity with which the AAF and its consultants in the aeronautical sciences pursued Nazi R&D. The article helps explain the place of intelligence and reparations in AAF and USAF policies for postwar R&D. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

REPUTATION and LEGISLATORS

McNally considers these classifications to be important because members of Congress are motivated by reelection, and it would be less risky for them to develop a reputation as an advocate for a deserving disadvantaged group compared to less deserving groups. In chapters 4 and 5, McNally considers which members of Congress are most likely to develop a reputation for being an advocate of a disadvantaged group. [Extracted from the article]

LEGISLATION, LEGISLATIVE amendments, DELIBERATION, and POLITICAL leadership

While the U.S. House and Senate differ in many significant ways, perhaps the most important is the ability of House leaders to control the legislative process through the usage of special rules, which establish the terms of debate on a bill and can limit the number and content of amendments allowed. House members of both the majority and minority party have complained about their recent increased usage. In contrast, the Senate lacks a comparable tool and scholars have reported sharp increases in the number of floor amendments being proposed. In this paper, we examine the increase in proposed floor amendments in the Senate; arguing that, in addition to an increased value from electoral position-taking, the procedures employed in the House influence the floor behavior of senators. Specifically, we find that senators are more likely to offer amendments to bills that were passed under a restrictive rule in the House. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ETHICS committees, LEGISLATIVE voting, RACE, and LEGISLATIVE committees

The Constitution provides Congress with the power to punish and discipline its Members. Since the 90th Congress (1967–1968), the House Ethics Committee has been authorized to investigate allegations of misconduct and recommend punishments. This paper examines seven instances where the House Ethics Committee has recommended punishment and the House has considered an amendment to increase or decrease the proposed sanction. Using a combination of case studies and a roll call vote data, this paper finds that demographic similarities between the accused and the voting Member (race, party, and state delegation), partisanship, and serving on the Ethics Committee influence whether a Member might choose to support an alternative sanction. For amendments that propose an increased penalty, same state delegation (negative effect), co-partisanship (positive effect), race (positive effect), ideology (positive effect), and type of scandal (negative effect) matter. For decreased penalties, same state delegation (positive effect), race (positive effect), and ideology (negative effect) matter. For all amendments, being an Ethics Committee member is a strongly negative predictor. These findings imply that committee members attempt to protect the committee's recommendation, that demographic similarities matter when Members are making sanction decisions, and that ideology is a driving factor in deciding to support a change in ethics penalty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

CONSTITUTIONS, LEGISLATIVE bodies, FEDERAL government, and RATIFICATION of constitutional amendments

The author discusses the difference between the Constitution designed by the framers, and constitution defended by the Federalists. Topics discussed include difference between power vested in the Congress and the constitution in the government, harmony of U.S. affected by the power to legislate issues, and conceived federal powers after ratification.

HIGHER education, EDUCATION policy, LEADERSHIP, and NEGOTIATION

It has become increasingly difficult for the two major parties in Congress to reach agreement on major higher education legislation. As a result, the Higher Education Act is long overdue for reauthorization. Congressional stalemates on higher education legislation are not conducive to effective and productive governance in this important area of federal policy. The purpose of this comparative case study is to understand why some federal higher education legislative bills are successfully enacted while others, including some with bipartisan support, are not. Through the lens of negotiation theory, this study examines six federal higher education bills in order to understand the common characteristics of successfully enacted legislation and the common characteristics of unenacted legislation. Data sources include interviews with 28 policy actors and analysis of documents relevant to each case-study bill. [End Page 1] Findings from this study illuminate factors that make the passage of federal higher education bills more likely, including leadership and presidential priorities, cost savings, noncontroversial issues involving sympathetic policy beneficiaries, urgency, favorable congressional rules, support from the higher education lobby, and avoidance of political victories for the opposing party. Understanding how and why Congress members reach agreements on legislation may help forge a pathway toward more effective legislating in the higher education policy arena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

PETITIONS, RICH people, SLAVERY, and SLAVERY laws

The article examines the petition of a group of wealthy men to U.S. President James Madison in 1809 about exempting them from a federal statute ending the legal transportation of captives of African descent to the U.S. Topics discussed include the description made by the petitioners about the individuals they sought to bring from Cuba to the U.S., strategies used by the petitioners to avoid a breach of federal law, and origins of the petition in the events surrounding the Haitian Revolution.

ENVIRONMENTAL policy, UNITED States elections, VOTING, and LEGISLATORS

Do elections affect legislators' voting patterns? We investigate this question in the context of environmental policy in the U.S. Congress. We theorize that since the general public is generally in favor of legislation protecting the environment, legislators have an incentive to favor the public over industry and vote for pro‐environment legislation at election time. The argument is supported by analyses of data on environmental roll call votes for the U.S. Congress from 1970 to 2013 where we estimate the likelihood of casting a pro‐environment vote as a function of the time to an election. While Democrats are generally more likely to cast a pro‐environment vote before an election, this effect is much stronger for Republicans when the legislator won the previous election by a thinner margin. The election effect is maximized for candidates receiving substantial campaign contributions from the (anti‐environment) oil and gas industry. Analysis of Twitter data confirms that Congressmembers make pro‐environmental statements and highlight their roll call voting behavior during the election season. These results show that legislators do strategically adjust their voting behavior to favor the public immediate prior to an election. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BUDGET reconciliation, RECONCILIATION, and CHICKENS

Since its early uses in the early 1980s, the budget reconciliation process has played an important role in how the U.S. Congress legislates. Because the procedures protect certain legislation from a filibuster in the Senate, the reconciliation rules both shape, and are shaped by, the upper chamber in significant ways. After providing a brief overview of the process, I discuss first how partisanship in the Senate has affected the use of the reconciliation procedures. Next, I describe two sets of consequences of the contemporary reconciliation process, on negotiation and on policy design. I conclude with some observations about the relationship of reconciliation to the prospects for broader procedural change in the Senate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SOCIOCULTURAL factors, UNITED States presidential election, 2016, POLITICAL campaigns, and UNITED States politics & government, 2017-2021

Objectives: The political discourse surrounding the 2016 U.S. presidential election highlighted discontent with both Congress and corporations, a reality corroborated in recent scholarship highlighting declines in institutional confidence among U.S. citizens. Here we test theories of institutional confidence to understand the social and cultural determinants of confidence in Congress and corporations prior to the start of the 2016 presidential campaigns. Methods: We draw on data from the Religious Understandings of Science Survey, a nationally representative survey conducted in 2013–2014 (N = 9,416). Results: We find that political ideology largely explained confidence in corporations while social location (particularly racial‐ethnic identity and gender) strongly related to confidence in Congress. Seemingly opposing factors converged to predict trust in both institutions. Conclusions: Institutional confidence is shaped not only by social and cultural factors but also by the symbolic functions of institutions themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

CAMPAIGN funds, CAUCUS, SOCIAL network analysis, RANDOM graphs, INTERPERSONAL relations, and SOCIAL networks

Intraparty caucuses in the US Congress are often recognized for the information sharing, voting blocs, and personal relationships they facilitate. This article introduces an additional benefit to joining intraparty caucuses: campaign donations. Applying social network analysis and exponential random graph models to the 115th and 116th Congresses, I find that members are more likely to donate to their fellow caucus members than other members in Congress. In addition, I find that party leaders, particularly Republican party leaders, are less likely to donate to members that join intraparty caucuses, indicating that Leadership PAC funding is strategic for rank‐and‐file members and party leaders alike. This article adds to our understanding of intraparty caucuses, particularly their role in facilitating member‐to‐member campaign donations, and the relationship between caucus members and party leaders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

PARTISANSHIP, ELECTIONS, POLARIZATION (Social sciences), INCUMBENCY (Public officers), and MOTIVATION (Psychology)

Objective: This article explores whether voters evaluate candidates' ideology, partisanship, and quality independently or exhibit behavior consistent with motivating reasoning, rating co‐partisans and candidates ideologically similar to themselves as more competent. Methods: Using a survey of voters and experts from 2010 U.S. House elections, I estimate a model predicting an individual's rating of incumbent candidate competence for office and challenger candidate competence for office. Results: Individuals ideologically distant from a candidate rate the candidate as less competent, yet rate co‐partisan candidates as more competent. For incumbents, opposing partisanship amplifies the negative effect of ideological distance on candidate quality ratings, and shared partisanship mitigates the negative effect of ideological distance. Conclusion: Only incumbents rated as the most competent can overcome the ideological and partisan biases of voters. Consistent with theories of affective polarization, these results imply that polarization runs deeper than partisan or ideological differences–it is personal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

INCOME inequality, PARTISANSHIP, and UNITED States legislators

Over the past twenty years, there has been much discussion about two of the most important recent trends in American politics: the increase in income inequality in the United States and the increase in ideological and partisan polarization, particularly in the U.S. House. These two national-level trends are commonly thought to be positively related. But, there are few tested theoretical connections between them, and it is potentially problematic to infer individual-level behavior from these aggregate-level trends. In fact, an examination of the literature reveals, at least, three different theoretical outcomes for district-level income inequality on voter and congressional ideological positions. I explore these district-level theoretical and empirical possibilities as well as test them over decades with three different measures of income inequality. I argue and demonstrate that higher district levels of income inequality are related to higher levels of ideological liberalism in the U.S. House. This stands in contrast to the national-level trends, but it tracks closely to traditional understandings of congressional behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

TRIBES, NATIVE Americans, and RIGHT to self-determination

Native American tribal nations covet state and federal tribal recognition. The Lumbee Tribe is one of those tribes. Though North Carolina has granted the Lumbee Tribe State recognition, the Lumbee Tribe's 134-year-long quest for Federal recognition has not been successful. Neither of the two types of Federal Recognition - Administrative and Congressional - have permitted the Lumbee Tribe to benefit alongside the other federallyrecognized Tribes from increased respect, sovereignty, and resources. Instead, the Lumbee Tribe has been spun around by the regulatory recognition rigmarole. In this article, I first explore arguments for and against federal recognition of the Lumbee Tribe. Next, I investigate the long-standing debate between Congressional and Administrative recognition. Finally, against this backdrop, I propose two solutions. First, Congress could independently recognize the Lumbee Tribe. Or second, Congress or the BIA could modify the federal recognition process to ensure that Native American tribes, like the Lumbee Tribe, have a fair and just opportunity to petition for and receive recognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BIG data, NATURAL language processing, DEMOCRATS (United States), ELECTIONS, and SIGN language

The current paper details a novel quantitative framework leveraging recent advances in AI and Natural Language Processing to quantitatively assess language convergence and accommodation. This new framework is computationally cheap and straightforward to implement. The framework is then applied to a case study of immigration rhetoric in the lead up to the 2016 general election in the USA. Major results from the case study show that (1) Democrats and Republicans exhibited significant language convergence with members of their own parties, (2) President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton converged with Senate Democrats' immigration rhetoric, (3) Democrats accommodated the immigration rhetoric of both President Barack Obama and (candidate) Hillary Clinton, (4) contrary to initial hypotheses, Donald Trump's vitriolic immigration rhetoric did not show signs of language convergence with Republicans in the Senate, and (5) equally surprising, Senate Republicans showed significant non-accommodation to Donald Trump despite potential political costs for having done so. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SHOOTINGS (Crime), ASPERGER'S syndrome, VIDEO recording, DIGITAL media, CLIMATE change, and FOOD security

The article focuses on forum of the U..S. Congress of the House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Reform on urgent need to address the gun violence epidemic held on June 8, 2022. It mentions Zaire Mysaun Goodman, diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome, on opportunity to participate in programs such as videography, dance, photography, digital media, and art. It also mentions Zaire worked with other students to create documentaries about climate change, food insecurities, and politics.

PRISON sentences, WARRANTS (Law), and PRISONERS

When Congress passed the First Step Act in 2018, it extended to federal prisoners the right to file their own motions for compassionate release under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A). As COVID-19 ravaged prisons, sentencing courts received a massive influx of prisoner-filed compassionate-release motions. But because the United States Sentencing Guidelines and the relevant Application Note predated the First Step Act, and therefore made no mention of prisoner-filed compassionate-release motions, sentencing courts were unsure whether they had discretion to determine whether a prisoner presented "extraordinary and compelling circumstances" warranting compassionate release. Every United States Court of Appeals to consider whether sentencing courts had discretion in evaluating prisoner-filed compassionate-release motions agreed they did. All but one. In United States v. Bryant, the Eleventh Circuit incorrectly interpreted the First Step Act, the Sentencing Guidelines, and the Application Note. Today, two Americas exist. Federal prisoners in forty-seven states may request compassionate release, and sentencing courts have the discretion to determine whether extraordinary and compelling circumstances warrant relief. Federal prisoners in Alabama, Florida, and Georgia may also request compassionate release, but the Bureau of Prisons, not sentencing courts, determines which reasons outside those enumerated in the Application Note are extraordinary and compelling. This Article examines compassionate release's history, critiques the Eleventh Circuit's Bryant opinion, and proposes three avenues to return discretion to sentencing judges: the Sentencing Commission could amend the Application Note, Congress could legislate, and a prisoner could seek en banc review in the Eleventh Circuit challenging Bryant as wrongly decided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

RACIAL minorities, LEGAL status of voters, and UNITED States Congressional elections

The author comments on the single-member district mandate for U.S. House of Representatives elections that was enacted by the Congress in 1967. Topics covered include the Congress' intentions for enacting the law including the representation of racial minority communities in the House, the law's unintended consequences on the political process, and the implications for the First Amendment political association rights of voters.

LIVE television programs, COVID-19 pandemic, WEB 2.0, INTERNET access, TELEVISED sports, and TELEVISION programs

This article examines the rise of online narrowcasting and the battle over the right to remediate ephemeral televisual content through the case study of Justin.tv. The platform became wildly popular, garnering forty-five million monthly users at its height, because it allowed anyone with a stable Internet connection to become a distributor of content. The platform quickly transitioned from a place for "life-casting" to one where users were narrowcasting a wide array of content, including original media, copyrighted live television and sports programs, and taped archives of television shows. This platform-shifted retransmission of televisual content caught the attention of traditional broadcasters and the US Congress. Justin.tv's narrowcasts followed the traditional linear model of broadcasting but also included the interactivity and open-source usage rules of Web 2.0. This led to a conflict in which the copyright holders attempted to redefine the retransmission of the content--which had originally been intended to be temporary--as stealing. Considering the explosive growth of live-streaming platforms such as Twitch (Justin.tv's successor) during the COVID-19 pandemic, reexamining the antecedents of narrowcasting and contested sites of remediation through Justin.tv provides important context for understanding the current media ecosystem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

UNITED States senators, SELF-defense, ARCHIVES, and INTERNATIONAL relations

The aim of this paper is to analyze the role of former Arizona senator Dennis DeConcini during the Bosnian War. DeConcini, along with other congressional Bosnia hawks, supported the newly independent country in its self-defense during the 1992–1995 war. DeConcini's activism was mainly through the U.S. Helsinki Commission but he also undertook a number of steps with a view to legislative American foreign policy towards Bosnia in the early 1990s. Based on the congressional archive and DeConcini's papers at the University of Arizona, this article will piece together the story of how an Arizona senator became a champion of Bosnia on Capitol Hill. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

POLARIZATION (Social sciences), POLICY sciences, RUNOFF elections, ELECTIONS, PARTISANSHIP, and PRESIDENTIAL candidates

The dramatic Democratic victories in the 2021 Georgia U.S. Senate runoffs handed Democrats their first majority since 2015 and, with this, unified Democratic control of Washington for the first time since 2011. While Democratic Leaders and President Joe Biden crafted their agenda, any hope of policy passage rested on complete unity in a 50–50 Senate and a narrow majority in the U.S. House. Against this backdrop, the 117th Senate is the most polarized since direct-election began in 1914 and, by popular accounts, the least deliberative in a generation. In this article, we examine the implications of partisan polarization for policymaking in the U.S. Senate throughout the direct-election era. First, we show that greater polarization coincides with more partisan Senate election outcomes, congruent with recent trends in the House. Today, over 90% of Senators represent states carried by their party's presidential nominee. Secondly, we show that polarization coincides with higher levels of observable obstruction, conflict, partisan unity, and narrower majorities. Lastly, we show that this polarization coincides with lower levels of deliberation in the form of consideration of floor amendments and committee meetings. Taken together, we paint a picture of a polarized Senate that is more partisan, more obstructionist, and less deliberative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SOCIAL scientists, POLITICAL scientists, CIVIL service positions, CONGRESSIONAL hearings (U.S.), and RESEARCH institutes

Congressional hearings are a venue in which social scientists present their views and analyses before lawmakers in the United States, however quantitative data on their representation has been lacking. We present new, publicly available, data on the rates at which anthropologists, economists, political scientists, psychologists, and sociologists appeared before United States congressional hearings from 1946 through 2016. We show that social scientists were present at some 10,347 hearings and testified 15,506 times. Economists testify before the US Congress far more often than other social scientists, and constitute a larger proportion of the social scientists testifying in industry and government positions. We find that social scientists' testimony is increasingly on behalf of think tanks; political scientists, in particular, have gained much more representation through think tanks. Sociology, and psychology's representation before Congress has declined considerably beginning in the 1980s. Anthropologists were the least represented. These findings show that academics are representing a more diverse set of organizations, but economists continue to be far more represented than other disciplines before the US Congress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ELECTION of legislators, ELECTION districts, POLITICAL candidates -- Attitudes, PERSONALITY, VOTERS -- Attitudes, and UNITED States. Congress. House

This article addresses the question of appearance-based effects by looking at the U.S. House of Representatives election 2016. We broaden the focus beyond existing studies by offering a comprehensive and systematic analysis of the three traits attractiveness, competence, and likability while simultaneously taking into account confounding third variables and possible interactions. Corresponding to the comparative character of electoral competition in the districts, we developed a relative measure of the three traits which we apply in an online survey. This measure also takes into account the raters' latency times, that is, their clicking speed, as a weighting factor for their ambiguity in the ratings. With these data we test whether appearance matters for the electoral outcome. We find that attractiveness positively affects the vote share, whereas perceived likability and competence play no role. The study also tests to what extent the found appearance effects are conditioned by incumbency status, age, and gender of the contestants. Furthermore, it gives hints which aspects of their appearance candidates could change to perform better at the ballot box. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ELECTIONS, RUNNING races, FEMALES, VOTERS, and UNITED States Senate elections

This paper examines whether and how electoral rules moderate the effect of voter bias on candidate choice. Voter bias against female candidates follows a pattern known as aversive sexism, which denotes that voters discriminate when the choice structure does not make the bias clear to others and to themselves. As a result, voters are less likely to vote for women when they can substitute ideologically close female candidates with male co-partisans. The paper uses survey data and a ballot experiment in Brazil to investigate why, contrary to conventional wisdom on the topic, voters are more likely to elect women running in plurality races for the Senate than in proportional races for the Chamber of Deputies. The results shed light on how institutions can produce voting patterns that harm the electoral prospects of female candidates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

JUDICIAL elections, APPELLATE courts, CONSTITUTIONAL courts, PARTISANSHIP, PANEL analysis, and FEDERAL aid

Supreme Court vacancies are now characterized by great partisan efforts to confirm—or impede—the nomination. Amid a politicized vacancy before the 2020 election, there was cause to question the conclusion that these vacancies do not harm the judiciary in the public's eyes. We utilize panel data collected before and after Justice Ginsburg's death to investigate the effects of the vacancy and partisan posturing to fill it. We find that the battle over the vacancy yielded decreases in diffuse support among Democrats, particularly among those who read a story about Senate Republicans' willingness to fill an election-year vacancy after refusing to in 2016. Support for federal judicial elections decreased across survey waves, but only among certain subsets of respondents. Finally, belief that one's preferred 2020 candidate would nominate the next justice significantly influenced support for curbing. Elected branch politics appear capable of influencing the mass public's level of support for the Court. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

GAY rights, EQUALITY, POLARIZATION (Social sciences), DEMOCRATS' attitudes, REPUBLICANS, and LGBTQ+ people

The U.S. Supreme Court's recent application of employment protections to gays and lesbians in Bostock v. Clayton County highlights the striking absence of policy produced by the U.S. Congress despite two decades of increased public support for gay rights. With the notable exceptions of allowing gays and lesbians to serve in the military, and passing hate crimes legislation, every other federal policy advancing gay rights over the last three decades has been the product of a Supreme Court ruling or Executive Order. To better understand the reasons for this inaction, we examine the changing preferences of members of Congress on LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer) issues. Examining scores from the Human Rights Campaign from 1989 to 2019, we find a striking polarization by the parties on LGBTQ issues, as Democrats have become much more supportive and Republicans even more opposed to gay rights. This change has been driven not by gerrymandering, mass opinion polarization, or elite backlash, but among Republicans by a mix of both conversion and replacement, and among Democrats primarily of replacement of more moderate members. The result is a striking lack of collective representation that leaves members of the LGBTQ community at risk to the whims of presidents and jurists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

VOTER turnout, PARTISANSHIP, ELECTIONS, and GERRYMANDERING

Objective: Partisan bias occurs when votes are distributed across districts in such a way that even if the vote between two parties were equal, one party would win more seats than the other. Gerrymandering is a well‐established cause of partisan bias, but it is not the only one. In this article, we ask whether the decline of voter turnout can also influence partisan bias. Methods: We modified the Gelman–King partisan symmetry measure to make it sensitive to turnout differences across U.S. House elections from 1972 to 2018. Results: We found that turnout variation has caused partisan bias in U.S. House elections in the Democratic Party's favor since at least 1972, though turnout bias has gotten weaker in recent elections. Conclusion: While turnout bias can buffer the impact of turnout reductions, it has the potential to dramatically increase the number of seats a party loses when its supporters fail to vote. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

INCUMBENCY (Public officers), ELECTIONS, and UNITED States history

Throughout American history some members of Congress are beset with the unfortunate predicament of facing a fellow incumbent in their bids for reelection. One culprit is responsible for these atypical contests: redistricting. Using district and sub-district level data, this research note provides the first systematic coverage of all dueling incumbent general election U.S. House races from 1843 to 2018. We chronicle and analyze when we expect to see dueling incumbent races, the ability of parties to target out-party incumbents, and the electoral value of previously represented constituents for incumbents in reconfigured districts. Although incumbent duels are uncommon, they comprise a substantial number of incumbent general election defeats in contests following redistricting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

COMPUTER simulation, COMPUTER engineering, and COMPUTER algorithms

Recent research has leveraged computer simulations to identify the effect of gerrymandering on partisan bias in U.S. legislatures. As a result of this method, researchers are able to distinguish between the intentional partisan bias caused by gerrymandering and the natural partisan bias that stems from the geographic sorting of partisan voters. However, this research has yet to explore the effect of gerrymandering on other biases like reduced electoral competition and incumbency protection. Using a computer algorithm to design a set of districts without political intent, I measure the extent to which the current districts have been gerrymandered to produce safer seats in Congress. I find that gerrymandering only has a minor effect on the average district, but does produce a number of safe seats for both Democrats and Republicans. Moreover, these safe seats tend to be located in states where a single party controls the districting process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

MUSIC conservatories, CURRICULUM planning, DIVERSITY in education, and SOCIAL change

The author reflects on their personal and professional reasons for researching the Metropolitan Music School in New York City which was accused of subversion by the House Committee on Un-American Activities in 1957. It mentions the school was unique in its progressive approach to invitational community engagement, curriculum development, and racial representation and administration were devoted to social change through the arts.

STOCHASTIC models, RANDOM graphs, QUALITY control charts, LEGISLATIVE voting, and PARAMETER estimation

The stochastic block model (SBM) is a random graph model that focuses on partitioning the nodes into blocks or communities. A degree‐corrected stochastic block model (DCSBM) considers degree heterogeneity within nodes. Investigation of the type of edge label can be useful for studying networks. We have proposed a labeled degree‐corrected stochastic block model (LDCSBM), added the probability of the occurrence of each edge label, and monitored the behavior of this network. The LDCSBM is a dynamic network that varies over time; thus, we applied the monitoring process to both the US Senate voting network and simulated networks by defining structural changes. We used the Shewhart control chart for detecting changes and studied the effect of Phase I parameter estimation on Phase II performance. The efficiency of the model for surveillance has been evaluated using the average run length for estimated parameters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]