solving congressional partisan polarization one caucus at a time
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Solving Congressional Partisan Polarization One Caucus at a Time
Jennifer N. VictorGeorge Mason
Universityjvictor3@gmu.edu
Nils RingeUniversity of
Wisconsinringe@wisc.edu
Project MotivationsO Follow-up from forthcoming book
O Bridging the Information Gap: Legislative Member Organizations as Social Networks in the United States and European Union, U. Michigan Press, 2013.
O Is the proliferation of caucuses in Congress a response to increased partisan polarization?
O If so, do caucuses alleviate the effects of partisan polarization?
Congress is Polarized
Caucuses are Growing
89119
163 178
227269
303
379419
18
9 9 10
14 13 12
22
26
0
5
10
15
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25
30
0
50
100
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103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111
Aver
age
Cauc
us Si
ze
Num
ber o
f Cau
cuse
s
Congress
Congressional Caucus Trends103rd-111th (1994-2010)
# of caucuses
avg membership
Caucus Growth and Polarization Correlation
Caucuses are Bipartisan
A modest
Research QuestionO Are opposite-party legislators who
share caucus memberships more likely to vote together than those who don’t share caucus memberships?
O Today: 103rd-111th Congresses (2004-2010)
Co-votingO The frequency with which any pair of
legislators casts the same vote.O DescriptiveO Similar to NOMINATE, but dyadicO Raw roll-call inputsO 864,879 dyads O Mean = 0.68, (Stand. Dev. = 0.21)
Co-votingby co-partisans
02
46
8
0 .5 1 0 .5 1
Opposite Party Same Party
Den
sity
Rate of Co-VotingGraphs by MCs from Same Party
ArgumentO MCs have strong incentives to maintain
communication and relationships with cross-partisans (Huckfeldt and Sprague 1987; Mutz 2006; Ringe, Victor, and Gross 2013)
O Caucuses are voluntary, non-voting groups.O When Congress is more polarized, MCs have
stronger incentives to join bipartisan groups.O As partisanship increases, the bi-partisan
caucus system will grow.O The increased participation in bi-partisan
caucuses reduces overall partisan polarization.
Argument
Increased Partisan
Polarization (in roll calls)
Seek Bipartisan Relationships via
Caucuses
Bi-partisan Caucuses GrowPartisan
Polarization Declines(in ??)
Today’s InferenceO If the argument is true, the we
should observe increased co-voting among caucus-connected opposite-partisans.
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111
Covo
ting
Rate
Congress
Covoting Rate for House Members 1994-2010, by Co-partisans
Same Party CovoteRate
Opposite Party CovoteRate
Control for other known covariates
O Joint Committee MembershipO From the same stateO Ideological distanceO Same genderO In leadership (party leader,
committee chair)
Dyadic Regression for Opposite-Party Pairs
Coeff. SE T Pr(t)Caucuses 0.0012 0.00005 22.0 0.0Committees 0.0016 0.0002 6.57 0.0State - - - -NOMINATE Dist. -0.236 0.0019 -121.95 0.0
Female 0.0022 0.0043 0.52 0.605Leaders 0.0009 0.0007 1.24 0.213
N= 430,943; R-Squared= 0.75; Pr(F) = 0.00; fixed effects for time included, errors clustered on dyad
InterpretationsO There is an association between opposite-
party voting and caucus participation.O BUT…
O Autocorrelation in the errors (how to build a better statistical model)?
O How to test that caucuses are a result of increased partisanship?
O If MCs join caucuses to overcome partisanship, should we observe it in the roll calls? Causal feedback.
Can Both be True?O Can it be that partisan polarization
remains in the face of increased cross-party voting by caucus members?
O If so, how many MCs would have to participate in the caucus “inoculation” before we would see an effect in roll calls?
Moving ForwardO Treat caucus membership as an
experimental “treatment” effect. Measure the voting behavior of co-members before and after joining the group.
O Include cosponsorship as a covariate.
O Better control for regional covariation.
O Aggregate ties between MCs?
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