Race and Representation in Congress: The Color of Constituencies

The topic of race, redistricting, and minority representation in Congress has emerged as one of the most salient issues in contemporary political thought. The creation of so‑called majority minority districts has been attacked as unfair and racially polarizing by some observers and ultimately struck down as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. The study of race in relation to American politics and institutions, and, in particular, to the institution of Congress, has produced a wealth of research and literature in recent years. This scope of budding research ranges from legislative activity and Congressional voting to the electoral process and campaigning. This study examines the effects of race in Congressional elections and campaigning, and will be primarily focused on constituent relationships with members of the House of Representatives. Through this research, a better understanding of the differences in constituent relationships and engagement between African American House members and their Caucasian colleagues will be reached. Based on the current literature and prevailing scholarly attitudes, one could likely conclude that African American Congress members, on the whole, develop closer and more personal relationships with their constituents than do white representatives

Do Justice, Love Mercy, Walk Humbly: A Biography of the Honorable Vernon J. Ehlers (Book Review)

Reviewed Title: Do Justice, Love Mercy, Walk Humbly: A Biography of the Honorable Vernon J. Ehlers by Julia R. La Placa. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Calvin College Press, 2017. 128 pp. ISBN: 9781937555986

Crisis Bureaucracy: Homeland Security and the Political Design of Legal Mandates

Policymakers fight over bureaucratic structure because it helps shape the legal interpretations and regulatory decisions of agencies through which modern governments operate. In this article, we update positive political theories of bureaucratic structure to encompass two new issues with important implications for lawyers and political scientists: the significance of legislative responses to a crisis, and the uncertainty surrounding major bureaucratic reorganizations. The resulting perspective affords a better understanding of how agencies interpret their legal mandates and deploy their administrative discretion. We apply the theory to the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. Two principal questions surrounding this creation are: (1) why the President changed from opposing the creation of a new department to supporting it and (2) why his plan for such a department was far beyond the scope of any other existing proposal. We argue that the President changed his mind in part because he did not want to be on the losing side of a major legislative battle. But more significantly, the President supported the massive new department in part to further domestic policy priorities unrelated to homeland security. By moving a large set of agencies within the department and instilling them with new homeland security responsibilities without additional budgets, the president forced these agencies to move resources out of their legacy mandates. Perversely, these goals appear to have been accomplished at the expense of homeland security. Finally, we briefly discuss more general implications of our perspective: first, previous reorganizations (such as FDR's creation of a Federal Security Agency and Carter's creation of an Energy Department) also seem to reflect presidential efforts to enhance their control of administrative functions, including some not directly related to the stated purpose of the reorganization; and, second, our analysis raises questions about some of the most often-asserted justifications for judicial deference to agency legal interpretations.

More than an uphill battle: primary challenges to congressional incumbents

This paper is an examination into the district factors and representative characteristics that lead to challenges of incumbent House members in party primaries. Given the extreme difficulty in defeating incumbent House members, it is expected that rational political actors will gauge the political climate carefully. Partisan dominated districts will be more likely to be the site of inter-party battles as the seats will be of greater value to potential challengers. Members that moderate their views will be more likely to be challenged due to the relative ideological extremity of the respective partisan base

Issue Engagement On Congressional Candidate Web Sites, 2002-2006

When candidates engage in robust policy debate, it gives citizens clear choices on issues that matter. Previous studies of issue engagement have primarily used indicators of campaign strategy that are mediated by reporters (e. g., newspaper articles) or indicators that may exclude candidates in less competitive races (e. g., television advertisements). We study issue engagement with data from a unique source, congressional candidate Web sites, that are unmediated and representative of both House and Senate campaigns. We find that the saliency of issues in public opinion is a primary determinant of candidate engagement. And, despite the unique capacity of the Internet to allow candidates to explain their positions on a large number of issues, candidates continue to behave strategically, selecting a few issues on which to engage their adversaries

Crisis Bureaucracy: Homeland Security and the Political Design of Legal Mandates

Policymakers fight over bureaucratic structure because it helps shape the legal interpretations and regulatory decisions of agencies through which modern governments operate. In this article, we update positive political theories of bureaucratic structure to encompass two new issues with important implications for lawyers and political scientists: the implications of legislative responses to a crisis, and the uncertainty surrounding major bureaucratic reorganizations. The resulting perspective affords a better understanding of how agencies interpret their legal mandates and deploy their administrative discretion. We apply the theory to the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. Two principal questions surrounding this creation are (1) why the president changed from opposing the development of a new department to supporting it and (2) why his plan for such a department was far beyond the scope of any other existing proposal. We argue that the president changed his mind in part because he did not want to be on the losing side of a major legislative battle. But more importantly, the president supported the massive new department in part to further domestic policy priorities unrelated to homeland security. By moving a large set of agencies within the department and instilling them with new homeland security responsibilities without additional budgets, the president forced these agencies to move resources out of their legacy mandates. Perversely, these goals appear to have been accomplished at the expense of homeland security. Finally, we briefly discuss more general implications of our perspective: first, previous reorganizations (such as FDR’s creation of a Federal Security Agency and Carter’s creation of an Energy Department) also seem to reflect presidential efforts to enhance their control of administrative functions – including some not directly related to the stated purpose of the reorganization; and, second, our analysis raises questions about some of the most often-asserted justifications for judicial deference to agency legal interpretations

An Examination of Voter Groups That Make Up the Emerging Democratic Majority Thesis

In 2002, John Judis and Ruy Teixeira published The Emerging Democratic Majority, a book that postulated that the United States was in the beginning of a political realignment that would spell the end of the Reagan-era coalition that gave Republicans an electoral advantage on the presidency. The authors claimed an electorate that would favor the Democratic Party would emerge to take its place. Since Senator Barack Obama’s victory in the 2008 presidential election was powered by a coalition that looked much like the one Judis and Teixeira described, it appeared the authors’ thesis was being borne out by actual election results. However, the events of the 2000s and early 2010s have lent both credibility and doubt to this possible realignment, and have drawn attention to the problems of regular realignment theory. Exploring the premise laid out by Judis and Teixeira from their work, The Emerging Democratic Majority, as well as observations about the changing composition of the American electorate, I analyze key groups in the American electorate to determine if these groups are trending more Democratic in presidential and congressional races since the 1988 presidential election. Findings showed several of these groups regularly supported Democratic candidates but did not consistently trend to the Democrats from year to year. Changes across time often depended on match-ups of nonconsecutive years, with Democrats in the year 2008 drawing especially strong support from hypothesized voter groups. While Democrats can count on the support of groups such as voters who achieve high levels of college education or voters with secular outlooks on life, their success still depends highly on candidate quality and advantage on issues and cannot be taken for granted

An Examination of Voter Groups That Make Up the Emerging Democratic Majority Thesis

In 2002, John Judis and Ruy Teixeira published The Emerging Democratic Majority, a book that postulated that the United States was in the beginning of a political realignment that would spell the end of the Reagan-era coalition that gave Republicans an electoral advantage on the presidency. The authors claimed an electorate that would favor the Democratic Party would emerge to take its place. Since Senator Barack Obama’s victory in the 2008 presidential election was powered by a coalition that looked much like the one Judis and Teixeira described, it appeared the authors’ thesis was being borne out by actual election results. However, the events of the 2000s and early 2010s have lent both credibility and doubt to this possible realignment, and have drawn attention to the problems of regular realignment theory. Exploring the premise laid out by Judis and Teixeira from their work, The Emerging Democratic Majority, as well as observations about the changing composition of the American electorate, I analyze key groups in the American electorate to determine if these groups are trending more Democratic in presidential and congressional races since the 1988 presidential election. Findings showed several of these groups regularly supported Democratic candidates but did not consistently trend to the Democrats from year to year. Changes across time often depended on match-ups of nonconsecutive years, with Democrats in the year 2008 drawing especially strong support from hypothesized voter groups. While Democrats can count on the support of groups such as voters who achieve high levels of college education or voters with secular outlooks on life, their success still depends highly on candidate quality and advantage on issues and cannot be taken for granted

Legislative commitment in Congress

This dissertation investigates why some members of Congress (MCs) commit themselves to lawmaking in the pursuit of changing public policy – in other words, why some MCs behave as policy wonks. While the Framers envisioned that Congress would be the policymaking engine of the federal government and that some MCs would become master legislators, today Congress is routinely criticized for dysfunction and gridlock. In this context, the behavior of policy wonks is of normative and practical interest, but there remains relatively little research that focuses squarely on these members. I conceptualize policy wonks as MCs who commit to legislating by adopting intense, specialized, and consistent legislative agendas, and I identify policy wonks with a novel measure of legislative commitment based on these three components and using MCs’ slates of bill sponsorships from 1989 through 2008. Building on previous work on legislative entrepreneurship, I argue that MCs commit to legislating and act as policy wonks based on a strategic calculation that weighs the benefits that flow from this behavior against its costs. I find that legislative commitment is associated with MCs’ institutional positions, the characteristics of their districts, and future career advancement and legislative success. The implications of the research are mixed. While some MCs conform with the Framers’ expectations that they be committed legislators, not all the incentives in Congress are aligned to support MCs acting as policy wonks