Perception and Misperception: Constituent Knowledge of Their Representative's Persian Gulf War Vote

Many assert that constituents know little of their elected official's behavior, especially how their representative s have voted on specific legislative bills. When legislation concerns foreign affairs, the prospects for constituent knowledge are usually asserted to be even bleaker. We challenge these assertions. Our challenge is based on an intensive analysis of one highly salient roll call vote: The House and Senate vote s on the January 14, 1991 "Use of Force Resolution." Using data from the 1990-1991 Panel Study of the Political Consequence s of War we examine constituent perceptions of House and Senate member "Use of Force Resolution" votes. We find that aggregate perceptions of senator votes vary according to the senator's party, his or her tenure and past electoral competitiveness. At the individual level, we find that, while more informed constituents had more accurate perceptions, many less- informed citizens were able to use readily-understandable cues in developing their perceptions

Follow the Leader? Presidential Approval, Presidential Support, and Representatives\u27 Electoral Fortunes

While the link between presidential approval and congressional election outcomes is long established, scholars have generally ignored the role of a member’s own voting record in mediating these effects. If voters truly use the congressional ballot to express support or opposition toward the President, then they should not reward or punish all of his fellow partisans equally. Instead, the degree of reward or punishment meted out by voters ought to depend on the member’s level of support for the president’s legislative initiatives. Using data from the 1993, 1994, and 1996 National Election Studies, we demonstrate two key points: that representatives’ actual levels of support for the president are the single greatest predictor of their perceived levels of presidential support, and that perceived levels of presidential support interact powerfully with citizen presidential approval to shape attitudes toward congressional incumbents. These effects dwarf simple partisan heuristics in explaining congressional vote choice, suggesting that citizens are much more discriminating than is typically assumed in using the congressional vote as a referendum on presidential policy

American Association for Public Opinion Research Constituency, Party, and Representation in Congress

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Voting Technology, Vote-by-Mail, and Residual Votes in California, 1990-2010

This paper examines how the growth in vote-by-mail and changes in voting technologies led to changes in the residual vote rate in California from 1990 to 2010. We find that in California’s presidential elections, counties that abandoned punch cards in favor of optical scanning enjoyed a significant improvement in the residual vote rate. However, these findings do not always translate to other races. For instance, find that the InkaVote system in Los Angeles has been a mixed success, performing very well in presidential and gubernatorial races, fairly well for ballot propositions, and poorly in Senate races. We also conduct the first analysis of the effects of the rise of vote-by-mail on residual votes. Regardless of the race, increased use of the mails to cast ballots is robustly associated with a rise in the residual vote rate. The effect is so strong that the rise of voting by mail in California has mostly wiped out all the reductions in residual votes that were due to improved voting technologies since the early 1990s

A bright-lensed galaxy at z = 5.4 with strong Ly α emission

We present a detailed study of an unusually bright, lensed galaxy at z=5.424 discoveredwithin theCFHTLSimaging survey.With an observed flux of iAB =23.0, J141446.82+544631.9 is one of the brightest galaxies known at z > 5. It is characterized by strong Ly α emission, reaching a peak in (observed) flux density of > 10-16 erg s-1 cm-2Å-1. A deep optical spectrum from the Large Binocular Telescope places strong constraints on NV and C IV emission, disfavouring an Active Galactic Nucleus (AGN) source for the emission. However, a detection of the NIV] λ 1486 emission line indicates a hard ionizing continuum, possibly from hot, massive stars. Resolved imaging from HST deblends the galaxy from a foreground interloper; these observations include narrowband imaging of the Ly α emission, which is marginally resolved on approximately fewkpc scales and has EW0 ~ 260 Å. The Ly α emission extends over ~ 2000 km s-1 and is broadly consistent with expanding shell models. Spectral energy distribution fitting that includes Spitzer/IRAC photometry suggests a complex star formation history that includes both a recent burst and an evolved population. J1414+5446 lies 30 arcsec from the centre of a known lensing cluster in the CFHTLS; combined with the foreground contribution, this leads to a highly uncertain estimate for the lensing magnification in the range 5 ≲ μ ≲ 25. Because of its unusual brightness, J1414+5446 affords unique opportunities for detailed study of an individual galaxy near the epoch of re-ionization and a preview of what can be expected from upcoming wide-area surveys that will yield hundreds of similar objects.Support for this work was provided by NASA through an award issued by JPL/Caltech (GO 90195). JPK acknowledges support from the ERC advanced grant LIDA. ML acknowledges CNRS and CNES for their support. Observations reported here were obtained at the MMT Observatory, a joint facility of the University of Arizona and the Smithsonian Institutio

Efficient Genetic Method for Establishing Drosophila Cell Lines Unlocks the Potential to Create Lines of Specific Genotypes

Analysis of cells in culture has made substantial contributions to biological research. The versatility and scale of in vitro manipulation and new applications such as high-throughput gene silencing screens ensure the continued importance of cell-culture studies. In comparison to mammalian systems, Drosophila cell culture is underdeveloped, primarily because there is no general genetic method for deriving new cell lines. Here we found expression of the conserved oncogene RasV12 (a constitutively activated form of Ras) profoundly influences the development of primary cultures derived from embryos. The cultures become confluent in about three weeks and can be passaged with great success. The lines have undergone more than 90 population doublings and therefore constitute continuous cell lines. Most lines are composed of spindle-shaped cells of mesodermal type. We tested the use of the method for deriving Drosophila cell lines of a specific genotype by establishing cultures from embryos in which the warts (wts) tumor suppressor gene was targeted. We successfully created several cell lines and found that these differ from controls because they are primarily polyploid. This phenotype likely reflects the known role for the mammalian wts counterparts in the tetraploidy checkpoint. We conclude that expression of RasV12 is a powerful genetic mechanism to promote proliferation in Drosophila primary culture cells and serves as an efficient means to generate continuous cell lines of a given genotype

Torture Approval in Comparative Perspective

Torture is (almost) universally condemned as barbaric and ineffective, yet it persists in the modern world. What factors influence levels of support for torture? Public opinion data from 31 countries in 2006 and 2008 (a total of 44 country-years) are used to test three hypotheses related to the acceptability of torture. The findings, first, show that outright majorities in 31 country-years reject the use of torture. Multiple regression results show that countries with high per capita income and low domestic repression are less likely to support torture. Constraints on the executive have no significant effect on public opinion on torture