Next year, President Obama will face both a Republican House and Senate, potentially reducing significantly his power over the legislature. Could the increasingly unpopular Obama still exercise some degree of influence through his State of the Union address? Using more than 60 years of data on Congressional policy agendas and the State of the Union John Lovett, Shaun Bevan, and Frank Baumgartner find that the president is more able to influence congressional committees soon after the State of the Union, when they share the same party, and when the president is popular. They also find that this influence is greater over the House than the Senate

Baumgartner, Frank

Bevan, Shaun

Lovett, John

LSE Research Online

blogs.lse.ac.ukhttp://blogs.lse.ac.uk/usappblog/2014/11/11/popular-presidents-can-influence-congress-with-the-state-of-the-union-but-an-unpopular-president-will-simply-be-ignored/Popular presidents can influence Congress with the State of theUnion, but an unpopular president will simply be ignored.Next year, President Obama will face both a Republican House and Senate, potentially reducingsignificantly his power over the legislature. Could the increasingly unpopular Obama still exercisesome degree of influence through his State of the Union address? Using more than 60 years ofdata on Congressional policy agendas and the State of the Union John Lovett, Shaun Bevan,and Frank Baumgartner find that the president is more able to influence congressionalcommittees soon after the State of the Union, when they share the same party, and when thepresident is popular. They also find that this influence is greater over the House than the Senate.With both House in the United States Congress to return to Republican control for the first timesince 2007 in the wake of this year’s midterm elections, one would wonder to what extentPresident Barack Obama will be able to influence Congress to focus on his priorities.  The newreality of a Republican-controlled Congress, something President Obama has not faced in histime in the Oval Office, seemingly could mean a body that simply ignores the president’s prioritiesentirely.  However, it may also be the case that the control may not matter for attention:  Obama, apresident with middling approval, may be ignored regardless of who controls Congress.In new research, we use the president’s State of the Union (SoU) address to assess whether thepresident’s issue priorities influence changes in the attention Congress gives to presidentialpriorities.  We find that the president’s power to influence congressional committees depends onfour factors: 1) whether the president and Congress share the same party; 2) the president’spublic approval level; 3) the amount of time that has passed since the speech was given; and 4)whether we are discussing the House or the Senate.First, a president who shares the party of the majority of the congressional body (united government) will be moresuccessful at influencing Congress than a president of the rival party. The president, as leader of their party, will begiving directions to their members of Congress, and that influence will lead to similar priorities.  A president actingunder united government then will be more successful at influencing Congress than one who acts under dividedgovernment.  No surprise there.Second, popular presidents will generally have a more effective bully pulpit than unpopular presidents.  Membersof Congress will want to accede to the priorities of a popular president, knowing that following a president’spriorities may help advance their own ambitions. More popular presidents will then be more successful at gettingcongressional attention than unpopular presidents.  In fact, unpopular presidents have no effect, no matter whichparty they are from; they are simply irrelevant to Congressional priorities, in united or divided government.Third, a speech’s influence will wane over time.  As new priorities and new events enter the sphere ofcongressional attention, older events will fade and committees will move onto the new topics.  The result is that theeffects of a president’s speech on congressional attention will dissipate over the course of the rest of the year.Even a popular president with partisan control of Congress has little impact over the long-term.Finally, the two bodies should act differently, with the House generally more likely to focus on presidential attentionthan the Senate.  The House and its adherence to the power of the majority should respond more forcefully to apresident’s priorities, while the Senate’s more independent nature leads to decreased effects.To test these factors, we compiled data on the State of the Union and congressional hearings using data from thePolicy Agendas Project. We employ topic identifiers used by the Policy Agendas Project to test changes inattention to different topics over time. Our dependent variable is the proportional change in congressionalhearings, and our main independent variable is the percent of space a president gives to a specific topic in theSoU.  We also employ a series of interactions to test the effects between the SoU and presidential approval at thetime of the SoU as well as the SoU and divided government, as well as controls on media and public opinion.Our model employs a time series cross-sectional design, testing in terms of 19 Policy Agendas Project topic areasover a 53 year period (1953-2007).  Separate models are used to test on the House and Senate.  In addition, wealso run separate models to test the proportional change in the number of hearings 3 months following the SoU(February-April), the remaining 8 months of the year (May-December), as well as for the entire year.  The result is12 models depending on variation in body, government, and time.In Figure 1, we present results from the House models. The results are presented as marginal effects graphs,which show the effect a 1 percent increase in the space a topic is given in the SoU has on the proportional changein committee attention to that topic.  The effect is graphed across the level of presidential approval.  Each graphrepresents a separate model, with the columns representing united and divided government, and the rowsrepresenting different times of year. 95% confidence intervals are used to track significance across each graph. Finally, we use a rug plot to represent actual presidential approval numbers. Figure 1 – Predicted Effects on Congressional Attention by Approval, Divided Government, and Time,HouseThe results show support for the conditional role of approval, especially early in the year, when effects arestrongest.  A president with a high level of approval will be able to influence congressional committees to commitattention to a president’s priorities.  An unpopular president, on the other hand, will have no effect on committeeattention to issues.  Popular presidents can influence committee attention, while unpopular presidents are simplyignored.These effects also outweigh the effects of united and divided government, as we find significant effects for bothunited and divided government at high levels of presidential approval, as members of both parties want to seethemselves as dealing with the issues of a popular president.  We do however see these effects dissipate in thedivided government case, giving credence to the differences between united and divided government.  Finally, wefind support for the dissipation of effects in divided government, but do not find effects for united government, aspresidents seem to be effective at keeping their own party’s attention to their topics throughout the year.Next we turn to the Senate, which is presented in Figure 2 in the same format as presented in Figure 1.Figure 2 – Predicted Effects on Congressional Attention by Approval, Divided Government, and Time,SenateUnlike Figure 1, we find significant effects in the first three months for united government starting around 60%,while in divided government we only find effects at the highest possible levels of approval.  In both, we also findeffects dropping off entirely following the first 3 months, implying that the Senate’s nature as an independent bodytakes over after a brief period, and that as a result a president’s SoU has limited power, regardless of presidentialapproval.The results here show conditional relationships between presidential and congressional attention.  A popularpresident will have the ability to influence the House and Senate to orient attention toward the president’s prioritiesearly in the year, while an unpopular president will simply be ignored.  However, as the year goes on, new prioritiestake over and the president’s SoU will have decreasing impact. President Obama will give his seventh State of theUnion in 2015.  With his current approval hovering in area around 40 percent, it is likely that control of Congresswill not change the amount of attention his SoU receives from committees.  As a president with middling approval,he will simply be ignored regardless of which party controls Congress.This article is based on the paper, ‘Popular Presidents Can Affect Congressional Attention, for a Little While’  in thePolicy Studies Journal.Featured image credit: The White House.Please read our comments policy before commenting.             Note:  This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of USApp– American Politics and Policy, nor ofthe London School of Economics.Shortened URL for this post: http://bit.ly/1u5wbOI _________________________________ About the authorsJohn Lovett – University of North Carolina – Chapel HillJohn Lovett is a graduate student at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, specializing inAmerican Politics.  His dissertation focuses on the notion of party branding and rebranding, andwhat conditions cause political parties to shift their issue priorities._Shaun Bevan – Mannheim Centre for European Social ResearchShaun Bevan is a Research Fellow at the Mannheim Centre for European Social Research(MZES) at the University of Mannheim. Shaun’s research interests focus on American, British andComparative Politics, as well as Political Methodology. Some of his specific interests includeagenda-setting, public policy, interest groups, public opinion, time series analysis, event historyanalysis and measurement. Frank R. Baumgartner – University of North CarolinaFrank R. Baumgartner is the Richard J. Richardson Distinguished Professor of Political Scienceat the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is the co-author of Agendas and Instability inAmerican Politics and other works.   CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 2014 LSE USAPP

Popular presidents can influence Congress with the State of the Union, but an unpopular president will simply be ignored

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