JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. Comparative Legislative Research Center is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Legislative Studies Quarterly.The extent to which electoral divisions in congressional districts correspond with the roll call behavior of members of the House of Representatives during the 1964-1973 period is the focus of the research. District results for both the presidential and congressional elections are examined. While little relationship is found with congressional election results, strong correlations are repeatedly found with the presidential election results. Moreover, what one would expect to be the most direct linkage between presidential election results and the members' roll call records-the linkage with members' roll call support for the president-is instead found to be of secondary importance, especially since 1968. A decidedly stronger relationship is seen to occur between presidential election results and members' roll call records when measured along liberal and conservative lines. This finding parallels the emergence of relatively strong ideological voting patterns within the presidential electorate between 1964-1972, and in turn suggests the likelihood that policy linkages of some importance existed between members and their districts over the period covered.
Critics of the American House of Representatives frequently cite, in one form or another, a national model of representation as a basis for criticizing both the House and the behaviour of some of its individual members. One of the more familiar criticisms, for example, is that members of the House are so motivated by local or regional concerns and interests that representation in some meaningful national form is rendered almost impossible. So widely is this characterization shared that it is hardly ever asked whether or not members of the House behave in ways that would be consistent and meaningful in terms of a national model of representation.
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