Free Votes, MPs, and Constituents: The Case of Same-Sex Marriage in Canada

Simply a matter of context? Partisan contexts and party loyalties on free votes

“…Although the government took a position on the HFEA, it and the other parties did not take official positions on the amendments. Similar to other free votes, which previous research notes are increasingly partisan (Cowley and Stuart 1997;Cowley 1998;Overby, Raymond, and Taydas 2011;Plumb and Marsh 2013;Plumb 2013;ibid 2015), the outcomes of most divisions related to the HFEA were highly partisan. Although much was made of the intra-party divisions in the discussions surrounding the amendments (BBC News, 2008), support for each amendment was concentrated primarily among Conservative MPs: most of the sponsors were Conservative…”

“…Though free votes allow for MPs with preferences differing from the rest of their party to vote in ways that divide the party in the final vote totals, parties often remain cohesive. Some research argues this is because MPs of the same party share similar personal preferences (Hibbing and Marsh 1987;Marsh and Read 1988;Mughan and Scully 1997;Overby et al 1998;Pattie et al 1994;Plumb 2013;ibid 2015), while other research argues this is because MPs of the same party face similar constituency pressures (Pattie, Johnston, and Fieldhouse 1994;Pattie, Johnston, and Stuart 1998;Overby, Raymond, and Taydas 2011;ibid 2015a;ibid 2015b;Sieberer 2015;Raymond 2016).…”

Reform in the Canadian Parliament and the US Congress: Institutional Choices and Member Power

“…Furthermore, dissent in parliamentary systems, including Canada's, rose in the 1990s and early 2000s, sparking a corresponding surge in scholarship on the topic (Kam 2009; see also Franks 1997;Docherty 2004;Eagles 2013;Garner and Letki 2005;Malloy 2003;Overby, Tatalovich, and Studlar 1998;Overby, Raymond, and Taydas 2011). Since Canada's tradition of party discipline is often linked to the concentration of power within the institution (Savoie 1999), many of these newer studies naturally looked to exogenous forces to explain deviations from that tradition.…”

“…Blais et al's isolation of a "personal vote" (2003; see also Cain, Ferejohn, and Fiorina 1989;Ferejohn and Gaines 1991) provided firm empirical grounds for the argument that Canadian MPs might be more attentive to constituency considerations than previously considered, and that such attentiveness might manifest itself in the form of more frequent dissent. Building on this, Overby, Raymond, and Taydas (2011) and Eagles (2013) uncover evidence of constituency effects (captured by an urban-rural divide) on gay rights-and abortion-related free votes among Canadian MPs. Moving beyond the study of votes, others uncovered evidence of constituency and/or electoral effects on other forms of legislative behavior as well, including participation during Question Period (Soroka, Penner, and Blidook 2009), the introduction of private member bills and motions (Blidook 2012), and participation in other traditionally "lower profile" legislative activities (Koop and Bittner 2011).…”

Explaining voting behaviour on free votes: Solely a matter of preference?

“…Additionally, we control for constituency pressures that may either pull MPs away from the rest of their parties and towards their constituents' preferences or push them towards the rest of their fellow MPs (Norton and Wood, 1993;Overby, Raymond, and Taydas, 2011;Pattie, Fieldhouse, and Johnston, 1994 Table 2. Each model has satisfactory fit, correctly predicting more than 90 per cent of the votes in our sample.…”