Gender, Ambition, and Legislative Behavior in the United States House

When Does She Rebel? How Gender Affects Deviating Legislative Behaviour

“…Election prospects, hence, do not seem to influence the vote-defecting behaviour of men and women at similar rates: re-election prospects seem to matter more for male MPs. This finding reflects previous literature that indicates that, generally, male MPs adjust their legislative agendas to career prospects in the US Congress (Schmitt and Brant 2019). Taken together, we find support for Hypothesis 2 that female MPs are more likely to defect than male MPs as re-election probability increases, yet can only partly corroborate the proposed mechanism.…”

“…1 Thus far, research remains mostly silent as to whether career ambition similarily affects the legislative behaviour of men and women. To our knowledge, only one study of the US Congress indicates that women are more reluctant than men to adapt legislative agendas to career goals (Schmitt and Brant 2019). 2 Pressure to advocate women's issues can vary according to political context, party ideology and across individual female MPs.…”

Homophily in collaborations among US House Representatives, 1981–2018

“…Although there is a long history of research documenting gender homophily across a wide range of social interactions (e.g., Brashears, 2008Brashears, , 2015McPherson et al, 2001), the lack of representation of women in legislatures has made the investigation of gender homophily in legislative collaboration impossible. However, as women's representation in legislative chambers has increased, attention has turned to understanding the potential role of gender in shaping legislative collaboration (e.g., Lovenduski, 1998;Schmitt & Brant, 2019;Wangnerud, 2009). Some have suggested there may be politically strategic reasons to develop collaborations with women, who tend to secure more federal spending (Anzia & Berry, 2011), introduce more legislation, and keep sponsored bills alive longer (Volden et al, 2013).…”

“…What counts as a 'large' number of shared cosponsorships differs for each pair because different legislators sponsor different numbers of bills (i.e., there is substantial variation on the row sums of B), and the bills they sponsor have been sponsored by different numbers of legislators (i.e., there is substantial variation on the column sums of B; see Table 1). These variations are particularly important in an analysis focused on gender because prior research has demonstrated that there are gender differences in the number (Schwindt-Bayer, 2006;Spirou, 2017;Volden et al, 2013;Schmitt & Brant, 2019;Gagliarducci & Paserman, 2016;Anzia & Berry, 2011) and type (Clark & Caro, 2013;Schwindt-Bayer, 2006;Fouirnaies et al, 2019;Swers, 2005;Shim, 2020Shim, , 2021 of bills sponsored. For this reason, we infer legislative collaborations from bill co-sponsorships using the stochastic degree sequence model (SDSM; Neal, 2014), which controls for these variations.…”

Homophily in Collaborations among US House Representatives, 1981 -- 2018

“…What counts as a 'large' number of shared cosponsorships differs for each pair because different legislators sponsor different numbers of bills (i.e., there is substantial variation on the row sums of B), and the bills they sponsor have been sponsored by different numbers of legislators (i.e., there is substantial variation on the column sums of B; see Table 1). These variations are particularly important in an analysis focused on gender because prior research has demonstrated that there are gender differences in the number (Schwindt-Bayer, 2006;Spirou, 2017;Volden et al, 2013;Schmitt & Brant, 2019;Gagliarducci & Paserman, 2016;Anzia & Berry, 2011) and type (Clark & Caro, 2013;Schwindt-Bayer, 2006;Fouirnaies et al, 2019;Swers, 2005;Shim, 2020Shim, , 2021 of bills sponsored. For this reason, we infer legislative collaborations from bill co-sponsorships using the stochastic degree sequence model (SDSM; Neal, 2014), which controls for these variations.…”