Ideology, Electoral Incentives, and Congressional Politics

Abstract

Following the work of Downs and Mayhew, some theories of legislative politics assume that candidates are motivated only by electoral interests and their behavior is driven by the median voter in their district. Other theories, however, posit that legislator behavior is driven by additional factors such as member's policy interests or those of the primary constituency. It is our theoretical expectation that Downs was not incorrect but rather incomplete. In this article, we classify the Republican freshman representatives elected in 1994 according to these different motives and conclude that different motives are related to systematic differences in behavior. We observe pressure from the district median, and the representatives' primary electorate and personal ideological commitments exert a significant and independent effect on the positions taken by representatives. Our results indicate that members are influenced by factors outside of their district median.

The Role of Ideology in State Legislative Elections

“…Lastly, incumbents may not pursue the ideological center due to their own personal preferences. The new Republican members in the takeover of the US House of Representatives in 1994 were found to have had their voting behavior shaped by personal ideology which encouraged divergence from the median (Crespin, Gold, and Rohde ). This is unlikely to be limited to the Gingrich class, however: most candidates for higher office are ideologically driven, and extremists are more likely to be recruited by the party (Fox and Lawless ; Masket ).…”

Does the Citizen Initiative Weaken Party Government in the U.S. States?

“…For example, Calvert (1985) and Alesina and Rosenthal (1996), demonstrate that strong candidate policy preferences can prevent Downsian ideological convergence during elections. Similarly, Gerber and Lewis (2004) and Crespin and Gold (2006) show that, once in office, legislators' personal ideologies often lead them to vote in a manner that is more conservative or liberal than one would expect given their district's political leanings. Importantly, the effect of legislators' personal policy beliefs can exist independently of any pressure placed upon their policy positions by party activists.…”