Preferences, Partisanship, and Whip Activity in the U.S. House of Representatives

Abstract

Using Democratic whip counts from the 92d House, we compare representatives' stated intentions to their actual roll‐call votes to detect evidence of party pressure. After arguing that this strategy understates real party influence, we nonetheless point to evidence of member conversion by party leaders. On 16 bills analyzed, two‐thirds of the switches between the count and the vote occur in the direction favored by party leaders. We examine one bill in depth, showing how the efforts of party leaders were consequential to the outcome. The pattern of movement on this bill, along with data from the larger set of bills, provides evidence that leaders act strategically, targeting the members whose persuasion requires the fewest resources.

Dilatory or anticipatory? Voting on the Journal in the House of Representatives

“…Accordingly, the results of this paper (utilizing an easily obtained and yet frequently discarded piece of information) are relevant for a recent and active debate about the proper way to draw distinctions between different roll call votes. 22 In particular, the evidence presented here suggests that we should estimate two separate models: one for votes on Journal 20 Recent works considering the implications of selective pursuit of party discipline in Congress include Sinclair (1998Sinclair ( , 2000, Rohde (2000, 2004), Roberts (2003), Burden and Frisby (2004), Schickler and Wawro (2006), Lebo et al (2007), and Patty (2008). 21 A few examples that have been studied include committee assignments (Leighton and Lopez 2002), staff (Sinclair 1981), opportunities for promotion within the party organization (Loomis 1984), preferential recognition of legislation (Woon 2008), and the opportunity to offer amendments (Sinclair 1983;Bach and Smith 1988;Roberts 2003).…”

What Role for the Party Group Leader? A Latent Variable Approach to Leadership Effects on Party Group Cohesion in the European Parliament

“…Although the effects of strong leadership on voting behaviour in the US Congress are also analysed by other studies (Sinclair 1992, Burden andFrisby 2004), specific leadership traits which might be responsible for these effects are not examined. The question of which personal traits might be most helpful for a party leader's success has not been outlined in more detail in comparative parliamentary research either.…”

“…It has paid surprisingly little attention to the role of party group leaders in securing discipline in party groups. At most, several case studies illustrate the effect of single party leaders on their parties (Barber 1966, Norton 1987, Messmer 2003, Burden and Frisby 2004, Hefferman 2005.…”

Beyond Pivotal Politics: Constituencies, Electoral Incentives, and Veto Override Attempts in the House

“…To overcome this obstacle I make a few straightforward assumptions about the type of members that presidents and party leaders will target. First, I assume that presidents and party leaders will “target the members whose persuasion requires the fewest resources” (Burden and Frisby , 569). A good deal of evidence suggests that this assumption is true across a variety of contexts (, Burden and Frisby ; Conley and Yon ; Sullivan , ).…”

“…First, I assume that presidents and party leaders will “target the members whose persuasion requires the fewest resources” (Burden and Frisby , 569). A good deal of evidence suggests that this assumption is true across a variety of contexts (, Burden and Frisby ; Conley and Yon ; Sullivan , ). Second, I assume that members whose final passage votes are out of step with their constituencies are good targets for presidents and party leaders.…”