Religion and environmental politics in the US House of Representatives

Religious Representation and Animal Welfare in the U.S. Senate

“…Newman et al. (), however, find that among members of Congress, mainline Protestant affiliation is negatively related to environmentalism. This likely reflects the confounding influence of party, as most mainline legislators are Republican (Guth ).…”

“…Newman et al. () find that when environmental issues are considered in the U.S. House of Representatives, Mormon and evangelical members are less supportive of environmentalism, while Catholic, mainline Protestant, and Jewish representatives are more supportive.…”

“…Among members of Congress, Catholics have slightly above average environmental protection scores (Newman et al. ).…”

“…Evangelical Protestant members of Congress have tended to be among the least environmentally friendly, according to Newman et al. (). However, evangelical attitudes on the environment may be in flux; the analysis here allows for a direct test of this possibility with respect to animal welfare.…”

“…A finding that religion influences legislative behavior even on lower‐salience issues, by contrast, suggests that religion's influence on legislative behavior and representation is vast—that it affects politics in myriad ways on myriad issues (Fetzer ; Hertzke ; Newman et al. ).…”