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Keeping Score: Parties, Interest Groups, and Roll-Call Voting in the U.S. House of Representatives
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Abstract
Members of Congress are confronted by myriad forces as they make roll-call voting decisions. They often must navigate conflicts among and between the views of their constituents, their party, interest groups, and their own personal preferences. The ways in which parties and individual members navigate these conflicts have important consequences for each member’s tenure and for their party’s policy goals. In this paper we combine interest group scorecard and House roll-call data in order to gain empirical leverage on the question of how members and parties balance their electoral and policy goals in the face of interest group pressure. We find that in many cases the ability of the majority party in the House to pursue its policy goals is constrained as a consequence of decisions by interest groups to score certain key votes. We also find that it is electorally-vulnerable members who are more likely to defect from their party’s preferred position on scored votes.
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| | Authors: Roberts, Jason. and Bell, Lauren. |
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Abstract
Members of Congress are confronted by myriad forces as they make roll-call voting decisions.
They often must navigate conflicts among and between the views of their constituents, their
party, interest groups, and their own personal preferences. The ways in which parties and
individual members navigate these conflicts have important consequences for each member’s
tenure and for their party’s policy goals. In this paper we combine interest group scorecard and
House roll-call data in order to gain empirical leverage on the question of how members and
parties balance their electoral and policy goals in the face of interest group pressure. We find
that in many cases the ability of the majority party in the House to pursue its policy goals is
constrained as a consequence of decisions by interest groups to score certain key votes. We also
find that it is electorally-vulnerable members who are more likely to defect from their party’s
preferred position on scored votes.
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