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Ideology and Representation in the U.S. Senate: Roll Calls v. Constituent Assessments
Unformatted Document Text:  [Figure 1 about here] The strong yet imperfect relationship between Senators’ ideologies as measured by roll call voting and citizen perceptions raises questions about the circumstances under which these two measures differ. To examine this, we rank the list of Senators from most liberal to most conservative for each measure of ideology and subtract the two ranks. For example, Senator Lincoln Chaffee in 1992, a moderate Republican from liberal Rhode Island was ranked as the 54 th most liberal Senator by SES respondents from his state (out of the 296 Senators used in this analysis). His voting behavior, however, shows a much more moderate pattern. His nominate score of -0.025 gives him a rank of 169 out of 296. Although Chaffee’s difference in rank is the largest observed in this data, he is by no means alone. As a Democratic senator from Massachusetts in 1992, John Kerry’s DW-NOMINATE score make him the 33 rd most liberal senator in our dataset (comprised of three congresses), yet his citizen assessments rank him as the second most liberal senator, a difference in rank of 31 places. This imbalance between the two measures occurs at the other end of the spectrum as well, with some senators assessed by their constituents to be considerably more conservative than their ideological scores calculated from their roll call votes. For example, in 1992 Senator Robert Byrd’s (D-WV) constituents view him to be the 192 nd most liberal senator (out of 296), while his roll call-based DW- NOMINATE score ranks him as the 116 th most liberal senator, a difference in rank of 76 places. As discussed above, numerous factors may help explain the differences between these two measures. Senators may vote strategically. The bills the leadership allows to come to a vote may be a bad sample for gauging ideology. Citizens may project their own ideology onto their senators (Markus and Converse 1979). Additionally, citizen assessments are able to tap into a much richer set of factors undergirding ideology that may not be readily evident in many roll call 8

Authors: Gershtenson, Joseph. and Plane, Dennis.
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background image
[Figure 1 about here]
The strong yet imperfect relationship between Senators’ ideologies as measured by roll
call voting and citizen perceptions raises questions about the circumstances under which these
two measures differ. To examine this, we rank the list of Senators from most liberal to most
conservative for each measure of ideology and subtract the two ranks. For example, Senator
Lincoln Chaffee in 1992, a moderate Republican from liberal Rhode Island was ranked as the
54
th
most liberal Senator by SES respondents from his state (out of the 296 Senators used in this
analysis). His voting behavior, however, shows a much more moderate pattern. His nominate
score of -0.025 gives him a rank of 169 out of 296. Although Chaffee’s difference in rank is the
largest observed in this data, he is by no means alone. As a Democratic senator from
Massachusetts in 1992, John Kerry’s DW-NOMINATE score make him the 33
rd
most liberal
senator in our dataset (comprised of three congresses), yet his citizen assessments rank him as
the second most liberal senator, a difference in rank of 31 places. This imbalance between the
two measures occurs at the other end of the spectrum as well, with some senators assessed by
their constituents to be considerably more conservative than their ideological scores calculated
from their roll call votes. For example, in 1992 Senator Robert Byrd’s (D-WV) constituents
view him to be the 192
nd
most liberal senator (out of 296), while his roll call-based DW-
NOMINATE score ranks him as the 116
th
most liberal senator, a difference in rank of 76 places.
As discussed above, numerous factors may help explain the differences between these
two measures. Senators may vote strategically. The bills the leadership allows to come to a vote
may be a bad sample for gauging ideology. Citizens may project their own ideology onto their
senators (Markus and Converse 1979). Additionally, citizen assessments are able to tap into a
much richer set of factors undergirding ideology that may not be readily evident in many roll call
8


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