(Page 1 of 41) - Valence Advantages and Ideological Shirking in the U.S. Senate: Why Do Senators Take Positions That Are Different From Their Constituents' Preferences? authored by Grose, Christian.

Valence Advantages and Ideological Shirking in the U.S. Senate:

Why Do Senators Take Positions That Are Different From Their Constituents’ Preferences?

Christian R. Grose

Assistant Professor of Political Science

Vanderbilt University

Department of Political Science

VU Station B #351817

Calhoun Hall

Nashville, TN 37235-1817

christian.## email not listed ##

615-322-6242

Working manuscript, August 2006

Abstract: Do non-policy valence advantages that incumbent members of Congress possess affect spatial
position-taking? Are legislators who deliver substantial amounts of federal largesse more likely to
diverge from their constituency medians? Are legislators who are perceived as more competent than their
opponents more likely to diverge from the preferences of their constituents? I argue and empirically
demonstrate that valence advantages such as the distribution of “pork” projects and legislator competence
allow incumbent legislators to deviate from the policy preferences of their constituents (in some
instances). Formal valence theories of position-taking are examined in this paper, and I argue for an
expansive definition of valence advantages that includes both valence policies and non-policy valence
characteristics. I show that valence advantages sometimes cause legislators to converge to their
constituents’ preferences and to sometimes diverge. I test the expectations of valence theories of
congressional position-taking by examining an example of a valence issue (distributive policy) and a
valence characteristic (an incumbent’s perceived competence relative to his or her challenger). These
empirical tests are conducted with original data on senators’ divergence from their states’ median voters
during the 104

-107

Congresses (1995-2002). One key contribution of this paper is the creation of ideal

point estimates of legislators and constituency medians on a common scale using Bayesian MCMC ideal
point estimation techniques (similar to the popular NOMINATE scores, though unlike NOMINATE,
these scores include measures of constituents and senators). The findings are that valence theories of
position-taking are demonstrated when examining incumbent divergence from the constituency median.
In sum, senators with no valence advantage diverge from their constituents; senators with small valence
advantages move closer to their constituents; and senators with large valence advantages are able to
deviate far off of their constituents’ preferences. The implications of these results are that senators who
deliver very large amounts of federal outlays to a state or senators perceived as very competent relative to
their campaign challengers are able to vote closer to their own personal preferences than to their
constituents’ preferences.

Paper prepared for the 2006 American Political Science Association meeting, Philadelphia, PA. I would like to
thank Tony Bertelli, Asa Byström, Kevin Esterling, John Frendreis, Justin Fox, John Geer, Stephen Gent, Marc
Hetherington, John Griffin, Matthew Jarvis, Gail McElroy, Nathan Monroe, Bruce Oppenheimer, Alexander
Todorov, and Antoine Yoshinaka for helpful suggestions. I also thank Jim Evans and Sam Wiltzius for providing
computing resources.