Use of ‘Dear Colleague’ Letters in the US House of Representatives: A Study of Internal Communications

‘Dear colleague’ letters – formal, written, member-to-member correspondence – provide a unique window into internal communications in the US House of Representatives. In general, studies of congressional political communications tend to focus on external messaging by members (candidates) to their constituents (voters) through a focus on electoral or constituent communication. Yet these studies may or may not tell us why members choose to engage in internal communication. To address this gap, this paper draws on the literature and presents new hypotheses about factors that increase a member's likelihood of using dear colleague letters. Using House dear colleague letter data from the first session of the 111th Congress (2009), a negative binomial regression tests the importance of seniority, electoral vulnerability, leadership status, and majority party status for dear colleague letter senders. The analysis demonstrates that rank-and-file majority party members who are electorally ‘safe’ are more likely to use the dear colleague system.     

Slavery,Partisanship, and Procedure in the U.S. House: The Gag Rule, 1836–1845

From the 24th through the 28th Congresses, the House of Representatives operated under versions of a “gag rule” that blocked petitions dealing with abolition and related matters. This article presents the gag rule as not only a historically important window into slavery deliberations in Congress but also a case study in majority party restrictions of minority rights—and in the boundaries that constituency politics can place on majority power. Through analysis of vote choices and voting changes over time, I demonstrate that the gag rule's partisan origins gave way as northern members voted against party and with specific constituency pressures as well as general sectional sentiment. The gag rule shows the power of electoral considerations and constituency in the early U.S. House, and it also illustrates the force that constituency can have over majority procedural maneuvering.     

Legislative recruitment to upper houses: The Australian senate and house of representatives compared

Although a majority of liberal democracies are bicameral, only four – Australia, the United States, Germany and Switzerland – have upper houses which have any significant legislative authority. However, it is unclear to what extent upper house members differ – in their backgrounds and beliefs – from their lower house counterparts. This article applies multivariate methods to survey data collected among 1993 Australian federal election candidates to examine patterns of legislative recruitment and political attitudes among Australian Senate and House of Representatives candidates. The results show that Senate candidates differ significantly in their personal : and political backgrounds when compared to House of Representatives candidates, although there are few, if any, differences in political views. The findings confirm the strong discipline that the major parties exercise over the Senate, particularly by selecting candidates who are more party – oriented than their lower house counterparts. This is anomalous given that the original purpose of the upper house was to defend the interests of the smaller states and territories. Finally, the article discusses the implications of this increasing partisan control of upper houses for responsible party government.     

Party Size and Constituency Representation: Evidence from the 19th‐Century U.S. House of Representatives

Research on congressional parties assumes, but has not directly shown, that party size affects individual members' calculations. Drawing on a key case from the nineteenth‐century House—the secession‐driven Republican hegemony of 1861—this article explores the hypothesis that party voting not only declines but also becomes more strongly linked to constituency factors as relative party size increases. The analysis reveals that the jump in party size coincides with (1) a decrease in party voting among individual continuing members, (2) a strengthening association between some constituency factors and party voting, and (3) patterns of decline in individual party voting that are explained in part by constituency measures.     

Long‐Term Change and Stability in House Voting Decisions: The Case of the Minimum Wage

Although members of Congress exhibit considerable stability in their voting decisions on similar, recurring issues, members' long‐term voting histories reveal evidence of systematic instability as well. I argue that members reverse positions in predictable ways when the vote history loses value as a decision cue, and I present empirical evidence for this behavior in the context of the highly salient and regularly repeated House decisions on increasing the federal minimum wage. The empirical findings suggest that reversals of member positions are related to institutional, electoral, and constituency factors. I conclude by discussing the importance of these findings to understanding congressional decision making and representation.     

Position Taking and Cosponsorship in the U.S. House

Bill cosponsorship has become an important part of the legislative and electoral process in the modern House of Representatives. Using interviews with congressional members and staff, I explain the role of cosponsorship as a signal to agenda setters and a form of position taking for constituents. Regression analysis confirms that cosponsoring varies with a member's electoral circumstances, institutional position, and state size, but generally members have adapted slowly to the introduction of cosponsorship to the rules and practice of the House.     

Legislative voting in the pork-dominant parliament: evidence from the Philippine House of Representatives

In this paper I investigate how legislators behave in extremely pork-oriented, or pork-dominant, systems where virtually no party-line voting takes place and politicians strive to deliver individual/local benefits instead of national public policies. I argue that, in the pork-dominant context, most legislators vote with the president, who controls access to the pork pipeline, irrespective of their party affiliations. Thus, the president’s party legislators should have little incentive to vote against the president, regardless of voter demands for pork or policy; however, sometimes opposition-party legislators elected particularly from more-developed districts (where voters often desire policy over pork) should have strong incentives to vote against the president. These arguments are supported with quantitative studies of the post-authoritarian Philippine House of Representatives. It is found that, in the highly homogeneous legislature dominated by pork-seeking politicians, (1) most bills are passed with unanimous or near-unanimous consent, (2) governing-party legislators almost always vote with the majority of the members of the parliament, regardless of voters’ socio-economic conditions, and (3) opposition-party legislators, especially in more-developed areas, tend to vote against the parliamentary majority. These findings indicate that voters’ high socio-economic status promotes programmatic accountability, leading their representatives to undermine voting unity within the extremely cohesive pork-dominant legislature.     

Electoral Poachers? An Assessment of Shadowing Behaviour in the Scottish Parliament

The mixed member electoral system used for the Scottish Parliament has produced two kinds of parliamentarians – those elected to represent constituencies (constituency members) and those elected to represent regions (list members). This system has created the possibility that list members might shadow constituency members with the intention of contesting the constituency seat in the next election. One manifestation of this is where list members locate their offices. Existing research on the shadowing of constituency members by list members has focused on the opinions of samples of members. In this paper we measure the behaviour of all members to examine the question of whether, how, and why list members shadow constituency members through the location of their offices. Among a number of findings, we provide evidence that list members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs) are significantly more likely to locate offices in most marginal constituencies, suggesting that electoral poaching is a feature of the system.     

Free voting in a provincial parliament: The case of ‘same‐sex’ legislation in Ontario, 1994

Previous research on parliamentary free voting, which has been confined exclusively to national parliaments and almost exclusively to the British House of Commons, has found relatively little constituency impact on members’ voting decisions, even on the most contentious issues of social policy. Since sub‐national parliaments tend to be smaller, less professionalised, and (arguably) ‘closer to the people’, it is possible that a more significant ‘constituency connection’ might be observed in these legislative arenas. This study extends the literature on this topic by empirically examining the fate of a recent homosexual rights bill in the Ontario Legislative Assembly. Contrary to expectations, none of the constituency characteristics used in logistical regression models generates a significant MLE coefficient, suggesting that Canadian provincial legislators may be even less sensitive to constituency preferences than their national counterparts.     

The Keys to Legislative Success in the U.S. House of Representatives

Our research addresses how individual member behavior and institutional variables affect legislative success in the U.S. House of Representatives. Using new measures of activity from the 103d Congress (1993–94), a count dependent variable, and negative binomial regression, our analysis assesses member effectiveness. We find that a member's activity level encourages legislative success, but gains are limited when members speak or sponsor too frequently. Our results provide a clearer picture of the role of legislative context and the relevance of institutions in determining a member's legislative successes and failures.     

Local News Coverage and the Incumbency Advantage in the U.S. House

Much of the incumbency advantage in the U.S. House of Representatives is attributed to incumbents' efforts to address constituents' needs. Yet House members do not win reelection simply by performing well in office, but also by informing constituents of how well they are doing their jobs. I examined the value of local news coverage for legislators seeking to publicize their legislative work on behalf of constituents. I found that incumbents who win more newspaper coverage are viewed as being more in touch with the district and are more likely to win support from constituents during bids for reelection.     

Exercising control and gathering information: the functions of interpellations in Hungary (1990–2014)

The article investigates the factors shaping the number and content of interpellations, a form of parliamentary questions by members of parliament (MPs) in post-regime change Hungary. Four theoretical propositions regarding the functions of interpellations are examined in this context: political control; policy-oriented information seeking; parliamentary group leadership; and constituency service. A new database of 4096 observations for the period between 1990 and 2014 is compiled in order to analyse these hypotheses. Computer-assisted content analysis techniques and count data regressions are used to describe the text of interpellations in terms of their geographical and policy content. Results show that opposition MPs interpellate more, whereas representatives of single-member districts and regional lists interpellate less than their peers. Representatives from single-member districts and regional lists make more reference to local issues in general, but not to their own district or county. Finally, policy specialisation increases the likelihood of submitting pertinent parliamentary questions.     

The rise and fall of legislative service organisations in the United States Congress

The abolition of Legislative Service Organisations by the 104th Congress (1995–96) constituted one of its earliest achievements. Although political dissensus had surrounded the role and activities of LSOs throughout their institutional existence, the Republican victory in the 1994 congressional elections was the critical factor prompting their abolition. Prior reform attempts had faltered upon the Democratic party's post‐1954 dominance of the House of Representatives and the diffuse representational and institutional benefits which LSOs conferred upon their members. However, when, under a new Republican majority, the perceived costs of LSOs were held to exceed their benefits, the organisations were rapidly terminated. The abolition of LSOs lends new and additional support to scholars who emphasise the continued salience of party to congressional politics in the United States.     

A Bridge Too Far? Examining Bridging Assumptions in Common-Space Estimations

While most common-space estimations rely upon members who served in both the House and Senate as “bridges” to scale the remaining members, this assumes that these “bridge members” do not change their preferences when they change chambers. Such an assumption conflicts with standard notions of representation, that is, that legislators’ votes reflect (at least to some degree) the wishes of their constituents. We examine the constancy of this common-space voting assumption by focusing on a subset of House members who move to the Senate: those who come from statewide House districts. Using these members as the bridge actors—and thus bridging by constituency explicitly—in a one-dimensional item response theory model, we find that the standard assumption of chamber switchers in common-space estimations is technically, but immaterially, false. While there are statistically distinguishable differences in House and Senate voting records for chamber switchers, they are not sufficiently large to meaningfully undermine bridging.     

Does religion count for religious parliamentary representation? Evidence from Early Day Motions

The article addresses one facet of the representation puzzle, namely substantive minority representation in the UK House of Commons. It examines whether a religious Jewish and Muslim minority background stimulates politicians from these backgrounds to address issues of concern for Jewish and Muslim minority groups in Early Day Motions (EDMs), and compares the effects from identity-based and institutional predictors. The study draws upon previous studies that used low-cost parliamentary activities to assess the impact of gender and ethnic minority identities on the representation of women and ethnic minorities, employing quantitative content analysis and time-series cross-sectional data analysis to examine the content of EDMs sponsored by members of parliament from Jewish and Muslim background (plus a control group) between 1997 and 2012. The analyses test for the effects of religious background and institutional predictors on the likelihood of referring to minority issues. They show that identity-based predictors such as a religious background are vastly inferior to institutional factors, including a legislative role, representing a constituency with a significant proportion of minority population, and the length of parliamentary service, in determining such references.     

Selection and Incentives in the Electoral Security‐Constituency Communication Relationship

The relative importance of selection and incentives is essential for understanding how elections structure politicians’ behavior. I investigate the relative magnitudes of these two effects in the context of US House members’ constituency communication. Consistent with previous research, I find that there is a negative cross‐sectional relationship between electoral security and the intensity of constituency communication. The negative relationship holds in a panel‐data setting where only within‐legislator variation in electoral security is used to identify the effect of electoral security on legislator behavior. Due to the likely presence of myopic voters, the impact of electoral security increases as the election approaches. Point estimates suggest that the total effect is almost entirely driven by incentives, and I am able to reject the hypothesis that the incentive effect is zero at conventional levels of statistical significance.     

Is Timing Everything? Retirement and Seat Maintenance in the U.S. House of Representatives

Literature on open‐seat elections has focused on the individual attributes of a candidate and/or institutional arrangements. When a seat becomes an open contest could be a significant indicator as to how likely the incumbent party is able to maintain the seat. Examining data on open U.S. House seats from 1996 to 2008, we use OLS regression and logistic regression analysis, finding that time is a significant predictor for incumbent party fund‐raising and seat maintenance. We conclude that political parties have an interest in encouraging members of Congress to announce their retirement early in the election cycle.     

MPs and electoral redistribution controversies in Canada, 1993–96

The political careers of members of the Canadian House of Commons are filled with uncertainties and are comparatively short. One of the sources of political uncertainty is that which results from the periodic readjustment of electoral boundaries. The constituency boundary readjustment process following the 1991 census led to a particularly acrimonious conflict. This paper analyses MPs’ reactions to both the process and the ridings established by the boundary commissioners. Two main data sets are employed: a survey of English Canada backbench MPs to inquire into MPs’ attitudes about electoral redistribution and the record of MPs appearing before the Commons sub‐committee charged with hearing objections to the electoral map in the autumn of 1995. The two different analyses both point to a conclusion that MPs’ self‐interest, rather than principle or constituency characteristics, appears to determine MPs’ satisfaction with the process and their propensity to take action by objecting to the proposed boundaries during the House committee stage of hearings.     

Bicameralism and Geographic Politics: Allocating Funds in the House and Senate

Because they represent different kinds of constituencies—states versus parts of states—senators and House members have different incentives in constructing federal distributive programs. In order to claim credit for providing particularized benefits, House members need to use policy tools—earmarks and narrow categorical programs—that target funds to their constituencies. Senators, by contrast, are able to claim credit for the large formula grants that distribute the bulk of intergovernmental grant money. Examining House‐Senate interactions in one of the largest distributive programs, federal aid to states for surface transportation, I show that the different bases of representation in the House and Senate structure the chambers' preferences on distributive programs and affect the outcomes of interchamber conflicts.