Party Influence & Party Conflict (10/21) McCarty-Lee

What are the sources of party unity in Congress?

• Ideas, or “ideology”

  • Members within each party are far more likely to agree with each other on most issues than they are to agree with members of the other party

    • There are intraparty differences

• Voters

  • Democratic and Republican voters don’t just want different things…they are often part of different groups

• Competition for Power

  • Members of the same party have a collective interest in working together to try to gain majority control of their chamber

    • They can then exercise that power to accrue benefits and policy gains against the minority

  • These incentives tamp down on in-fighting within a party as every member of the party shares an interest in trying to make the best collective electoral situation for the party as possible

  • Everyone benefits from the party brand

What are the sources of party conflict in Congress?

• Party differences over Time

  • In the late 19th and early 20th centuries the parties in Congress were quite polarized

  • Throughout the middle of the 20th century, however, we saw an era of de-polarization

  • Since the 1970s, we’ve entered a new period of polarization

• What are the sources of today’s party conflict? (Possibilities)

  • Ideology—The members of each party believe increasingly different things or represent voters who believe increasingly different things

    • % of Republican who view themselves as conservatives has grown, while the % of Democrats who view themselves as conservatives has shrunk, vice versa for liberal

    • % of both parties’ voters who see themselves as moderate has declined

  • Sorting of Voters—People are not becoming more extreme in their ideological leanings, but that they are sorting themselves in a more logical way into the two parties on the basis of their ideological leanings

    • We can see this sorting to some degree in patterns of both demographics and geography

    • If Democrats and Republicans simply live in different places, then congressional districts will naturally favor one party over the other

    • Gradually seen this over the past 30-40 years

    • Americans are increasingly buying homes near other people who look, act, and think like they do (Race is an example of this)

    • Sorting is the primary cause of the decline in competitive congressional races over the last few decades

    • Despite what many think, this isn’t mostly about gerrymandering

    • Mostly about people sorting where they live on the basis of demographics that are increasingly connected to party affiliations

  • More intense two-party competition for power

    • For most of American History, one party was clearly dominant, winning most presidential elections over a period of time, and controlling the House and the Senate for most of that period of time

    • The size of party majorities in Congress were very large, and changes in party control were rare (this has changed in recent years)

    • Lop-sided presidential election victories were the norm…since the 1990s, presidential elections have been consistently unusually close

      • No one has won a truly decisive victory since 1984

    • This reduced the amount of conflict between the parties because neither was focused on constantly trying to appeal to the public ahead of the next election

    • Today, both parties believe they can win control of the House, Senate, and presidency every election

    • How does Frances Lee say this dynamic changes the motivations of legislators?

      • This gives everything in Washington partisan electoral implications

        • → Creates incentives for the party out of power to constantly try to make the party in-power look bad

    • Legislators work to increase the expected party differential

    • Minority Party members try to do so via opposing and attacking what is happening

      • The goal is to emphasize the other party’s failures, not to make constructive public policy

    • Majority party members increasingly hold party message votes—message signaling to voters where you stand

    • Even the majority party may sometimes find unsuccessful legislative efforts useful. Why?

      • May prefer to pass it on a party line vote

      • May prefer to keep the issue alive through the campaign season

    • The majority party wants to avoid blame

  • To some degree, it’s all three

Party influence is the result of:

• Common ideas among co-partisans

• Pressure from voters

• Incentives for intra-party agreement

Party conflict is driven by:

• Differences in ideas and ideals

• Sorting of voters

• Increased two-party competition for control of the government

McCarty Reading

• Polarization does not appear to be driven by contemporary events or institutional differences between the House and Senate → this includes gerrymandering

• There is major partisan asymmetry in polarization

• Elite polarization appears to cause partisan sorting, not the other way around

• Republicans now can actually win elections, leading them to strategically differentiate from Democrats