Beyond Pivotal Politics: Constituencies, Electoral Incentives, and Veto Override Attempts in the House

Abstract

Veto override attempts offer an ideal opportunity to study the president's influence in Congress. A bill's content is identical during final passage and veto override votes, yet some members of Congress vote differently on these two roll‐calls. This article focuses on those members of Congress who switch their votes to join, or defect from, the president's coalition during veto override votes. The empirical analysis investigates veto override attempts from 1973 to 2011 to determine which members of Congress are most likely to change their votes during veto overrides. I find that the president's ability to win, or keep, members' support on veto override votes is determined in part by members' electoral incentives and the president's strength in members' constituencies. In particular, the president's strength in members' constituencies makes presidential party members more likely to join the president's veto override coalition and also makes opposition party members more likely to defect from the president's veto override coalition. Accounting for the influence of constituencies and electoral incentives augments party‐based and ideology‐based theories of congressional behavior and thus helps build richer, more comprehensive, and more accurate theories of member behavior.

Electoral Vulnerability and Presidential Support in the House of Representatives

“…Despite party’s exceptionally strong influence on member behavior, members of Congress can and do defect from their party’s position on roll‐call votes. Defection is especially likely on salient, high‐profile votes such as veto‐override attempts (Hickey ). I argue that this defection often occurs on presidential support votes because the president himself serves as an information shortcut for voters.…”

“…Second, the president's strength in a member's constituency affects how that member votes. The fact that constituencies exert at least some influence over their members of Congress is well established (Kingdon 1973;Erikson 1978;Bartels 1991;Wright, Erikson, and McIver 1994;Ansolabehere, Snyder, and Stewart 2001;Theriault 2005;Jessee 2009;Dwyer and Truel 2012;Hickey 2016). Members of Congress must win reelection to achieve their larger political goals.…”

Representation and Policy Making: Women Participating in the U.S. House

“…One of the reasons I found listed in the previous literature for why we might expect congresswomen to act differently than congressmen revolves around the idea of consensus building traits (i.e., Volden & Wiseman 2009, 2014Volden, Wiseman, & Wittmer 2013). These traits are listed as a reason for why women are more effective, and effectiveness is part of the reason why I think women are more entrepreneurial.…”

“…While the extant literature has established a link between descriptive and substantive representation, it has overwhelmingly focused on agenda setting behaviors and roll call voting (e.g., Swain 1993;Thomas 1994;Swers 2002a;2013). In order to address the question of policy, Volden and Wiseman (2009;2014) show that women are more effective overall at passing legislation through the process than men (based on Legislative Effectiveness Scores). In their 2013 article (with Wittmer), they show that minority party women drive this effect in every stage but bill introductions, where majority party women are more effective.…”

“…Finally, for chapter 4 a concern has been raised to me about the findings reflecting the vulnerability of a member, rather than a member's gender. Perhaps members that pay special attention to the female reelection constituency are not just female members, but rather members who come from electorally vulnerable districts (i.e., Hickey 2014). Scores for the vulnerability of members can easily be added into the analysis and used as a robustness check.…”