Red versus blue: American electoral geography and congressional bipartisanship, 1898–2002

Mellow, Nicole; Trubowitz, Peter

doi:10.1016/j.polgeo.2005.01.010

Cited by 18 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…Although this is sometimes done to placate powerful opposition senators, McLeod has published a study showing that presidents are more likely to make cross‐party nominations to the lower federal courts from a state when the two major parties are in close competition in that state in terms of the percentage of the votes that they receive for major state and federal offices (McLeod 2013). This finding was consistent with the hypothesis advanced by Mellow and Trubowitz that gestures of cross‐partisanship are aimed at appealing to persuadable centrist voters who are in other political parties or who are independents, and these gestures are more likely when the parties are in close electoral competition (Mellow and Trubowitz 2005; Trubowitz and Mellow 2005). These data suggest, paradoxically, that presidents use cross‐party nominations in pursuit of their partisan goals, in that they see such nominations as strategic moves that can help their party’s electoral prospects.…”

supporting

confidence: 89%

The Law: Going Outside of the Family: Toward a Greater Understanding of Presidents’ Pursuit of Their Agendas Through Cross‐Party Federal Court Nominations

McLeod¹

2019

Pres Stud Q

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This article explores presidential success at finding nominees outside of their parties who have policy views similar to those of people in their parties, by comparing the voting records of four presidents’ cross‐party–nominated circuit court judges with those of their same‐party–nominated circuit court judges. The results show that most of the presidents examined found cross‐party nominees who voted like their same‐party nominees. This finding suggests that presidents can use cross‐party nominations to make cross‐partisan gestures, confident in their ability to find politically compatible cross‐party nominees. The findings also suggest that cross‐party nominations face shorter confirmation durations in periods of intense Senate obstruction.

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supporting

confidence: 89%

The Law: Going Outside of the Family: Toward a Greater Understanding of Presidents’ Pursuit of Their Agendas Through Cross‐Party Federal Court Nominations

McLeod¹

2019

Pres Stud Q

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“…Such effective campaigning can accentuate the emerging polarisation with, for example, greater turnout among Democratic supporters in Counties where the party campaigns more intensively (more campaigners on the ground; more money raised and spent), which are likely to be those Counties where Democratic support is already strong. And, as Mellow and Trubowitz (2005) suggest, greater polarisation can have important impacts on the country's governance; as has been apparent during the eight years of Barack Obama's presidency, an increasingly polarised country is reflected in an increasingly polarised Congress, which creates increased difficulties for a president -of either party -to achieve bipartisan support for substantial policy change.…”

Section: So Why the Big Sort And Why More In Some Parts Of The Usa Tmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatial Polarization of Presidential Voting in the United States, 1992–2012: The “Big Sort” Revisited

Johnston

Manley

Jones

2016

Annals of the American Association of Geographers

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General rightsThis document is made available in accordance with publisher policies. Please cite only the published version using the reference above. Full terms of use are available: http://www.bristol.ac.uk/pure/about/ebr-terms Much has been written in recent years about the claimed polarisation of the US electorate, with substantial differences as to whether there has been greater spatial polarisation, at several geographical scales, over recent decades. To assess the veracity of those alternative views, a bespoke data set showing percentage support for the Democratic Party's presidential candidates at the County, State and Divisional scales has been analysed using a robust, statistically-based measure of polarisation/segregation. The ecological results provide clear and compelling evidence of a trend towards greater polarisation across the nine Census Divisions, across the 49 States within those Divisions, and across the 3077 Counties within the States -with strong evidence that the differences over time at the last of those scales are highly statistically significant. Within those general trends, polarisation has been greater in some States than others and also within some States more than othersidentifying additional geographies calling for further research.

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“…Instead, we aim to simply advance efforts to measure and characterize partisan dynamics beyond commonly employed measures such as those relying of the proportion of each party voting yea or nay on individual roll call votes (Mellow and Trubowitz 2005) or bill co-sponsorship patterns (Harbridge 2011). 2 In addition, we believe that greater insight may be gained by drawing from the policy studies literature that examines the process of policy formation, and the policy content of the legislation itself, in order to expose and assess the factors that advance (or impede) minoritybacked policy proposals.…”

Section: Balancing Majority Power and Minority Rightsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Party Politics and Enactment of “Obamacare”: A Policy-Centered Analysis of Minority Party Involvement

Rigby

Clark

Pelika³

2014

Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law

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The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (ACA) passed with no Republican votes and was accompanied by intense criticism that the reform was "rammed through" the legislative process by the majority party. By contrast, many Democrats emphasized the extensive yearlong debate over health care reform and argued that the final bill represented a compromise of good ideas from both parties. We undertake a policy-centered analysis to help reconcile these conflicting reports of this legislative episode. Drawing on real-time accounts published in the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call, we compare the success of Democratic and Republican Parties' policy proposals in terms of centrality to the policy agenda and inclusion in the enacted legislation. Our findings indicate that Republican-backed proposals were more present on the policy agenda than in the final legislation--although both were dominated by Democratic policy proposals. In this case, the major limit on majority party power seemed to be intraparty conflict, rather than opposition from the minority party.

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Red versus blue: American electoral geography and congressional bipartisanship, 1898–2002

Cited by 18 publications

References 33 publications

The Law: Going Outside of the Family: Toward a Greater Understanding of Presidents’ Pursuit of Their Agendas Through Cross‐Party Federal Court Nominations

The Law: Going Outside of the Family: Toward a Greater Understanding of Presidents’ Pursuit of Their Agendas Through Cross‐Party Federal Court Nominations

Spatial Polarization of Presidential Voting in the United States, 1992–2012: The “Big Sort” Revisited

Party Politics and Enactment of “Obamacare”: A Policy-Centered Analysis of Minority Party Involvement

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