Term Limits and Collaboration Across the Aisle: An Analysis of Bipartisan Cosponsorship in Term Limited and Non-Term Limited State Legislatures

Swift, Clint S.; VanderMolen, Kathryn

doi:10.1177/1532440015608760

Cited by 11 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 54 publications

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“…Rather they are consistent with the Olson and Rogowski (2020) longitudinal analyses of state legislatures showing that legislators with term limits move less toward the other party’s positions than those without term limits. These results also support the Swift and VanderMollen (2016) finding of less bipartisan cooperation for term-limited representatives. Our statistical mediation analyses suggest that participants playing the role of a representative without term limits preferred more cooperative, less hard-bargaining tactics and moved more than those with term limits.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 86%

“…The argument against them posits that term limits increase partisan influence and ideological polarization because of post-government career incentives (Olson and Rogowski, 2020). It has also been suggested that term limits reduce bipartisan cooperation in State legislatures because representatives are less accountable to constituencies (Swift and VanderMollen, 2016; Wright, 2007). These arguments are presented as competing hypotheses by Olson and Rogowski (2020).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Can loyal party members be flexible negotiators? Impacts of constituent support, term limits and bipartisan roles

Druckman

Parlamis

Burns

2022

IJCMA

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Purpose This study aims to conduct two experiments to provide insight into the impacts of Congressional party loyalty on negotiating flexibility. Constituent support, term limits and bipartisan roles were explored as possible moderators of polarization in American political negotiations. Design/methodology/approach Experiment 1 used a 2 (party loyalty: loyal/thoughtful) × 2 (constituent support: consistent/mixed districts) experimental design. In experiment 2, party loyalty was constant, and participants were assigned to one of four conditions created by a 2 (term limits: restricted/not restricted) × 2 (role: coordinator/whip) design. In both experiments, flexibility was measured as the percentage of movement on four key budget allocation issues. Participants were recruited using Prolific. Findings Experiment 1 demonstrated that loyalty produced less flexibility, particularly with regard to one’s own preferred issues. Constituent support did not influence flexibility. The second experiment found that absence of term limits and presence of bipartisan roles resulted in more movement on the other’s preferred issues. Research limitations/implications While the authors’ manipulations have experimental validity, further field research is suggested to assess the fidelity of the authors’ simulation and the ecological validity of the experimental findings. Practical implications These findings extend the list of situational levers that impact negotiation flexibility. In particular, based on the authors’ findings, embedding bipartisan roles into traditional Congressional processes could help increase negotiating flexibility and cooperation. Originality/value Both the experimental task and variables manipulated in these experiments are embedded in a US Congressional context.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 86%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Can loyal party members be flexible negotiators? Impacts of constituent support, term limits and bipartisan roles

Druckman

Parlamis

Burns

2022

IJCMA

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Members with a similar ideology and partisanship are likely to hold similar policy preferences. Legislators collaborate with the legislators with whom they are in policy agreement (Swift and VanderMolen 2016). As Trubowitz and Mellow (2005, 435) note, legislators "avoid taking policy positions that might antagonize party activists, campaign contributors, and core supporters."…”

Section: When Legislators Cosponsormentioning

confidence: 99%

Timing Their Positions: Cosponsorship in the State Legislature

Schilling

Matthews

Kreitzer

2023

State Politics Policy Q.

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Legislators must decide when, if ever, to cosponsor legislation. Scholars have shown legislators strategically time their positions on salient issues of national importance, but we know little about the timing of position-taking for routine bills or what this activity looks like in state legislatures. We argue that legislators’ cosponsorship decision-making depends on the type of legislation and the partisan dynamics among the current cosponsors. Members treat everyday legislation as generalized position-taking motivated by reelection, yet for key legislation, legislators are policy-oriented. With a new dataset of over 73,000 bills introduced in both chambers of the Texas state legislature in the 75th to 86th regular sessions (1997–2020), we use pooled Cox proportional hazard models to evaluate the dynamics of when legislators legislate, comparing all bills introduced with a subset of key bills. The results show that legislators time their cosponsorship activity in response to electoral vulnerability, partisanship, and the dynamics of the chamber in which they serve.

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Marginalization and Mobilization: The Roots of Female Legislators’ Collaborative Advantage in the States

Swift¹,

VanderMolen

2021

State Politics Policy Q.

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Scholars have argued that female legislators are more prone to collaborate than their male counterparts. Though collaboration may be more or less evident in particular situations, we seek to more clearly establish the mechanism behind women’s collaborative activity using the framework of marginalization. In this paper, we use cosponsorship data from 74 state legislative chambers from 2011–2014 to analyze collaborative patterns and mobilizing institutions. We find female legislators are more collaborative than men, and that their collaborative advantage strengthens in chambers where women are systematically excluded from leadership positions. The advantage also extends to bipartisan collaboration, but only in less polarized settings with women’s caucuses. Furthermore, our findings imply that as women are integrated into leadership collaboration will actually decline, especially within their own party. We believe these results are important for understanding both the roots of collaborative behavior among female legislators and consequences of chambers that marginalize women from leadership positions.

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Term Limits and Collaboration Across the Aisle: An Analysis of Bipartisan Cosponsorship in Term Limited and Non-Term Limited State Legislatures

Cited by 11 publications

References 54 publications

Can loyal party members be flexible negotiators? Impacts of constituent support, term limits and bipartisan roles

Can loyal party members be flexible negotiators? Impacts of constituent support, term limits and bipartisan roles

Timing Their Positions: Cosponsorship in the State Legislature

Marginalization and Mobilization: The Roots of Female Legislators’ Collaborative Advantage in the States

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