scholarly journals Divided Government: Parallel Trends in Legislative Elections

1994 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
pp. 375-382
Author(s):  
Anita Pritchard ◽  
Wayne Howard
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Party ◽  
State Legislatures ◽  
State Level ◽  
State Legislature ◽  
Congressional Elections ◽  
Research Note ◽  
Divided Government ◽  
Legislative Elections ◽  
Consistent Trend ◽  
The U.S

This research note identified a consistent trend in legislative elections at both the national and state levels. All but nine states can be classified by two criteria—one of the parties was a majority in both the U.S. House delegation and state legislature in the 1980s, and the same party gained seats in both legislative bodies following the 1950s. The Democratic Party gained or maintained a majority of seats in both U.S. House delegations and state legislatures in 32 states during the 30 years characterized by increases in divided government at both the national and state level. Explanations for Democratic dominance of legislatures that focus upon congressional elections only are too level specific.

scholarly journals Term Limits and the Increased Election of Women: Evidence From State Legislatures and the U.S. House of Representatives

2009 ◽  
Vol 30 ◽  
pp. 275-287
Author(s):  
Stanley M. Caress
Keyword(s):  
Growth Rate ◽  
House Of Representatives ◽  
Initial Period ◽  
State Legislatures ◽  
State Legislature ◽  
Term Limits ◽  
Full Time ◽  
Female Candidates ◽  
Time Period ◽  
The U.S

This study seeks to determine if term limits increase the likelihood of women being elected to legislative seats. Using a simple comparison of growth rates, we found that, during the initial period of term limit implementation (1991 to 2009), the increase of females elected to state legislatures with term limits was approximately the same as to those without term limits. Additionally, a comparison of the growth rate of females elected to the non-term-limited United States House of Representatives with those of the state legislatures during this same time period shows that the U.S. House actually had a greater increase than state legislatures both with and without term limits. Moreover, in California, which has a full-time, professional state legislature with electoral dynamics similar to the U.S. House, the proportion of women elected to the state’s non-term limited U.S. House delegation from 1990 to 2009 exceeded the proportion of women elected to its term-limited state legislature. These comparisons all suggest that term limits do not facilitate the election of female candidates to legislative seats.

The Political Realignment of Health: How Partisan Power Shaped Infant Health in the U.S., 1915–2017

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Javier Rodríguez ◽  
Byengseon Bae ◽  
Arline T. Geronimus ◽  
John Bound
Keyword(s):  
Infant Mortality ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Party System ◽  
Panel Data Analysis ◽  
State Legislatures ◽  
Mortality Rates ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Realignment ◽  
The U.S

Abstract The U.S. two-party system was transformed in the 1960s, when the Democratic Party abandoned its Jim Crow protectionism to incorporate the policy agenda fostered by the Civil Rights Movement and the Republican Party redirected its platform toward socioeconomic and racial conservatism. We argue that the policy agendas that the parties promote through presidents and state legislatures codify a racially patterned access to resources and power detrimental to the health of all. To test the hypothesis that fluctuations in overall and race-specific infant mortality rates (IMR) shift between the parties in power before and after the Political Realignment, we apply panel data analysis methods to state-level data from the National Center for Health Statistics, 1915–2017. Net of trend, overall, and race-specific infant mortality rates were not statistically different between presidential parties before the Political Realignment. This pattern, however, changed after the Political Realignment, with Republican administrations consistently underperforming Democratic ones. Net of trend, non-Southern state legislatures controlled by Republicans underperform Democratic ones in overall and racial IMRs in both periods.

Presidential Coattails and Midterm Losses in State Legislative Elections

1986 ◽  
Vol 80 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-63 ◽  
Author(s):  
James E. Campbell
Keyword(s):  
House Of Representatives ◽  
Presidential Elections ◽  
State Legislatures ◽  
The State ◽  
Legislative Elections ◽  
Aggregate State ◽  
Midterm Elections ◽  
State Legislative Elections ◽  
State Legislative ◽  
The U.S

The president's party consistently loses partisan control of state legislatures in midterm elections, a pattern similar to the loss of seats in the U.S. House of Representatives in midterms. This study examines presidential coattails as a possible explanation of these losses. Aggregate state legislative election outcomes between 1944 and 1984 in 41 states are examined. The analysis indicates that the president's party gains seats in presidential elections in proportion to the presidential vote in a state, and subsequently loses seats in midterm elections also in proportion to the prior presidential vote in the state. The presidential coattail and the midterm repercussion effects are evident even when gubernatorial coattail effects are introduced, but are fairly modest in states lacking competitive parties.

Conclusion

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffery A. Jenkins ◽  
Charles Stewart
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Party ◽  
Party System ◽  
State Legislatures ◽  
Organizational Capacity ◽  
Majority Party ◽  
Party Building ◽  
Key Points ◽  
Party Strength ◽  
American Party ◽  
The U.S

This chapter summarizes the key points raised by the book, with particular emphasis on questions of organizational control, party-building, and party strength in Congress. It begins with a discussion of the role that the party caucus has played in hastening a consistent House organization by the majority party. It then considers the organizational cartel's relationship with the procedural cartel and the applicability of the organizational cartel mechanism in other legislatures, including the U.S. Senate, American state legislatures, and parliaments around the world. The chapter also examines Martin van Buren's legacy, focusing on his role in developing the organizational capacity of the Democratic Party and his efforts in building the American party system, before concluding with some final thoughts on political parties and congressional organization.

Divided Government in the American States: A Byproduct of Legislative Professionalism?

1994 ◽  
Vol 88 (2) ◽  
pp. 304-316 ◽  
Author(s):  
Morris P. Fiorina
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Statistical Analysis ◽  
State Legislatures ◽  
Divided Government ◽  
Full Time ◽  
World War ◽  
Legislative Elections ◽  
Significant Component ◽  
American States ◽  
Career Opportunities

Since World War II, divided government has become increasingly common in the American states. A significant component of the increase is the deterioration of Republican fortunes in state legislatures: after the 1990 and 1992 elections, for example, only five state legislatures were controlled by the Republicans. I shall examine the hypothesis that the professionalization of state legislatures makes legislative service more attractive to Democratic candidates and less attractive to Republican candidates, because full-time legislative service is incompatible with another career, and Democrats, on average, have less lucrative career opportunities than Republicans. Statistical analysis of post-World War II legislative elections outside the South is consistent with the argument: other things being equal, every ten-thousand-dollar increase in real biennial legislative compensation is associated with approximately a 1% increase in Democratic legislators.

National Forces in State Legislative Elections

2016 ◽  
Vol 667 (1) ◽  
pp. 207-225 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven Rogers
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
State Legislatures ◽  
State Legislature ◽  
State Legislators ◽  
Presidential Approval ◽  
Legislative Elections ◽  
White House ◽  
State Legislative Elections ◽  
The Impact ◽  
State Legislative

The race for the White House is at the top of the ticket, but voters will also choose more than 5,000 state legislators in November 2016. While voters elect and hold the president responsible for one job and state legislators for another, the outcomes of their elections are remarkably related. In analyses of elite and voter behavior in state legislative elections, I show that legislators affiliated with the president’s party—especially during unpopular presidencies—are the most likely to be challenged, and compared with individual assessments of the state legislature, changes in presidential approval have at least three times the impact on voters’ decision-making in state legislative elections. Thus, while state legislatures wield considerable policymaking power, legislators’ electoral fates appear to be largely out of their control.

scholarly journals Calculated Discrimination: Exposing Racial Gerrymandering Using Computational Methods

2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 346-382
Author(s):  
Aviel Menter
Keyword(s):  
Computational Methods ◽  
State Legislatures ◽  
Computer Programs ◽  
State Legislature ◽  
Natural Distribution ◽  
Partisan Bias ◽  
Common Cause ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Political Question ◽  
The U.S

In Rucho v. Common Cause, the Supreme Court held that challenges to partisan gerrymanders presented a nonjusticiable political question. This decision threatened to discard decades of work by political scientists and other experts, who had developed a myriad of techniques designed to help the courts objectively and unambiguously identify excessively partisan district maps. Simulated redistricting promised to be one of the most effective of these techniques. Simulated redistricting algorithms are computer programs capable of generating thousands of election-district maps, each of which conforms to a set of permissible criteria determined by the relevant state legislature. By measuring the partisan lean of both the automatically generated maps and the map put forth by the state legislature, a court could determine how much of this partisan bias was attributable to the deliberate actions of the legislature, rather than the natural distribution of the state’s population.Rucho ended partisan gerrymandering challenges brought under the U.S. Constitution—but it need not close the book on simulated redistricting. Although originally developed to combat partisan gerrymanders, simulated redistricting algorithms can be repurposed to help courts identify intentional racial gerrymanders. Instead of measuring the partisan bias of automatically generated maps, these programs can gauge improper racial considerations evident in the legislature’s plan and demonstrate the discriminatory intent that produced such an outcome. As long as the redistricting process remains in the hands of state legislatures, there is a threat that constitutionally impermissible considerations will be employed when drawing district plans. Simulated redistricting provides a powerful tool with which courts can detect a hidden unconstitutional motive in the redistricting process.

Explaining Uncontested Seats in Congress and State Legislatures

2020 ◽  
pp. 1532673X2096056
Author(s):  
Barry C. Burden ◽  
Rochelle Snyder
Keyword(s):  
Federal Government ◽  
State Legislatures ◽  
State Level ◽  
The State ◽  
Congressional Districts ◽  
Dominant Parties ◽  
Fundamental Requirement ◽  
The U.S ◽  
Over Time

A fundamental requirement of democracy is the existence of contested elections. Our study documents and explains trends in uncontested seats in the U.S. Congress and state legislatures over time. We uncover a striking inconsistency in the health of elections: the frequency of uncontested seats in Congress has declined while the frequency of uncontested seats in state legislatures has actually increased. To explore these divergent trends, we consider factors that are common to both Congress and state legislatures such as the redistricting cycle but also variables that are unique to the state level. Our analysis points to the relative “flippability” of Congress compared to many state legislatures as a factor behind diverging levels of contestation. While many state legislatures have become bastions for dominant parties, congressional districts in those same states are often nonetheless viewed as enticing targets because they contribute to control of the federal government.

The Internal Stakes of the 2005 Elections: The Struggle for Influence in Egypt's National Democratic Party

2007 ◽  
Vol 61 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-111
Author(s):  
Virginie Collombier
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Party ◽  
Political System ◽  
The Political ◽  
Legislative Elections ◽  
The Future ◽  
External Actors ◽  
First Time

Beyond the relative opening of the political system that characterized 2005 in Egypt — with the President being elected directly for the first time and the increased competition allowed during legislative elections — the 2005 elections also constituted an opportunity to consider and evaluate the internal struggles for influence under way within the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP). In a context largely influenced by the perspective of President Husni Mubarak's succession and by calls for reform coming from both internal and external actors, changes currently occurring at the party level may have a decisive impact on the future of the Egyptian regime.

scholarly journals A Panel Evaluation of the Changes in the General Public’s Social-Media-Following of United States’ Public Health Departments during COVID-19 Pandemic

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 215013272199545
Author(s):  
Areej Khokhar ◽  
Aaron Spaulding ◽  
Zuhair Niazi ◽  
Sikander Ailawadhi ◽  
Rami Manochakian ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Social Media ◽  
State Level ◽  
The State ◽  
Public Health Department ◽  
Health Departments ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Health Departments ◽  
The Social ◽  
The U.S

Importance: Social media is widely used by various segments of society. Its role as a tool of communication by the Public Health Departments in the U.S. remains unknown. Objective: To determine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on social media following of the Public Health Departments of the 50 States of the U.S. Design, Setting, and Participants: Data were collected by visiting the Public Health Department web page for each social media platform. State-level demographics were collected from the U.S. Census Bureau. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention was utilized to collect information regarding the Governance of each State’s Public Health Department. Health rankings were collected from “America’s Health Rankings” 2019 Annual report from the United Health Foundation. The U.S. News and World Report Education Rankings were utilized to provide information regarding the public education of each State. Exposure: Data were pulled on 3 separate dates: first on March 5th (baseline and pre-national emergency declaration (NED) for COVID-19), March 18th (week following NED), and March 25th (2 weeks after NED). In addition, a variable identifying the total change across platforms was also created. All data were collected at the State level. Main Outcome: Overall, the social media following of the state Public Health Departments was very low. There was a significant increase in the public interest in following the Public Health Departments during the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. Results: With the declaration of National Emergency, there was a 150% increase in overall public following of the State Public Health Departments in the U.S. The increase was most noted in the Midwest and South regions of the U.S. The overall following in the pandemic “hotspots,” such as New York, California, and Florida, was significantly lower. Interesting correlations were noted between various demographic variables, health, and education ranking of the States and the social media following of their Health Departments. Conclusion and Relevance: Social media following of Public Health Departments across all States of the U.S. was very low. Though, the social media following significantly increased during the early course of the COVID-19 pandemic, but it still remains low. Significant opportunity exists for Public Health Departments to improve social media use to engage the public better.

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