Not Just Sticks and Stones: Psychological Abuse and Physical Violence among U.S. State Senators

In this study, we report results of a survey of U.S. state senators about their experiences of psychological abuse, physical violence, and sexualized abuse and violence on the job, as well as gender differences among senators. Overall, our results indicate that more than 80% of state senators reported having faced abuse and violence, and women senators reported more physical violence than men. Moreover, we found differences in the factors that contributed to abuse and violence among women and men state senators. Most notably, women with higher levels of power (party or committee leaders) were more likely than other women to experience psychological abuse and sexualized abuse and violence, and Democratic women senators faced more sexualized abuse and violence than Republican women. The implications for continued service by state senators in the face of these experiences, the likelihood of attracting future candidates, and the implications for gender diversity in office are explored.

Gender, Power, and Colleague Aggression in U.S. State Senates

In this paper, we present analysis of an original dataset of levels of colleague aggression among U.S. state senators, whether women senators face more of these behaviors than men, and whether numerical and positional gender inequality in state senates affects these relationships. The results indicate that, overall, colleague aggression in U.S. state senates is relatively rare, and, in general, women do not face more aggression than men. Under certain conditions, however, subsets of women senators experience more aggressive behaviors than their counterparts, male or female. Specifically, when they serve in senates with higher percentages of women or growing numbers of women, they are disproportionally targeted. There is also some evidence that women committee chairs are more likely than rank-and-file women to face this type of behavior.

Revisiting Senatorial Courtesy and the Selection of Judges to the U.S. Courts of Appeals

We examine how elite attitudes and institutional rules and norms affect appointments to lower federal courts. Using voting data from 1,339 U.S. Courts of Appeals cases, we estimate new ideological measures for 475 individual circuit judges appointed between 1913 and 2008. We find that both presidential and home-state senators’ preferences strongly predict judicial ideology. While we find evidence that conditions of senatorial courtesy can constrain presidents from nominating like-minded individuals for lower court vacancies, this trend peaked during the 1960s and has been eroding ever since.

Kavanaugh will start US Court work today

Significance On October 6, the US Senate voted 50-48 to confirm Kavanaugh, who succeeds recently retired Justice Anthony Kennedy. Kavanaugh’s confirmation returns the Court to full nine-member strength and gives conservatives a 5-4 majority that will influence the US regulatory landscape for years. Impacts Democratic ‘red state’ senators from 2016 pro-Trump states who voted against Kavanaugh may gain support. Trump may have the opportunity to nominate further Supreme Court justices, but a Democratic Senate could halt his picks. Chief Justice John Roberts could become the Court’s new most-likely ‘swing voter’. Absent any court packing, Republicans and Democrats in office may be tempted to ignore or circumvent Supreme Court rulings.

Drawing Your Senator from a Jar:Term Length and Legislative Behavior

This paper studies the effects of term duration on legislative behavior using field experiments that occur in the Arkansas, Illinois, and Texas Senates in the United States. After mandatory changes in senate district boundaries, state senators are randomly assigned to serve either two-year or four-year terms, providing a rare opportunity to study legislative behavior experimentally. Despite important differences across states, when considered together, the results show that senators serving two years abstain more often, introduce fewer bills, and do not seem to be more responsive to their constituents than senators serving four years. In addition, senators serving shorter terms raise and spend significantly more money, although in those states where funds can be raised continuously during the legislative term, the differences arise only when the election is imminent.

Governing through the Senate

The Senate is often the institutional pivot for political conflict in the United States, so this issue of The Forum focuses on ‘governing through the Senate’. Charles O. Jones considers its inherent peculiarities as the institution meant to ‘go second’ in a separated system; Sarah Binder argues that the modern Senate is moving away from its constitutional role; Frances Lee considers the role of party competition in shaping senatorial behavior; Barry Burden asks about the influence of senatorial polarization and party balance within the bicameral context; and Daniel DiSalvo contrasts partisan polarization with divided government as influences on senatorial behavior. Randall Strahan observes one particular senator negotiating this complicated framework; Wendy Schiller and Jennifer Cassidy consider the dynamics of cooperation (or not) among same-state senators; and Andrea Hatcher contrasts a majority leader who lost re-election with another who won. Ryan Black, Anthony Madonna, and Ryan Owens examine a very private form of senatorial obstruction, ‘blue slip behavior’; Gregory Koger examines what is surely the best-known form of obstruction, the filibuster; Eric Schickler and Gregory Wawro argue that, whatever its collective impact, senators have multiple reasons to protect this filibuster; and James Wallner closes with a substantive realm, budgeting, where the absence of policy action by the Senate is critical. In book reviews, Joseph Cooper uses Matthew N. Green, The Speaker of the House: A Study in Leadership, to think about the study of Congress more generally, and Matthew Green responds; Amnon Cavari reviews B. Dan Wood, The Myth of Presidential Representation; and Philip Brenner reviews Robert D. Putnam and David E. Campbell, American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us.

Where Do Institutions Come From? Exploring the Origins of the Senate Blue Slip

Perhaps the most striking feature of the Senate's practice of advice and consent today is the deference accorded home state senators in reviewing presidential appointments to the federal bench. Although the Constitution calls for the advice and consent of the Senate body, informal norms of the Senate provide home state senators with a potential veto of nominations to fill federal judgeships within their states. One norm—senatorial courtesy—historically ensured that senators would defer to the views of the home state senator from the president's party. Another practice—the Senate “blue slip”—allocates special procedural rights to both home state senators regardless of political party. A single objection from a home state senator from either party has historically been considered sufficient to defeat confirmation of a nominee. The blue slip also allows home state senators to influence the course of nominations prospectively—encouraging presidents to heed the preferences of home state senators in selecting new federal judges.