Judicial Retirement Strategies

If judges are politically strategic, they may try to retire at times that maximize the chances that an ideologically compatible successor will be appointed. Using biographical data on all appellate judges who have retired since 1892, a heteroscedastic panel probit model is used to examine retirement timing as a function of personal and political factors. We determine whether retirement from the bench can be explained exclusively by personal factors such as salary, pension, and workload, or if political considerations enter into the decision. The data reveal that retirement decisions are affected primarily by nonpolitical considerations, but presidential elections may factor into a judge's decision. The only important strategic political consideration in evidence is whether a judge contemplating retirement faces an opposing party president and how far off that president's next election is.

The Psychological Sources of Partisan-leaning Independence

In the traditional 7-point scale of partisanship, individuals classified as partisan leaners present a unique anomaly. These individuals self-classify themselves as politically independent, yet admit to preferring one political party over the other when probed. Previous research has shown that these partisan leaners are not demonstrably different from avowed partisans in either the attitudinal or behavioral support for their preferred party. Why these individuals should be partisan in attitudes and behaviors yet still consider themselves independents has not been adequately examined and raises important questions about our current understanding of partisanship. Using a unique psychological survey of voting-age adults, I find that leaners are different from true partisans in four areas: relatively less emphasis on affect and more emphasis on cognition in partisan attitudes; less partisan social identity, but heightened independent social identity; different paterns of parental socialization; and more negative attitudes toward parties in general.

Congressional Preferences, Perceptions of Threat, and Supreme Court Decision Making

Previous research examining the impact of extra-Court factors on Supreme Court decision making has developed conflicting theoretical perspectives supported with limited empirical evidence. In an attempt to better assess the influence of Congress on Court decisions, we develop a theoretical model specifying the conditions under which congressional preferences might constrain justices' votes on the merits. More specifically, we argue that previous congressional overrides in an issue area and case-level interest group activity make congressional preferences salient for the justices. In these threat situations, the justices will be most likely to shift their final votes on the merits in a manner congruent with the preferences of Congress. Based on our logit analysis of data on all orally argued statutory cases from 1963 to 1995, we find mixed support for our hypotheses and conclude that there are limited conditions under which congressional preferences may influence a justice's vote.

A New Look at Turnover in the U.S. House of Representatives, 1789-1998

Despite concern with turnover in the U.S. House of Representatives, few scholars have attempted to view turnover in historical perspective or in all its forms. Confusion over the basic facts has impeded attempts to explain and evaluate levels of turnover. We present a broad descriptive overview of turnover over the entire history of the U.S. House in terms of the levels of overall turnover, forms thereof, and patterns, particularly within party periods. The findings include that turnover has declined over the years but not in a continuous fashion and not evenly among the different forms, that general election defeat is not the primary form of turnover, that common methods of reporting turnover magnify the apparent importance of electorally based turnover, and that turnover varies systematically by party period. A research agenda is proposed for explanatory work on turnover including strategic retirement and the impact of partisan realignments on levels and forms of turnover.

All is Not Fair

This article addresses the problem of the causes of party conflict in former one-party legislatures. Some argue that as the minority party gains ground in the legislature, partisan floor conflict will rise. Yet, literature on committees and the changing status of the committee system seems to suggest that conflict is lowered in chambers where the minority party participates in committee decision making. This study is based on tests of data from a 10-year time period. The author reports that the proportion of minority party membership on committees has a direct dampening effect on the level of conflict on the floor. This analysis also finds that the effect is variable by bill type and that the overall effect on conflict is greater than the effect of chamber share in determining the level of party conflict in the chamber.

Competing Explanations of Split-ticket Voting in American National Elections

In this article, the authors propose an extension to Fiorina's balancing model based on voters' electoral expectations and test this extension and several implications of the theory. The authors examine the observed pattern of ticket-splitting and find it less consistent with a balancing perspective than with an alternative approach stressing separation between presidential and congressional voting. They also address the relationship between party polarization and ticket-splitting; their results indicate that the occurrence of split ballots does not increase with polarization. A further test identifies respondents with both the sophistication and the motive to engage in balancing behavior. According to this analysis, balancing considerations influence, at most, the very small group of voters whose sophistication and electoral expectations give them the tools and the incentive to pursue balance with a split ballot. Ticket-splitting appears to result far more from incumbency and cross-pressured voters holding candidate evaluations at odds with their partisan learnings.

Policy Conflict and the Structure of Interest Communities

Drawing on data from a survey of 595 state interest representatives this article asks: Is policy conflict widespread in state interest communities or is it rare due to the isolation of interest organizations in relatively placid niches? Two contending perspectives frame the current debate on this issue. Whereas Browne maintains that balkanization characterizes interest communities, Salisbury and his colleagues suggest that many policy domains feature substantial intergroup interaction, conflict, and cooperation. In all, the data witness relatively high levels of conflict among groups and between groups and other political actors and thus confound the expectations of Browne's niche theory. Nevertheless, the data do not invalidate niche theory. Rather, they suggest that some policy domains are more likely to be characterized by niche politics than others and that the federal government provides more incentives than state governments for groups to seek niches.

Partisan Effects of Voter Turnout in Presidential Elections

Previous studies of turnout effects in U.S. elections have reported perplexingly different results for presidential as opposed to major statewide (senatorial and gubernatorial) contests. By justifying and applying a consistent methodology, the authors find that results for both types conform to the pattern previously reported by Nagel and McNulty for senatorial and gubernatorial races. Outside the South, higher turnout helped Democratic presidential candidates from 1928 through 1964. In 1968 through 1996, however, the impact of turnout in straight two-party contests was insignificant, except in the South, where Democrats benefited from higher turnout. In the earlier period, high turnout helped Democrats most in states where Republicans usually prevailed. Its effects became weaker or even pro-Republican in the most strongly Democratic states. All of these findings uphold DeNardo's mathematical model, which provides an empirically supported theory of the partisan effects of turnout in U.S. presidential, senatorial, and gubernatorial elections.

Coalitional Maintenance

Research on parties has bifurcated between studies of parties in elections and parties in the legislature. This analysis brings the theoretical insights from the study of legislative parties to bear on the role that parties play in elections. The authors apply recent theories of legislative parties to highlight the dilemmas that parties face in electing their candidates and attempting to mediate between these office seekers and interest-group contributors. The authors maintain that parties best serve the long-term interests of their candidates by rewarding those who cater to interests aligned with the party and punishing others who solicit support from opponents. This proposition is tested using data on party contributions to House incumbents during the 1995-1996 electoral cycle. The authors find that incumbents who relied more on opposition groups for funds in the 1993-1994 cycle received less funding from their party. The results provide evidence that parties play the role of intermediary between groups and politicians.

Guns in the Ballot Box

This article examines the extent to which a change in the information environment affected opinion of a recent gun safety ballot initiative in Washington. Through content analysis of newspaper stories and documentation of expenditures of competing interests, the authors are able to detect a discernable shift in the information environment during the final weeks of the campaign. Support for the initiative dropped appreciably concurrent with this shift. The authors are able to show that the altered information context (a) generated the greatest change among the most politically aware respondents and (b) sustained this effect within specific partisan classifications. Although previous research investigates analogous behavioral dynamics in a variety of political settings, this analysis differs in application to ballot initiative campaigns. The authors discuss the implications of their findings in terms of direct democracy campaigns and conclude that influence of competing interests are central to the nature and outcome of the election.