Perspectives on the South Carolina Special Election

Voters in South Carolina’s 1^st  district head to the polls today for a special election.  What follows is my perspective on the election with links to worthwhile readings on the race.

The Tale of the Tape

PPP polled the 1^st district on March 24^th, April 22^nd, and May 5^th.  In head-to-head match-ups with Sanford, Elizabeth Colbert Busch was +2, +9, and -1 (respectively). Similarly, the Cook Political Report changed the race yesterday from “lean Democratic” to “Republican toss up.”  It’s altogether fitting that one of the more intriguing races in recent political history will come down to the wire…

But despite the PPP polls, I’m skeptical of the prevailing narrative that a Sanford victory constitutes a “major comeback” from where he stood on April.  This race has always been Sanford’s to lose in my view.  How, then, can we explain the April 22^nd PPP poll?  For starters, given the timing of the poll—corresponding with Sanford’s trespassing charge—conservative respondents may have been reluctant to reveal their true vote intentions.  This form of social desirability bias would have suppressed Sanford’s numbers in the April poll.  Moreover, it’s possible that Sanford voters were less likely to participate in the poll for the same reason.  Indeed, people associated with the campaigns have consistently maintained that their internal polls show a tight race.

Along these lines, don’t be surprised to see Sanford outperform his recent polling.  I’ve speculated that there’s a kind of “Bradley effect” in the numbers.  Though it’s difficult to quantify, my sense is that some voters—in particular social conservatives—are wary of admitting to strangers over the telephone (i.e. pollsters) that they’d vote for someone with Sanford’s checkered past.  We could classify this as yet another form of social desirability bias artificially suppressing Sanford’s numbers.   I’ll offer one data point supporting this contention: Sanford outperformed the March 24^th PPP poll by 3 points (53% to 56%).

Sanford’s Scandal

The most common question about the special election is: Can Mark Sanford win despite his sex scandal?  It’s a topic Gibbs Knotts and I addressed in a recent editorial (but see also Danny Hayes here).  Aided in part by published research on the electoral penalty of scandal, we think the answer is most certainly “yes.”  A 2012 paper by Scott Basinger (University of Houston) finds the following with respect to political scandals: (1) 60 percent of House incumbents from 1973 to 2010 survived a scandal and were successfully elected, (2) sex scandals cost incumbents about 5.3 percent of the vote, (3) financial scandals, by comparison cost lawmakers about 7.8 percent of the vote.  Basinger also finds, not surprisingly, that the most significant predictor of an incumbent’s vote share in a general election is their prior election vote share. In fact, there’s almost a 1:1 relationship between the two.

What does this mean for Sanford?  Well, in his 2006 gubernatorial race, Sanford received over 60 percent of the vote in Berkeley, Dorchester, and Beaufort counties, and 57 percent in Charleston County.  So if the past is any predictor, with a 5 percent penalty for his sex scandal, Sanford has a great shot of winning.

Addition by Subtraction is Bad Math

If Sanford wins today, one of the resulting narratives will be that this actually benefits national Democrats.  A few people have made this point already (see for example this piece in the Washington Post by Chris Cillizza), but the argument misses the mark in my view.  First, I’m skeptical of any argument whereby “losing is really wining.”  Yes, Sanford would be something of an embarrassment to national Republicans.  And yes, political commentators will continually bring up his checkered past.  But I seriously doubt this outcome either (a) helps national Democrats fundraise against Republicans or (b) hurts Republican congressional candidates in other states.  A Sanford victory does one thing above all else: put Democrats one seat further from regaining the House.  Besides, if Democrats were truly “better off” losing the seat, why is the DCC spending almost a half million dollars on the race?  Further, consider for the sake of argument the narrative resulting from a Sanford defeat.  Democrats would almost certainly argue that Republican primary voters once again nominated someone too conservative for general election voters (e.g. another Sharron Angle or Christine O’Donnell).  The spin cuts both ways in this case, so having an extra House seat trumps either narrative.

Voter Identification Laws

One of the interesting subplots of this race is the fact that South Carolina’s new voter id law is in effect.  If the polls are right and Elizabeth Colbert Busch loses by a narrow margin, we may hear claims that the voter id requirement was the culprit.  Per the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Justice Department will be monitoring the election (along with a handful of others).  But do voter id laws supress turnout?  The evidence is mixed and the effects are statistically difficult to discern, but answer seems to be “yes.”  John Sides reviews the evidence here.  For example, a 2007 study by Alvarez, Bailey, and Katz finds that strict voter id laws depress turnout to a greater extent than ”weak” identification requirements.  Moreover, the effect is is greatest for citizens with less education and low income (but importantly the authors find no racial differences).  However, a 2009 paper by Ansolabehere finds that while there is racial bias in requests for proof of identification, only 2/10ths of 1% of registered voters cite lack of identification as a barrier to casting a ballot.

Elizabeth Colbert Busch: Long Odds and Longer Odds

South Carolina’s 1^st district has been represented by a Republican for thirty years.  The defining feature of the district in this race is that Mitt Romney won here by 18 points just a few months ago.  There are two implications worth highlighting.  First, a victory by Elizabeth Colbert Busch would represent one of the biggest upsets in recent political history.  Consider for example that only two Democrats in the 112^th Congress represented districts where Romney did better.  But second, as Nate Silver and others have pointed out, even if Colbert Busch wins today, she faces long odds holding onto the seat.  Only 13 districts out of 59 special elections since 1997 (22%) have switched parties.  And of those 13 seats, only 1—Arizona’s Ron Barber—is still in Congress today.

Predictions Based on Inadequate Evidence?

The most recent PPP poll has Sanford receiving 47% of the vote, eking out a 1 point victory over Colbert Busch.  Given the threat of social desirability bias in these estimates, I think Sanford’s headed for a larger victory.  PPP also has a known Democratic “house effect.”  So my guess–emphasis on guess–is that Sanford receives an even 50% of today’s vote.  Though still a massive under-performance in a district Romney carried by 18 points, it nonetheless returns him to the House of Representatives (and likely for a while; the average tenure in the House is 10 terms).  There are obvious caveats to this (insert hand-waiving here).  For example, while predicting presidential elections is fairly straightforward (see here), predicting special-elections with low turnout is somewhat difficult.

Follow Up: Simulating Elizabeth Colbert Busch’s Vote on “The Workforce Democracy and Fairness Act”

Tuesday’s post simulated Elizabeth Colbert Busch’s roll-call record taking into consideration the 1st district’s partisanship and the campaign contributions she has received from unions.  The main point was that voters in the 1st district will have a much larger effect on her voting record than her union donors.  Consistent with the literature on interest groups, the conclusion is that interest groups are unable to simply “buy votes” in Congress.  In response, a reader—”MRB”—asked a question:

But…you’re looking at a representative’s entire voting record relative to donations from interest groups. Wouldn’t we expect the effect to be specific to certain votes, for example, on pro-union bills?

That’s a fair question.  While researchers are generally skeptical of the notion that interest groups are able to “buy votes” in Congress, there are some studies arguing that interest groups have “conditional” effects on how lawmakers vote.  In particular, a handful of authors conclude that interest groups can influence individual votes which are (1) low salience and (2) non-ideological (see for example here and here).

Based on these conclusions, and consistent with my main point from the other day, I would expect that even on specific labor bills, the effect of union contributions is limited.  Labor bills are, after all, highly salient and highly ideological.

Here’s a quick analysis.  In the 112^th Congress the House passed a bill entitled the “Workforce Democracy and Fairness Act.”  The bill was described as an “all-out attack on the National Labor Relations Board.”  This seems like an excellent test case of what MRB asked.

So here’s what I did.  I recorded the yeas and nays on this vote (H.R. 3094; roll #869) from VoteView.  The vote is coded “1” if a representative voted for the bill (which is a vote against labor) and “0” if he or she voted against the bill.  I used yesterday’s two predictors as the sole independent variables—the logged amount of campaign donations from unions and the partisanship of a member’s district.  All data is for the 112th Congress.  Here is the result:

We can see from estimates that both factors are statistically significant and correctly signed (click the image for a bigger view).  Specifically, the negative effects indicate that lawmakers from conservative districts voted for the bill while those who received a more contributions from unions voted against the bill.  That’s not surprising.  But remember there’s a strong assumption about the latter estimate; the association between interest group spending and votes is correlational, not necessarily causal.  As noted in Tuesday’s post, the conventional wisdom is that interest groups support lawmakers who already share their policy views (not the other way around).  Nonetheless, for the sake of argument, we can proceed as if this a causal relationship.

The next step is to calculate the probability that Elizabeth Colbert Busch—if elected—would vote for this bill.  Remember that a vote for the bill is a vote against unions.  For this calculation I’m using the 1^st district’s partisanship (only 40% voted for Obama in 2012) and the amount of union donations Colbert Busch has received ($30,000).  First, let’s assume Colbert Busch took $0 from unions this cycle.  Based on the model above, her predicted probability of voting “yea” on the Workforce Democracy and Fairness Act is 99.6%.  Next, we simply calculate the same estimation for $30,000 in union donations—what the Sanford campaign claims will pull her in a liberal direction.  Based on this figure, Colbert Busch’s predicted profitability of a a “yea” vote drops to 99.2%.  In sum, the effect of $30,000 in campaign contributions from unions hardly registers when examining how representatives voted on an anti-union bill.

The findings here are consistent with Tuesday’s post and the literature on interest groups and congressional voting.  As disappointing as this may be, there just isn’t evidence that interest groups can “buy votes” in Congress.  In this particular analysis, Colbert Busch has a 0.4% greater chance of voting in a pro-union direction as a result of her receiving union campaign donations.  The overarching point is that we can expect Elizabeth Colbert Busch to have a moderate to slightly conservative voting record in Congress in large part because a large majority of her constituents are Republicans.

Colbert Busch vs. Sanford: Who Will They Represent?

Elizabeth Colbert Busch and Mark Sanford met last night for the first—and presumably only—televised debate for South Carolina’s vacant 1^st congressional seat.  There were a few notable exchanges.  For example, Colbert Busch hit Sanford on his extramarital affair, and after the moderate noted “she just went there,” Sanford replied wryly he “didn’t hear her.”  But Sanford had perhaps the best line of the night, turning a question about his vote to impeach Bill Clinton on its head, asking Democrats in the room whether they think Clinton should have been “condemned” for his affair.

But if we strip away the prepared comebacks and terse exchanges, one issue took center stage: representation.  Sanford repeatedly linked Colbert Bush to Nancy Pelosi, national Democrats, and worst, unions.  Attacking Colbert Bush for taking labor donations, Sanford asked: “Whose voice you will carry?”  Sanford has hit Colbert Busch in recent ads for accepting nearly $30,000 from “big labor.”

Elizabeth Colbert Busch, the aggressor for most of the evening, fired back against Sanford’s questions, stating numerous times that “nobody tells me what to do.”  I thought this was a successful response on her part.  Consistent with her position as a “centrist,” Colbert Bush positioned herself throughout the debate as a moderate voice.  So who would she represent in Washington?  The answer she gave was simple: Voters in the 1^st district.

Thus, in last night’s debate we had two competing narratives about how representation functions in Congress.  Sanford claims that moneyed interests—in this case, unions—hold sway over lawmakers.  Colbert Bush argued the rater simple point that lawmakers are beholden to their constituents.  Who’s right?  Here are two charts.

The first chart (top) is a lawmaker’s estimated ideology (derived from their roll-call record) on the y-axis.  Liberals toward the bottom, conservatives on top.  The x-axis is the (logged) amount of contributions the lawmaker accepted for labor groups in the 2010 cycle.  The former data come from Keith Poole at VoteView while latter is available at OpenSecrets.  All data is for members of the 112^th Congress.  The second figure (bottom) is a lawmaker’s estimated ideology, again on the y-axis, and the percentage vote for Obama in their district in 2008.  If lawmakers represent their constituents—not outside interests—we would expect liberals to represent districts with a higher percentage of Obama voters and conservatives to represent districts with a lower percentage of Obama voters.

In the two figures the relationship appears to be as both Sanford and Colbert Bush claimed.  Liberals take more money for labor groups and reside in districts with more Democrats and vice versa for conservatives.  But there’s a problem with inferring causality from the first figure.  An old adage in the social sciences is that “correlation does not equal causation.”  In this context, we can’t tell from the first figure whether labor unions donate to candidates who become liberal as a consequence, or whether unions donate to candidates who are already liberal.  It’s a point we addressed earlier with respect to the NRA.  Simply put, there’s not a lot of evidence that interest groups like the NRA “buy votes” in Congress (as satisfying a conclusion as that might be).  Interest groups have other effects to be sure—for example, lending “policy expertise” or by directing lawmakers’ attention to an issue—but there’s just not a lot of evidence that they change minds in Congress (for a thorough review of the academic literature on how interest groups affect lawmaking, see this post).  In short, a number of researchers think causality goes in the opposite direction that Sanford is claiming.

But let’s assume for a moment that Sanford’s claim is indeed true: interest groups, like unions, can actively “buy votes” in Congress.  Under this assumption, we can run a multiple regression comparing the effect of both factors—labor contribution and the district’s partisanship.  The estimated model is to the above (click for bigger image).  From the results we can see that both factors are statistically significant and correctly signed.  Moreover, the model does well, explaining 73% of the variation in a lawmaker’s roll-call record.

Ok.  Both factors correlate with a lawmaker’s ideology.  But what does this mean for the candidates running in 1^st district?

First, let’s take into consideration Sanford’s figure that Colbert Bush has accepted $30,000 from “big labor” (see the first image, a screenshot from a recent Sanford ad).  Second, we also know that Obama only received 40% of the vote in the 1^st district.  We can use two figures to simulate Colbert Bush’s ideology if she wins election.

According to the regression model and the simulation, Colbert Bush’s ideology in the 113^th Congress is estimated to be 0.58.  That’s comfortably on the conservative end of the spectrum.  We can see in the first scatterplot that Colbert Bush would be more closely aligned with moderate Republicans (the top cluster).  In fact, she would rank as more conservative than about 1/3^rd of all Republicans.  One important caveat: I doubt very seriously this represents her actual ideology if she in fact wins.  The point, rather, is to compare the relative effects of her district versus union donations.

How does this make sense?

First, political scientists who study this issue know that lawmakers do a fairly decent job representing their constituents.  That’s an unexciting conclusion for sure, but lawmakers care deeply about winning reelection.  This effect is also stronger in the House, as one would expect.  The simple—but nonetheless important—point is that the 1^st district is a Republican leaning district.  Mitt Romney carried the 1^st by a whopping 18 points.  Last night we saw Colbert Bush stake her position as a moderate, claiming, for example, that “Obamacare” is “deeply problematic.”  So if the past is any predictor, and I think it is, the district’s partisan leanings will keep Colbert Bush away from Nancy Pelosi and “big labor.”

But second, even if we assume for the sake of argument that interests groups can “buy” votes in Congress, the effect is not large in magnitude.  For example, based on the regression model, the simulated difference between taking $0 in campaign contributions from unions (Mark Sanford) and $30,000 (Elizabeth Colbert Bush) is estimated to move a lawmaker in the liberal direction by 0.12.  In the 112^th Congress, that’s the difference between the voting record of South Carolinians Mick Mulvaney and former 1st district representative Tim Scott.  I would challenge any Sanford supporter to articulate the policy differences between these two individuals (both members of the Tea Party Caucus).

A Primer on the Primary: The South Carolina Special Election

Voters in the lowcountry head to the polls today in a special election primary.  The vacancy in South Carolina’s 1^st district opened when Republican Tim Scott accepted Governor Nikki Haley’s appointment to the Senate.  This chain of events was of course preceded by Jim DeMint’s sudden retirement in January.  Here is a primer on the today’s primary and what political science has to offer.

The Candidates

The SC-01 special election has garnered national attention due in large part to the high-profile candidates running in it.  Headlining the Republican side is former South Carolina governor Mark Sanford.  Lest you forget, in June of 2009, then-Governor Sanford went missing for six days telling staff he was hiking the Appalachian Trial but, days later, turned up at the international concourse of the Atlanta airport.  Sanford later admitted his affair Maria Belen Chapur, an Argentinian woman, to whom he is now engaged.  Also running on the Republican side is Teddy Turner, an economics teacher in the Charleston area and son of liberal icon and CNN founder Ted Turner.  The younger Turner’s challenge in this primary has been convincing lowcountry conservatives that he doesn’t share his father’s political views.  In sum, the Republican filed has a whopping 16 candidates, including a number of lesser-known but nonetheless quite strong politicians including Chip Limehouse, John Kuhn, and Larry Grooms.

On the Democratic side the field is comparatively small.  Only two candidates are running in today’s primary–Ben Frasier and Elizabeth Colbert-Bush.  Ben Frasiser is a preenial candidate in the lowcountry, losing to Tim Scott in 2010.  The latter name–in partiuclar the “Colbert” part–carries some weight both nationally and in the Charleston area.  In addition to being the business development director at the Clemson Restoration Institute, Elizabeth Colbert-Bush is of course the sister of comedian Stephen Colbert–Charleston’s proverbial favorite son.

Better Know A District

SC-01 has sent a Republican to the House every cycle since 1980.  Though Democrat Linda Ketner lost by only 4% in 2008 to Republican incumbent Henry Brown, in 2010 Tim Scott won with a whopping 65% of the vote against Ben Frasier.  Following the 2010 census, South Carolina received an extra seat during reapportionment.  The 1^st district remained largely intact, but to make room for the new 7^th district, the Myrtle Beach area was traded for the southern part of the coast near Hilton Head.  That’s not much of a change politically; both areas are relatively conservative.  Consistent with much political science research on the subject, I’m skeptical of the claim that redistricting will have much to do with the eventual outcome.  So while Charleston is a left-leaning city, it is flanked by conservative areas to its north and south.

Political Science on Primaries

The conventional wisdom on primaries is that they foster ideological extremism.  The story goes that, to be successful in a primary, candidates must move to the left or right of the district’s median voter due to the fact that primary election voters are more ideological compared to general election voters.  Thus, candidates face a “strategic positioning dilemma.”  This is true—in part—because primaries are low turnout elections where the kinds of voters mobilized to turn out typically represent a party’s “base.”  It would be surprising today, for example, to see more than 50,000 ballots cast.  If forced to guess, my unscientific estimate is that 30,000 voters will head to the polls today.

But is there any evidence in support of the received wisdom about primaries?  For the most part, yes.  A 2007 paper published in LSQ by Brady, Han, and Pope (ungated, here) found evidence in favor of a number of the conventional claims.  On the one hand they find that ideologically moderate candidates do better in general elections than primaries (and vice versa for ideologically extreme candidates).  This represents evidence in favor of the “strategic positioning dilemma” that primary candidates face.  I would argue the Republican Party’s recent post-mortem of the 2012 election suggests they are particularly sensitive to this primary dilemma (though Jonathan Bernstein is skeptical).  At the same time, Han, Brady, and Pope find in their paper that moderate candidates are more likely to spawn a primary challenge than ideologically extreme candidates (which may explain Lindsey Graham’s most recent voting record).  Part of the challenge in studying this issue is measuring primary candidate’s ideology.  Some really interesting research by David Sparks, Frank Orlando, and Aaron King analyzed whom primary candidates followed to Twitter and whom, in turn, followed them.  Using this as a measure of a candidate’s ideology, they find support for the conventional claim that ideological extremity is rewarded in primary elections.

Two side points on this research.  First, we see similar effects with respect to presidential primaries (see this book by Nelson Polsby and Aaron Wildavsky or this paper by Gerber and Morton).  However, part of the problem lies in what kinds of voters we compare, so while there is much support for the conventional wisdom about primaries, political scientists are not in total agreement on this matter.  Second, there is some work suggesting that the primary system indeed sends more idoelogicallye extreme members to Congress and has contributed to the overall level of poalrization (see a chapter by Barry Burden here).

Mark Sanford’s Scandal

The most common question about the special election is: Can Mark Sanford win election despite his infamous sex scandal?  It’s a topic Gibbs Knotts and I addressed in a recent editorial.  Aided in part by published research on the electoral penalty of scandal, we think the answer is most certainly “yes.”  A 2012 paper by Scott Basinger (University of Houston) finds the following with respect to political scandals: (1) 60 percent of House incumbents from 1973 to 2010 survived a scandal and were successfully elected, (2) sex scandals cost incumbents about 5.3 percent of the vote, (3) financial scandals, by comparison cost lawmakers about 7.8 percent of the vote.  Basinger also finds, not surprisingly, that the most significant predictor of an incumbent’s vote share in a general election is their prior election vote share. In fact, there’s almost a 1:1 relationship between the two.

What does this mean for Sanford?  Well, in his 2006 gubernatorial race, Sanford received over 60 percent of the vote in Berkeley, Dorchester, and Beaufort counties, and 57 percent in Charleston County.  So if the past is any predictor, with a 5 percent penalty for his sex scandal, Sanford has a great shot of winning the general election.  But what about today’s primary?  It’s difficult to say, but Basinger stresses that primary elections are particularly challenging for politicians involved in a scandal. His data show that many scandal-plagued politicians simply retire rather than face the electorate and, if they decide to continue in politics, primaries represent an especially high hurdle. Basinger’s data show that scandal-tainted incumbents are almost 13 times more likely to lose a primary election than a scandal-free incumbent.

So in sum, the evidence suggests that if Sanford is able to win the Republican primary today, he stands an excellent chance of getting over the hump (innuendo!) and return to the House of Representatives.  And while he may in fact win a plurality of the vote today, he also has to survive a runoff election.  Which bring us to my prediction for the day…

Predictions Based on Inadequate Evidence?

With 16 Republican candidates, it’s very unlikely any one individual wins 50% +1 of the vote.  While no official polls have been released (at least, that I’ve seen), the word on the street is that the campaigns’ internal polls predict Sanford will get about a 33 percent of the vote.  With a plurality but not a majority, this will trigger a runoff on the Republican side on April 2^nd.  Who will face Sanford in the runoff is a tossup.  Some folks are saying that second place is a battle between Chip Limehouse and Teddy Turner, with speculation that John Kuhn, Larry Grooms, and Curtis Bostic are competitive as well.  I’m going to guess and predict Teddy Turner takes second today.  Why?  He’s been the subject of some particularly negative ads lately, which suggests to me his rivals know something from their internal polling.  That’s a strong assumption, no doubt.  Whatever the result, it appears we’re headed toward a Republican runoff.  On the Democratic side, Elizabeth Colbert-Bush wins in a landslide, setting up a race between her and Mark Sanford (note: assuming Sanford survives the runoff, which could be especially challenging once he can no longer rest of his conservative credentials and name recognition).  I have a sneaking suspicion that, in the general election, Colbert-Bush can do well against Sanford (due to a combination of her name recognition, fundraising ability, and Sanford’s scandal).  Nonetheless, this is Sanford’s race to lose.  Time will tell….

The State of the Union: Putting First Things First

State of the Unions.  What are they good for?  Absolutely nothing.

Ok “absolutely nothing” is an oversimplification.  But as best political scientists are able to discern, presidential speeches in general—like last night’s State of the Union—have little independent effect on either policy outcomes or presidential approval.  More on this in a moment.

The figure below presents the policy content of Obama’s four previous States of the Union.  The data are available at the Policy Agendas Project webpage.  The height of each bar represents the percentage of policy-specific mentions relative to all policy appeals.  For example, in 2009 Obama referenced “macroeconomics” 114 times out of 234 total policy mentions (or roughly 50%).  In 2012, by comparison, less than 25% of the Obama’s SOTU concerned economics.

A few trends jump out immediately.  First and foremost: “It’s the economy, stupid.”  On the one hand, macroeconomic content dwarfs all other policy domains.  The second largest policy domain in Obama’s previous STOUs was “banking and finance,” which accounted for 14% of all policy mentions in 2010.  But on the other hand, there has been a consistent decline in economic policy content from 2009 to 2012 (falling from 50% in 2009, to 32% in 2010, and down to 23% in 2011).  Some other notable trends include the following.  One, there was spike in “labor, employment, and immigration” appeals in 2012.  Indeed, Obama focused on both comprehensive immigration reform and the merits of vocational education in his 2012 address.  Two, there was a clear decline in health policy mentions following the passage of the Affordable Care Act in March of 2010.  In fact the only references to health care in 2011 and 2012 were brief appeals to stop “refighting the battles of the past two years.”  And three, one notable absence in the chart above is “law, crime, and family.”  The only mentions came in 2012 when Obama referenced—in one sentence each—hate crime legislation and financial crimes.  For four years there was no mention of gun control or gun violence.  Which brings us to last night’s speech.

How did last night’s speech differ from past SOTUs?  Well, like the past four addresses, it was dominated by economic policy.  If forced to guess, I’d estimate that 35% of the policy content was economic in nature.  In the first third of his speech the President referenced topics such as economic growth, job creation, debts, and deficits.  In many ways it sounded, to me, like one of his stump speeches from the past year.  Another surprising element was his proposal for a minimum wage increase, which was pitched as a way to boost the economy.  The appeal for universal pre-k legislation was also unexpected.  A final notable difference was Obama’s appeal for gun control.  Such an appeal was entirely absent in any past SOTU, as the chart above shows.  Of course, on the other hand the President’s gun control proposals were not surprising in the current political climate.  Which brings me back to the initial question…

Will Obama’s appeals move public opinion and thus public policy?  At the surface there seems to be some evidence in the affirmative.  For example, in the chart above, the 14% spike in “banking” appeals in 2010 precedes implementation of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.  Of course on the other hand, six months prior to his 2010 SOTU speech, the banking and financial services industry was widely unpopular and growing less popular by the day.  Many Americans blamed Wall Street—at least in part—for the financial crisis and advocated greater regulation of the financial industry before the 2010 address.  So the crux of the issue is this: Does the president typically preempt public opinion or simply react to it?  For the most part, political scientists endorse the latter view.

Brandice Canes-Wrone explored this issue in her appropriately titled book: Who Leads Whom?  One of the general conclusions is that presidents don’t advocate policies that are unpopular.*  Moreover, Canes-Wrone finds that presidents rarely change mass opinion in their favor.  So while there is certainly a correlation between presidential appeals and the popularity of policies, the causal arrow goes the other way on balance.  Canes-Wrone is not the only political scientist to reach this conclusion.  In one fascinating study, Issues, Candidate Images, and Priming, Lawrence Jacbos and Robert Shapiro (1994) conducted archival research on president Kennedy’s private campaign polls, finding a significant relationship between internal polling and Kennedy’s public statements in his 1960 campaign.  This overall effect isn’t limited to the president.  In “Whom Influences Whom?”, George C. Edwards III finds that, for the most part, Congress, the president, and the media all respond to exogenous events.  Indeed, in similar work, namely his book On Deaf Ears, Edwards finds the presidents are generally unsuccessful in leading public opinion and pushing Congress to act on legislation.

There are, of course, some exceptions to these general findings.  For example, Edwards III finds in Whom Influences Whom that in domestic policy, rather than foreign policy, the president can exert some independent influence on Congress and the media especially when issues are off the agenda.  Canes-Wrone, by contrast, finds that in foreign policy, the president has a unique ability to frame issues and be a source of mass information.  Her research also shows that on budgetary items, presidents have some limited success in the area of domestic policy.  Overall, Canes-Wrone concludes that the effect of presidential rhetoric is “conditional.”  Other researchers have found a reciprocal relationship between mass preferences and presidential speeches, though the effect depends on the policy area (see Kim Quaile Hill’s work here).

But the larger point remains: the president’s influence over both Congress and public opinion is marginal at best, with the both responding primarily to exogenous changes in mass attitudes.  To this point, Gallup data suggests that the president doesn’t even improve his own approval rating after a State of the Union.  Based on these general conclusions, in the context of last night’s speech, I want to make two observations.  Regarding gun control, by my count the president made four specific appeals:

• Passage of universal background checks.
• Regulating the resale of guns.
• Limit military-style assault weapons.
• Limit high-capacity magazines.

Now as Congress begins drafting legislation to address these issues, some of which are likely to pass, it’s important to keep in mind that these proposals—for the most part—were popular before last night’s speech.  According to a Gallup survey conducted in December:

• 92% favor background checks.
• 58% feel that the sale of firearms should be made “more strict.”
• 44% support an assault weapons ban.
• And 62% support a ban on high-capacity magazines.

Thus, the passage of items 1,2, and 4 should not be regarded as evidence that the president preempted public opinion and pushed legislation through Congress that otherwise would have failed.  In fact, the passage of these items would be fully consistent with the conventional wisdom detailed above.  An assault weapons ban, by comparison, would, in my view.   We’ll see how much leverage the president really has in this regard.  I’m skeptical.

The second point I want to make regards raising the minimum wage.  Like the assault weapons ban, this represents a true test of presidential leadership.  But unlike gun control, which has been widely discussed since December, few people were talking about raising the minimum wage before last night.  It will be interesting to see whether the president has indeed “set the agenda” for the 113^th Congress.  Based on prior work, this may be an area where the president does have some leverage (see above).  I’m still skeptical, however.  In case you were wondering, the last statement during a STOU to raise the minimum wage was Clinton’s appeal back in 2000.  He urged Congress: “I implore you to raise the minimum wage.”  Did Clinton’s appeal move Congress to act?  Hardly.  It wasn’t until 2007 that Congress passed, and President Bush signed, the next minimum wage increase.  Clinton made similar appeals in 1999 and 1998 with no effect.

Is the GOP Debt Ceiling Proposal Constitutional?

Over the weekend, House Republicans unveiled a debt ceiling proposal that’s the subject of some controversy.  Shocking, I know.  The controversy hinges on the fact that, while Republicans tout themselves as defenders of the Constitution, their plan contains a constitutionally questionable provision.

The House Republican proposal calls for a 3-month extension of the federal government’s statutory borrowing limit, a significant moderation from the GOP’s earlier debt ceiling rhetoric.  In exchange, the text of the bill requires the House and Senate to pass budget resolutions by April 15^th.  This seems like a constructive step toward a “grand bargain” and a move that probably lowers the probability of a costly and embarrassing default. However, the agreement also contains language that if Congress does not pass a budget resolution by the April 15^th deadline, lawmakers will not get paid for their services. This provision mirrors the so-called “No Budget, No Pay” proposal advocated by the group “No Labels.”  But is it Constitutional?

A number of commentators have opined on this matter, with most citing the proposal as lacking constitutional muster.  This includes some prominent conservatives.  I initially agreed with this view.  However, yesterday the text of the proposal was made public by the House Rules Committee.  The committee will vote today on the rule attached to the proposal with a vote on the full bill scheduled for Wednesday.  There are some interesting points in the plan.

A little background first.  During the Constitutional Convention the issue of compensating members of Congress was debated.  The most famous opponent of paying lawmakers was Benjamin Franklin.  During the convention the arguments in favor of paying lawmakers were (1) that paying elected officials enhances representation by increasing the likelihood that less financially well-off individuals serve and (2) that a competitive salary would ensure the “wisest” citizens would choose a career in politics and make Congress an institution of considerable political ambition.  During the Convention the final votes were 8-3 in favor of paying representatives and 7-3 in favor of paying senators.  Thus, Article 1, Section 6, Clause 1 of the Constitution states:

Senators and Representatives shall receive a Compensation for their Services, to be ascertained by Law, and paid out of the Treasury of the United States.

And while this clause clearly gives Congress the power to determine its own pay, the 27th Amendment prevents pay increases or decreases during a concurrent term:

No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of Representatives shall have intervened.

On its face, the 27^th Amendment would seem to invalidate the House proposal.  But the text of the bill released yesterday (as as of this time, an unnumbered House bill) addresses this issue explicitly:

In order to ensure that this section is carried out in a manner that shall not vary the compensation of Senators or Representatives in violation of the twenty-seventh article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States, the payroll administrator of a House of Congress shall release for payments to Members of that House of Congress any amounts remaining in any escrow account under this section on the last day of the One Hundred Thirteenth Congress.

Clever.  Under the proposal lawmakers will not “lose” their pay per se, rather, their pay is temporarily “withheld” (in escrow) until the close of 113^th Congress (or the date a budget resolution is passed, whichever comes first).  While I’m not a Constitutional law expert, and I’m largely speculating here, I suspect this passes Constitutional scrutiny (but see an actual Constitutional law professor, Adam Winkler, who disagrees).  Article 1 clearly gives Congress the statutory authority to determine its own pay and, presumably, this vests in Congress the power to determine the amount of pay as well as the manner of its administration.  Indeed, the proposal does not technically vary the amount members receive in compensation (at least least as I understand the word “vary”),  just the timing of its disbursement.  I have to imagine Congress, like any employer, has made occasional changes over the years to how lawmakers literally receive their pay.  For example, Cost of Living increases were deemed Constitutional under the 27th Amendment by a lower court.  I just don’t see this as a distinction without a difference; it’s a political question in an area where Congress is granted explicit power.  It’s certainly gimmicky and probably ineffective in terms of pressuring Congress to act (see below), but Constitutional nonetheless.

A few interesting points about the bill.  The section quoted above clearly puts the pressure to pass a budget resolution on the individual chambers, not Congress.  In other words, if the House passes a budget resolution and the Senate cannot, senators’ pay will be placed in escrow but not the pay of representatives’.  In other words, Congres–as a whole–can fail to pass a budget resolution and lawmakers will still receive their compensation so long as the two chambers pass competing proposals.  This would seem to undermine the proposal’s effectiveness by not requiring the two chambers agree to a single budget resolution.  It also puts disproportionate pressure on the Senate, as legislating is significantly more difficult in the upper chamber.  But second, if members know they will be paid in January of 2015, where’s the threat?  Indeed, many (most?) members of Congress are independently wealthy.  I’m just not sure this is going to alter the behavior of the John Kerrys, Darrel Issas, and Jay Rockefellers.  In short, I don’t think this proposal makes a budget resolution more likely.

As an aside, the history of the 27th amendment is quite interesting.  The 27th amendment was finally ratified in 1992, making it the most recent successful amendment.  However, the 27th amendment was originally passed by the House and Senate in September of 1789.  At that time, ten amendments to the Constitution were summarily ratified by the requisite states, becoming the Bill of Rights.  The 27th amendment, by contrast, languished in a state of constitutional purgatory.  By 1791, only six states had ratified the 27th amendment.  In 1983, Main became the 10th state to ratify after an undergraduate at the University of Texas wrote a college paper on the defunct amendment and began lobbying state legislatures for it’s ratification.  Nearly a decade later, the 38th state–Michigan–ratified the amendment.

On (the lack of) Gun Control Laws: How Much is the NRA to Blame?

This is a reblog of one of Nate’s posts from January of 2011 in response to the Gabby Giffords shooting.  I think it’s germane to the present conversation.  And for the record, this is not an endorsement of the NRA by any means, just an attempt to clarify what political science has to say about interest groups in general and their effects on the passage of legislation.

————

Following the horrific events in Tucson last Saturday, it is little surprise that Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY) and several other members of Congress are moving to re-instate several gun control measures.  Meanwhile,  gun sales went up dramatically this past week, in part due to paranoid anticipation that gun control measures will pass.  So how likely is gun control reform?  Not very.  And don’t go blaming interest groups, either.

The core part of Rep. McCarthy’s proposal would ban high capacity clips for handguns (like the 33 bullet clip used in the attack by Loughner).  This is not a new policy, but would re-instate one facet of the so-called Brady Bill, which Congress passed in 1994 (which was allowed to expire in 2004).  And Rep. McCarthy’s not the only one introducing changes to the current gun laws.  Rep. Peter King (R-NY) bravely wants to leave the gun laws alone, he just doesn’t want the damn things anywhere near him.  In the Senate, both Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) and Richard Lugar (R-IN) have expressed interest in introducing similar bills in the Senate.

So, to recap: you’ve got bi-partisan support for some measure of gun control laws (however modest) in both chambers of Congress, and Sen. Lugar’s status as an elder statesman in the Senate should really help forge a winning coalition.  For gun control supporters, so far, so good, right?

Not so much.  The Republican advantage in the House is certainly not helping anything, and John Boehner has expressed no interest in putting anything on the agenda.  Moreover, Rep. McCarthy has found that few members of her own party are lining up behind her.    According to her, the reason is:

The NRA.  They have a lot of power down here, and a lot of members here are petrified of them, that they will basically go against them in an election and make that member lose.

As satisfying as it is to attribute blame to some nefarious, shadowy interest group, there’s not a lot of evidence to validate Rep. McCarthy’s explanation.   Simply put, there’s not support for her policy in Congress because there’s not a lot of support in the country.

Despite popular conception, the capital interest groups wield most effectively isn’t in the form of campaign contributions, but in information.  Hall and Deardorff’s model of lobbying as subsidy argues that by lending policy expertise to members of Congress, interest groups allow Congressional staff to focus on other issues.  The kernel of the argument is that interest groups do not change any member’s minds.  Their resources are too scarce to lobby opponents of an issue.  Rather, they focus their efforts on members of Congress who are ‘on board’ but may be otherwise unable to devote time to the issue.  That is, interest groups do not change the things on a member’s “to do list.”  They just let her get to more items on that list. 

This is the important point (as if the italics didn’t make it obvious):  The NRA, though it is exceptionally powerful (and it is), would still not be able to suppress the interests of populace if there was considerable support for renewed gun control initiatives.  The problem for Rep. McCarthy and her allies: there’s very little public support for limiting access to guns. 

Gallup shows pretty convincingly that support for gun control has waned substantially over the previous 20 years, even in the face of other violent shootings.  Remember, this period includes the Jonesboro middle school shooting in 1998, the Columbine massacre in 1999, the Beltway Sniper Attacks in 2002, the Virginia Tech shooting of 2007 and the Northern Illinois shooting of 2008 (and I’m sure I’m leaving some out).  The only attack that had an appreciable effect on public opinion was the Columbine massacre, and even it had little long term effect on popular support.  It seems that we can add the Tucson shootings to the list of events we find terrifying and awful, but we won’t use to to reconsider our policy stances on gun laws.  As Ben Smith writes, nearly 70% of respondents to a CNN/ORC poll said that their gun control opinions were uneffected by the Arizona shootings.

Maybe Rep. McCarthy will be able to convince her colleagues to reform the gun laws, and reinstate some of the initaitives in the Brady Bill.  To me, however, it looks like she’s going to have to be in Congress for a long time before she is able to get the same traction on the issue that she did back in 1993.