 Make
law (good law???)
 Check
the executive branch
 Represent
wishes/interests of
constituents
 Make
good laws
 Oversee
the executive branch
Let’s talk about their incentives.
 Patriotism
 Power
and ego
 Policy
goals
 Political
career ambition
Or write good laws? Or check the executive branch?
 Choose
 Strict
people of good character
anti-corruption rules

Choose people of good character

Strict anti-corruption rules
 Align
their personal interests with the
interests of their constituents by forcing
them to go before the voters on a regular
basis to keep their job
 Must
get re-elected to further any other
goals
 Must
act in ways that will get them reelected
 Assume
that members of Congress only
want to get re-elected.
• Is that a valid assumption?
 Does
this assumption hold for both
marginal and safe districts?
 Assume
that Ideology and issue positions
are normally distributed in the
population
 In
a winner-take-all system, candidates
will try to get one more vote than the
other candidate by moving toward the
center.
 Goal
is to win over the “median voter”

Advertising—create a favorable image

Credit claiming—especially particularized
benefits

Position-taking

Allocation of staff/time resources while in office

Make sure campaign resource balance favors
him/her
Pleasing the constituents is a big part of those efforts.
 Offices, committees
and parties serve
members’ electoral needs
• How?
 Committees
allow specialized credit
claiming
 Equal access to particularized benefits
for credit claiming
 Not much true discipline in roll call
voting (why?)
 Asked, “when
members of Congress cast
a vote on a bill, who do they listen to?”
 Answered
it by asking members
themselves
Determinative
Major
Minor
Not
importance importance important
Constituents
7%
31%
51%
12%
Fellow MC’s
5%
42%
28%
25%
Party leaders
0%
5%
32%
63%
Interest groups
1%
25%
40%
35%
Administration
4%
14%
21%
61%
Staff
1%
8%
26%
66%
 Potential
 BOTH
opponents (“Instigators”)
Attentive and Inattentive publics
 Attentive
Publics: citizens who know
about an issue and have firm preferences
about how Congress should act
 Inattentive
Publics: have neither firm
policy preferences nor knowledge of
what Congress is doing
(And when will she pay attention
to the “attentive publics”?)
 When
the inattentive public might notice
what they do.
 Which is?
 When voting on bills that get a lot of
media attention
 When voting on symbolic issues
 When their vote might be difficult to
explain
• (Avoid a “string of votes”)
 On
votes that are complex
 On votes that are not covered by the
media
 On tax and regulatory bills more than
spending bills
 On committee votes
 On procedural votes
 They can also affect how hard a member
works
Behavior
Raising Money
Electoral Reward
(More reward, more
expectation they do it!)
Better campaign, more votes
Behavior
Electoral Reward
(More reward, more
expectation they do it!)
Raising Money
Better campaign, more votes
Campaigning
More votes
Behavior
Electoral Reward
(More reward, more
expectation they do it!)
Raising Money
Better campaign, more votes
Campaigning
More votes
Visiting the district
Advertising more votes
Behavior
Electoral Reward
(More reward, more
expectation they do it!)
Raising Money
Better campaign, more votes
Campaigning
More votes
Visiting the district
Advertising more votes
Communicating
with constituents
Advertising more votes
Behavior
Voting constituent
interests on the
floor
Electoral Reward (More
reward, more expectation
they do it!)
Vote with constituents when
they might notice, don’t miss
too many votes don’t
antagonize a potential
opponent
Behavior
Voting on the floor
Introducing bills
Electoral Reward (More
reward, more expectation
they do it!)
Vote with constituents, don’t
miss too many votes don’t
antagonize a potential
opponent
Look like you’re working
hard, without putting in all
that much effortplacate
active publics
Behavior
Electoral Reward (More
reward, more expectation
they do it!)
Voting on the floor
Vote with constituents, don’t miss
too many votes don’t antagonize
a potential opponent
Look like you’re working hard,
without putting in all that much
effortplacate active publics
Introducing bills
Working in
committee
Can be a lot of effort, might
be able to claim credit for
some piece of a bill,
someday one more line on
the website???
Behavior
Overseeing the
executive
Electoral Reward (More
reward, more expectation
they do it!)
Placates extremely attentive
publics; extreme publics, but
electoral reward???
 Some selective incentives to do so
• Prestige in institution for legislating
• Particularized rewards for working on
committees
 Fewer rewards for:
• Checking to see if laws are faithfully executed
• Researching to see if policies have desired
results
• Narrowly tailoring laws to avoid giving
discretion to the executive branch
 Be
an ombudsman
 Expresses constituency preferences, not
necessarily national preferences
(common good)
 Pass legislation that contains
particularized benefits
 Pass legislation that will not impose
large, direct costs on constituents
 Pass
legislation that embodies a good “end”
even if means are poorly tailored to achieve it
 Serve inattentive publics/median voter on high
profile issues
 Serve attentive publics/interest groups on low
profile issues
 Express symbolic policy preferences, not
necessarily follow through
 Not check and/or balance the executive branch
Hint: You should think about what you now know about the roles
that Congress (and various actors within Congress), interest
groups, the media, and others, play in policymaking.