LECTURE NOTES
UCLA
PS 40
Department of Political Science
Introduction to American Politics
Fall 2013
Prof. Thomas Schwartz
Hunk 10 Congress: Organization
So far, we have talked about::
Political Theory
Constitution
-History
-Strategies (how particular features of the Constitution were adopted)
-Content
Judicial Branch
-Structure and powers
-Cases that shaped the Constitution, especially those involving the branches of
government, commerce, federal-state relations, civil rights, and political
representation
Analytical reasoning (important for second essay assignment)
The rest of the course will address the other branches of government, not only the
legislative and executive but the popular branch, comprising you the voters and your division into
political parties and other groups. Today we begin with the legislative branch.
Congressional Powers
Congress is divided, of course, into the House of Representatives and the Senate. Here are
their chief features, those labeled “C” attributable to the Constitution:
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The Senate’s longer, staggered terms shield its members from small changes in public
opinion. The Senate was meant to slow down the more popularly responsive House.
The Constitution is silent about how U.S. Representatives, a.k.a. Congressmen, are elected;
it says nothing about congressional districts. That’s decided by state law. In some states
representatives were once elected statewide, not by districts.
The House alone can initiate revenue bills, but this is not important because the Senate gets
involved later and may change them.
The Senate confirms Presidential executive, armed services, and judicial appointments, but
not advisory (White House) appointments. The Vice President is the only officer whose
confirmation (when the President appoints a new one to fill a vacancy) requires the consent of the
House as well.
In the impeachment process, the House is the accusing body (like a grand jury); the Senate,
the trying body (like a petit jury).
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In the Senate, the constitutionally designated presiding officer, or President of the Senate, is
the VP of the US; however, this is largely symbolic. The real leadership authority lies with the
Majority and Minority Leaders (the leaders of the majority and minority parties in the Senate). If
the Vice Presidency is vacant the President pro-tem, elected by his chamber and by custom the
most senior majority–party Senator, becomes President of the Senate. Normally some unlucky
rookie actually presides--and gets to be addressed as Mr. or Madame President. The VP may vote
in the Senate only to break ties. In the House the constitutionally designated presiding officer, the
speaker, is also the actual political leader of that body. This makes sense because, unlike the VP in
the Senate, he is chosen by his peers, in effect by those who make up the majority party in the
House.
The powers of Congress come from the Constitution and fall into eight broad categories.
Each house has a dual organization, one for the party and one for the chamber.
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House Organization
Party Organization
-Caucus (Conference)
-Speaker
-Majority (Minority) Leader
-Whips
-Committee on Committees
-Campaign Committee
The caucus (Republicans call theirs a “Conference”) comprises all the members of a given
party in the House. They usually meet once a year to elect their leader – if they are the majority
party, the Speaker of the House – as well as a deputy, called Majority Party Leader or Minority
Party Whip, who helps the leader control and stay informed about individual party members. They
also elect a Committee on Committees (Republican: Steering Committee) that makes committee
assignments, and a Policy Committee that generally runs the party in the House when the caucus is
not convened. And they have the final world on chairmanships (if the majority) or ranking
memberships (otherwise) of legislative committees.
Chamber Organization
-The Speaker is elected formally by the House, but in effect by the majority party’s caucus.
-The Rules Committee is a “gate keeping” committee. It says what bills come up, when, and
in what form. It also limits debate and amendments.
-Legislative committees, e.g. International Relations, Agriculture, Ways and Means, and
Armed Services, have specific jurisdictions that sometimes overlap. They all have subcommittees.
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-Chairmen of committees and subcommittees are chosen by the majority party caucus,
usually by seniority. They control their committees’ agendas and often act as floor managers of
bills reported by their committees. They play a critical role as gatekeepers: without their support, it
is almost impossible to bring legislation to the floor for a vote.
Senate Organization
The Senate is organized much like the House but has no Rules Committee and no limit on
debate or amendments. Its scheduling is done, instead, by the Majority Leader in consultation with
the Minority Leader. In the Senate there is generally more comity between parties.
Leaders’ Jobs
-Organize party. They allocate jobs to party members.
-Schedule business.
-Monitor attendance. They ensure that busy party members show up to vote on issues the
party cares about.
-Disseminate information. They ensure that party members know the party’s position on
given issues and also how others are planning to vote.
-Work with the President; often both parties’ leaderships are invited.
-Whip. They round up, persuade, and importune members to vote their party line.
History of Congress
During much of the 19th century, especially after the Civil War, Congress was strong and
the President weak. Committees were created early in the 19th century.
By the late 19th Century
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Congress was generally run by a powerful leader, especially in the House, who personally
controlled committee assignments and the legislative agenda. Congress was like an absolute
monarchy.
In 1910 a revolt against powerful leaders created a more decentralized system that gave
considerable power to committee chairmen, who often dictated policy under their issue
jurisdictions. Chairmanships were assigned by seniority. At this point Congress was like a feudal
society.
The southern states were over-represented among these powerful chairmen because, as a
one-party region, the South reelected its incumbents more often than other regions did. This
Southern dominance impeded progress on civil rights legislation and divided the Democratic Party.
In the early 1970’s a revolt against feudalism created the so-called Subcommittee Bill of
Rights and inaugurated something like a democratic republic. In the House the speaker and party
caucuses gained control over chairmanships and scheduling. There was also a diffusion of power
down to subcommittee chairmen. The number of subcommittees grew and a large number of
members got to serve as chairmen. The Republican takeover of 1994 democratized things further
by limiting the terms of chairmen.
Committee System
The committee system is decentralized; each committee has a separate jurisdiction.
Committees have negative agenda control; it is almost impossible to vote on a bill unless a
committee sends it to the floor.
There is a norm of reciprocity among committees. Committees respect each other’s turf.
Member of one committee usually accept the legislative recommendations of other committees.
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Committee assignments are made by partial self-selection. Each party’s committee on
committees makes the assignments, but to a great extent, congressmen get their wishes. One can
see the potential problem in a self-selection system: How do you get individual representatives to
serve on the not-so-glamorous, obscure committees?
Each party uses Madison’s (and Ben Franklin’s) idea of “providing the right incentives” to
dole out seats. Each representative is asked to submit a list of his preferred committees, from which
his assignment will be chosen by his party’s committee on committees based on demand and
seniority. Knowing that the chances of getting on the glamorous committees is low, a typical junior
member lists some glamorous committees that are unlikely to be available to him, but he also lists
some committees for which there is much less demand but whose jurisdictions include issues that
concern his constituency. The committee on committees then assigns him to a committee from his
list if possible. In general, it does not pay to put too many or too few preferences on the list.
Why is power decentralized?
One explanation is efficient division of labor: the committee system enables members to
concentrate on certain issue areas, giving them the opportunity to develop expertise and the time to
concentrate on drafting good legislation in one or two areas.
This is a fairly good explanation, but it doesn’t explain some details. One is that Congress
seems to be more decentralized and fragmented than necessary for the efficient division of labor.
Another suggested explanation is that the smaller membership of the committees, compared
with whole chambers, makes it easier for individual representatives to persuade others. This is OK
and is similar to another explanation: the smaller membership of the committees makes individual
representatives’ votes count for more. Both of these explanations ignore the trade-off between the
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amount of influence and the scope of policy influenced. Although the smaller membership gives
one more influence over policy, the policy tends to have smaller reach.
Here is a better explanation. The committee system gives individual representatives a
greater chance to play a pivotal role for their respective constituencies. In other words,
representatives have more chances to break ties in the issue areas that their constituencies care
about most.
This explanation is consistent with the old saw that all elections are local, that local
concerns guide representatives’ actions.
Congress is divided into committees but also cross-divided into parties. They pick their
leaders and committee delegations and try to protect and enhance their brand-names and therewith
their electoral prospects by disciplining their members to vote the party line, by controlling the
legislative agenda, and by helping their candidates through their campaign committees. Of course,
grass-roots partisans play a role too, chiefly by voting in party primaries. Overall:
Party primary
↓
Elections
↓
Congressional party
↓
Internal control (discipline and agenda control)
↓
Campaign Committee
8
LECTURE NOTES
UCLA
PS 40
Department of Political Science
Introduction to American Politics
Fall 2013
Prof. Thomas Schwartz
Hunk 11 From Bills to Laws, from Budgets to Buckets of Bucks
How a Bill Becomes Law
A bill is a draft law – a law in the making.
The following table traces the steps necessary for a bill to become law.
House
Introduced by a member or passed
by Senate
Senate
Introduced by a member or passed
by House
Assigned to Committee, then
subcommittee, or drafted there
Assigned to Committee, then
subcommittee, or drafted there
Hearings
Hearings
Mark up (writing)
Mark up (writing)
Positive Report
Positive Report
Scheduled for debate by Rules
Committee, “rule” assigned to
limit debate and amendments
Scheduled for debate by Majority
Leader (in consultation with
Minority Leader); no limit on
debate or amendments
Positive Vote
Positive Vote
House and Senate versions the
same
House and Senate versions
different
House-Senate
conference committee
reports single version
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Passes both houses in
up-or-down vote (no
amendments)
President
Signs bill
Sits on bill for 10 days
while Congress is in
session
Vetoes bill
House and Senate
override veto by 2/3
A missed step, such as a negative vote by either house, means no law. A pocket veto occurs
if Congress submits a bill for the President’s approval but goes out of session before the 10 days
are up. A pocket veto cannot be overridden. Congress can avoid a pocket veto by staying in session
as long as necessary to complete the 10 days.
If the committee and scheduling procedures fail to place the bill before Congress, a majority
can bring it to the floor with a discharge petition followed by a vote to discharge. That rarely
happens.
How Congress Spends Your Money
To spend your money Congress must do three things, which in our system requires three
separate laws. So says Congressional procedure adopted by Congress, not the Constitution.
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Tax or borrow
Congress must first get the money needed to run the government. It does that by taxing or
borrowing, by passing revenue or debt-ceiling bills.
Authorize government activity
Congress must create administrative agencies and tell them what they can or must do. It
does that by passing authorization bills - - bills that establish executive units, their programs, and
their powers. (Conventionally, revenue and borrowing bills are classified as authorizations too.)
Appropriate money year by year
Congress then must give money to the agencies and programs that it has authorized. It does
this by passing appropriations bills. Without money a program doesn’t really exist. (It is not
uncommon for Congress to decide not to appropriate funds to authorized programs.)
Appropriations are annual: they have to be renewed every year - - else the agencies and programs
that they would have funded must shut down and furlough staff.
An exception to this is entitlements, or backdoor spending. The initial authorization law
says that certain people are entitled to certain amounts of money (according to some formula)
regardless of whether Congress has appropriated enough. Sometimes the law authorizes automatic
increases no matter what the state of the budget is. Congress gives itself no choice but to
appropriate the authorized money unless it changes or rescinds the original authorization law. In all
other areas, an agency or program would die a sudden death without its annual appropriation.
Entitlements are classified as “non-discretionary spending” in the federal budget. Needless to say,
they bear much of the responsibility for deficit spending.
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Examples of entitlements are Medicare, Social Security, VA Pensions, Pell Grants, and
farm subsidies.
Another feature of the budget process concerns the role of the executive.
Executive Budget Initiative
The Budget Act of 1921 requires executive budget initiative: each year the President must
submit a single, comprehensive budget that says exactly how much will be spent and on what.
Congress modifies this presidential baseline to make an overall decision on how much to tax and
spend.
Prior to 1921, each department would ask for money, and Congress would decide piecemeal
how much to spend. The current system makes it easier to assess the “big picture,” to know how
much is spent overall.
The same act created the Budget Bureau, charged with consolidating the budget requests
from executive departments into one comprehensive budget proposal.
The Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 came in response to President Nixon’s
refusal to spend funds appropriated by Congress. It turned the Bureau of the Budget into the Office
of Management and Budget, or OMB. Today the OMB is one of the most important executive
agencies. It coordinates all executive-branch requests and submits the budget to Congress.
The Budget Process
Executive budget initiative is one kind of centralization in the budget process. Since 1974
there has emerged a second kind, one involving Congress. Prescribed by the Budget and
Impoundment Act of 1974, the mechanics of the budget process are as follows: - -
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
Acting for the President, the OMB (Office of Management and Budget) prepares a
comprehensive executive budget proposal in January.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) prepares a report on the President’s
proposal by Feb. 15. It questions the assumptions the President’s proposal makes about how fast
the economy is projected to grow, how high unemployment is likely to be, etc. This office is made
up of civil servants, supposedly nonpartisan professional economists.
If they wish, the various legislation-writing committees make reports on the aspects of the
proposal pertaining to their jurisdictions by Feb. 25.

The reports and proposals of these three groups are then submitted to the House and
Senate Budget Committees. These committees must then report by April 1. They base their budget
proposals on the President’s original proposal but always make some changes, large or small.

The First Concurrent Budget Resolution in supposed to pass Congress by April 15th.
This is not a bill, only a resolution. It is not a draft law but a guide for subsequent revenue,
authorization, and appropriations bills.

Throughout the summer, new bills – tax, authorizations, and appropriations - - are
prepared in the various Congressional committees (e.g. agriculture, energy) pertaining to the
agencies and programs under their jurisdiction. Each house has an Appropriations Committee,
whose subcommittees correspond more or less to the substantive committees (e.g. Commerce,
Education, Agriculture).

In September comes the Second Concurrent Budget Resolution, reflecting the new
laws generated by the bill-writing committees. Here the comprehensive budget is revised.

Usually a reconciliation act is needed to revise the laws just passed so they conform
to the new budget resolution. Such an act breaks the standard mold by addressing authorizations
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and appropriations and a multitude of committee jurisdictions all in one fell swoop, and it is treated
as a single, must-vote, take-it-or-leave-it package, not subject to amendment or filibuster.

Finally the fiscal year begins on October 1.
This is the nominal timeline of events. But it is rarely adhered to: delays occur. Rarely does
Congress pass all required appropriations bills by October 1. If the deadline is not met and a final
budget is not ready by October 1, Congress passes one or more continuing resolutions, constituting
a temporary budget to keep the federal government running. Without them, the federal government,
or part of it, shuts down.
Sometimes the schedule is followed closely enough but Congress underestimates needs.
Then it must appropriate more money later in the year with supplemental and deficiencies acts.
Although designed to curtail presidential power, the Congressional centralization
mentioned earlier allowed President Ronald Reagan to enhance presidential power. In 1980, when
R2 first came into office, instead of accepting the budget passed the previous year, he drafted a
sweeping new budget and demanded that Congress pass it as a “reconciliation act.” In that way he
acted rather like a prime minister in a parliamentary system, who annually demands a yes-or-no
vote on a single, comprehensive “budget.” Later presidents emulated him. For example, President
Obama's controversial, 2,700-page health care bill was ultimately passed as a "reconciliation act."
Aside: As I said, failure to appropriate enough money early on prompts later Congressional
action in the form of supplemental and deficiency bills to fill holes. This suggests that the budget
numbers discussed in September do not mean all that much. Maybe politicians try to deceive us
with low appropriations - - or maybe it is hard to guess how much money will be needed.
6
LECTURE NOTES
UCLA
PS 40
Department of Political Science
Introduction to American Politics
Fall 2013
Prof. Thomas Schwartz
HUNK 12 CONGRESSIONAL BEHAVIOR
Congressional legislation obviously depends on votes, less obviously on procedural or
agenda control. Both reflect strategy, and strategy reflects congressmen’s goals.
Apart from personal values, those goals are driven by the reelection incentive and by
partisanship.
The former means that Congressmen want, above all, to hold onto their jobs. In Europe,
members of parliament belong to disciplined parties that present platforms to the electorate, who
vote mostly on the basis of party positions. In the US, parties are weaker, less disciplined, less
committed to clear, comprehensive platforms. Therefore, getting reelected in the US requires pretty
much that every Congressman watch out for himself. He must see himself as an agent of his
constituency more than his party. That leads him toward the following activities: - Credit claiming:
A congressman wants his constituents to see him doing good things for them. So he tries to
take credit for every good thing the government does for them. Among other things he is usually
the first to announce any federal benefit for his district, such as a school-construction or
transportation grant or a defense contract. The bureaucracy allows this in order to stay on his good
side.
Position taking:
Each representative is one of 435 and often will not prevail in getting what his constituency
wants. Even so he will try hard to show that he has at least fought for the “right” cause (or the "left"
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cause, if that's what his constituents prefer). This involves voting for losing propositions, making
public statements, etc.
Particularism:
Each representative tries to deliver locally targeted benefits of two sorts: Pork is money
directly spent on separate, tangible projects in his district - roads, hospitals, levees, bridges,
schools, and whatnot. Laws that authorize such projects are called pork-barrel legislation,
especially when one wishes to deride them for inefficiency. Case work (or constituent service)
involves acting as an intermediary to help constituents with the federal bureaucracy. A
congressman’s staff might intervene with the post office, expedite the issuance of a passport, secure
a veteran’s benefit, etc. Congressmen have local staff dedicated to this service. The bureaucracy is
usually pretty responsive because Congress appropriates its budget. That may sound a bit shady,
but it isn’t, or it need not be. A voteseeking congressman has an incentive to play ombudsman.
Budget-seeking bureaucrats have an incentive to obey him with alacrity. It is surprising that not
more citizens take advantage of this service.
Universalism:
This means that the shared incentive congressmen have to secure goodies for their own
constituencies results in something for everyone. Congressmen scratch each other’s backs. In order
to avoid fights over the benefits, everyone goes along with passing laws that are known to be fat
with pork, hence inefficient. There is pork for all. For example, interstate highway funds bring
roads to every state. Once in Honolulu I took special pleasure in driving down the Eisenhower
Interstate Highway.
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Beside the reelection incentive, congressmen are driven also by partisan and personal
preferences. After all, congressmen are not just reelection machines but people who chose
government as a calling. And they are not isolated individuals but team members, or partisans.
We shall now see that a key to understanding congressional behavior is to appreciate how
the particular rules and institutions of Congress (its gears and levers) affect actors’ incentives and
strategies.
Legislative Strategy There are at least three possible kinds of voting:
 Sincere voting- Here a congressman votes for his favorite option no matter what.
 Strategic voting- Here he may vote against an option he likes in order to accomplish
something further or to avoid a greater evil: he looks ahead and bases his choice of how to vote on
the consequences rather than the content of alternative votes.
 Cooperative voting- Here he makes a deal with others to trade votes, or logroll, and he
sticks to the deal.
Strategy plays a big role, not only in voting, but in agenda-setting, or procedural
manipulation: - Remember the story of how in 1774 Sam Adams manipulated the voting rule in order to get
the First Continental Congress to produce a revolutionary rather that a conciliatory statement. Often
understanding key events in history turns on our ability to understand how certain individuals
manipulated the agenda. The following are some examples.
Example of Strategic vs. Sincere Voting and Agenda Control
This particular example concerns the direct election of Senators. By 1902 most Americans
preferred it to the prevailing system of election by state legislatures. But Senator Chaucey De Pew
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(R-NY) prevented it until 1913, when the 17th Amendment was finally ratified. His strategy was to
defeat proposals to institute direct election by adding to them a killer amendment.
The Senate was divided into Democrats, Eastern Republicans, and Western Republicans,
each a minority of the whole.
Diagram of Preferences
Nothing = Keep election by state legislatures
D = Constitutional amendment requiring direct election of Senate
Here a vote taken between “nothing” and “D” would result in D because the Democrats and
W. Republicans would vote for it.
But that was not the vote taken. Republican Senator Chauncey DePew of N.Y., an Eastern
Republican, ingeniously proposed that D be amended to protect black voters who in the South were
often kept from voting. The proposed amendment required that the federal government run the
elections - - a return to the practices of Reconstruction.
Diagram of preferences for expanded options
Nothing = Keep election by state legislatures
D = Direct election of Senate
A = Amendment to protect black voters
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For now, ignore the business in parentheses.
Voting
1) First round: vote on whether to amend D. That is, vote for D or D+A.
2) Second round: vote on whether to enact. That is, vote either for “Nothing” or for the
proposal chosen in the first round.
Result
In the first round Eastern and Western Republicans voted for D+A. It won. In the second
round Democrats and Eastern Republications voted for Nothing. It won. Everyone but the Western
Republications voted both strategically and sincerely at the first round. The Western
Republications alone voted sincerely but not strategically: they preferred D+A to D, but preferred
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the ultimate consequence of choosing D to the ultimate consequence of choosing D+A: had they
chosen D, the consequence would have been D, not “nothing.” These ultimate consequences, or
“strategic equivalents,” are in parentheses. At any rate, the Western Republicans avoidably got
“nothing,” their least liked choice.
Why? One reason is that it would have been hard to explain a strategic vote to their
constituents: it is often easier to vote sincerely. In this case, it is likely that Civil War veterans, who
were numerous in the West, would not have supported a strategic vote by the W. Republicans
against amendment A. Western Republicans may have lacked the political cover needed to vote
against an amendment supporting black rights, even though such a vote would have produced a
better outcome. Many in their constituencies had fought for black rights in the Civil War. De Pew
knew this and used it.
This example illustrates:
1. Sincere (“naïve”) voting, as opposed to strategic (“sophisticated”) voting.
2. Agenda Manipulation. Eastern Republicans used a killer amendment to block the direct
election of Senators. In the end they did not get A enacted and they knew they would not. But the
presence of A on the agenda killed D, which they disliked.
Note that the reelection-incentive is consistent with the behavior of the Western
Republicans but does not provide a complete explanation. W. Republicans voted to please their
constituencies, but that was in part because they did not think they could explain to them the notion
of strategic voting. If they could have, then they would have voted against their constituencies’
favorite outcome (D+A) at the first vote in order to prevent being stuck with their constituencies’
least liked outcome (Nothing) in the end. Rather than take the political risk, W. Republicans settled
for credit claiming. What they needed but lacked was political cover for a purely strategic vote.
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Another example: LBJ and The Civil Rights Act of 1957
President Eisenhower wanted a tough civil rights bill to stop voter intimidation in the South.
The bill, if it became law, would jail the intimidators. Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson
(LBJ), a Texan, wanted a civil rights bill to help his run for the Presidency: the conventional
wisdom then was that a southerner could not be elected president because of southern opposition to
civil rights.
Preferences (before deal):
B = Original 1957 Civil Rights Bill (Eisenhower's)
Nothing = Keep status quo
Southern
Democrats
Northern
Democrats
Republicans
Nothing
B
B
B
Nothing
Nothing
Why no Southern Republicans? Because in 1957 there were none: the South had a one-party
system.
If a vote had been taken on B vs. Nothing, B would have won, but a filibuster by Southern
Democrats would have blocked such a vote: they would have prevented any vote by long speeches
on the Senate floor. A 2/3s majority was needed to stop a filibuster. (Since then the threshold for
cloture, or ending debate, has been lowered to 3/5.)
To get the bill through, LBJ added an amendment to weaken the bill. This turned out to be a
saving amendment. The amendment required that, to jail someone for intimidating voters, a jury
trial must be held (J). This amendment ensured that the Southern Democrats, who opposed the
original bill enough to filibuster it, would not filibuster the amended bill. Why? It was weak
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enough not to threaten them so much, and they were bent on helping fellow-Southerner Johnson
become President.
Preferences (with Amendment)
B = 1957 civil rights bill
Nothing = Keep the status quo
J = amendment to weaken bill by requiring jury trial.
Voting
First round: vote on whether to amend B with J. That is, vote for B or B+J.
Second round: vote either for “Nothing” or for the proposal (B or B+J) chosen at the first
round.
Result
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In the first round, Johnson convinced N. Democrats to vote for the amendment, for B+J
over their preferred B. So almost all Democrats voted for B+J. It won. In the second round,
Northern Democrats and many Republicans voted for B+J. It won. Southern Democrats did not
filibuster the amended bill.
The strategic voters were the N. Democrats. In the first round, they voted strategically for
the amendment though they preferred plain B. They did it to get some bill rather than none (their
least favored outcome). But still they voted for B+J over B while preferring B. LBJ gave them the
political cover needed to pull off the strategic vote. They needed cover from potential opposition
within their constituencies. He did this by getting some of the Senate’s most respected liberals to
support J; he also let them publicly modify J in a more liberal direction. And he rounded up
southern support for western pork.
As for the Southern Democrats, they voted against the amended bill in the second round but
still did not filibuster: they let the bill pass. They did this in order to give LBJ (one of their own)
the chance to establish himself as a Southerner who was no mere Southerner, but an advocate of
civil rights. This, they thought, would allow him to become President and in the long run benefit
Southern Democrats even more in other ways.
This example illustrates strategic voting by Northern Democrats, masterful agenda
manipulation by LBJ, and the political cover he gave Northern Democrats to cast a purely strategic
vote.
The strategic voters examined so far were willing to vote contrary to their true preferences.
One might say they told white lies. The next example of strategic behavior involves a more serious,
“beige” lie.
Example: Clean Air Act of 1990
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President George Bush the Elder favored a moderate bill to limit pollution.
Environmentalists wanted even a stronger bill, achievable with a tough amendment. Moderates
agreed with Bush’s position. Conservatives opposed the whole bill and wanted no new
environmental regulation at all. The options were these:
B = Moderate bill (Bush)
B + A = Tougher bill (Environmentalists), got by amending B
N = Nothing (Conservatives)
Bush did not want to have the moderate bill made tougher with the proposed amendment.
John Sununu, Bush’s chief of staff, sought to keep B unamended. Just before the vote, he
said to conservatives: “Bush would sign even B + A.” To environmentalists, he said: “Bush would
sign B but veto B + A.” In effect he told conservatives that A would not work as a killer
amendment and environmentalists that it would.
The environmentalists dropped the tough amendment; they bargained away their support for
a tougher bill to ensure that they would get at least a moderate one. Similarly, the conservatives,
fearing a really tough bill, bargained away their opposition to the moderate bill. Ultimately, the
moderate (unamended) bill passed. Sununu took advantage of the conservatives’ and
environmentalists’ lack of information. In general, such deception is a costly strategy because the
strategist loses credibility. This may have contributed to Sununu’s losing his job.
Now we turn from sincere and strategic to cooperative voting.
Example: Cooperative Voting, or Vote Trading, or Logrolling
The following sketches the story of a vote trade, a.k.a. logroll, between farmers and food
stamp proponents that took place in 1977.
Let
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A = Agriculture subsidies
F = Food stamps
There were 3 minority coalitions
Rural: wanted A, but not F
Urban: wanted F, but not A
Suburban: wanted neither A nor F
But the rural and urban coalition preferred A + F to Neither, and together they were a
majority.
A successful trading of votes requires that the actors solve a cooperation problem, a
Prisoner’s Dilemma. The problem is that once one party keeps its end of the bargain the other
apparently has an incentive to renege. The fear of such defection compels each actor to not to honor
his promise.
In the food stamps example the PD between the farmers and the food stamps proponents
was solved in part by packing the House Agriculture Committee with representatives from New
York City, legislators whose constituents wanted food stamps, and also by expanding the
Committee’s jurisdiction to include the Food Stamp and certain other welfare programs. These two
solutions, in effect, made the allocation of benefits to one group contingent on the allocation of
benefits to the other; each group in the committee could in effect kill a bill that didn’t include the
benefits it sought. The two factions had to pass a package bill that was acceptable to both groups or
no bill would pass at all.
The cooperation problem was eased also with the critical intervention of F.W. Richmond,
Chairman of the Subcommittee on Domestic Marketing, Consumer Relations, and Nutrition. He
helped glue together a deal in which the both coalitions got what they wanted. He neutralized
11
individual congressmen who tried to introduce various amendments that would unravel the logroll.
The details presented below of who exactly tried to introduce what amendment are not important.
Steve Symms (R-Idaho) proposed that food stamp receipients make payments (they hadn’t
been required to do so until then); R. Kelley (R-Florida) proposed that striking workers should not
be given food stamps. Richmond played Kelly and Simms against each other and convinced them
that their proposed amendments would lead to the unraveling of the whole package, something
both wanted to avoid.
Richmond dealt similarly with two other proposed amendments: Dawson Mathis (DGeorgia), who represented the peanut growers of America, wanted to propose a work requirement
for food stamp recipients. Margaret Heckler (R-Massachusetts) had threatened to propose an
amendment that would limit subsidies to peanut growers. Richmond used Heckler’s threat to get
Mathis to drop his proposed amendment.
The key point of this discussion is that Richmond was able to silence those congressmen
who tried to derail the trade and to keep in check those who tried to alter the package to their
advantage. He threatened the former group into restraint and persuaded the latter that the package
would not withstand tinkering; it would pass either as a whole or not at all: either all would get an
acceptable deal or no one would get anything. He persuaded congressmen not to pursue their
individually preferred outcomes so that they may achieve their collectively preferred outcome.
This example illustrates cooperative voting, enforced by manipulating committee
assignments and committee jurisdictions and by using threats to silence individual agenda
manipulators and defectors. This is a common pattern: huge bipartisan bills, representing a
collection of vote trades, do sometimes pass.
A very contemporary example: Obamacare
12
In 2009 House amended and then passed a health-care bill. They considered:
B = Liberal Bill
A = Anti-abortion amendment
0 = Status quo (no bill)
Preferences:
Liberal Dems
Moderate Dems
Repubs
B
B+A
0
B+A
0
B+A
0
B
B
What passed?
A, then B+A
13
Why?
Many liberal Democrats voted for the amendment. Why?
Most Republicans also voted for the conservative amendment. That may seem the
obvious thing for them to do, but not after you think about it a bit.
Why did they vote for A?
14
LECTURE NOTES
UCLA
PS 40
Department of Political Science
Introduction to American Politics
Fall 2013
Prof. Thomas Schwartz
HUNK 13 THE PRESIDENCY: STRUCTURE AND POWERS
Here we turn to the executive branch. Most of it, indeed most of the U.S. government, is the
bureaucracy – all the offices and civil servants who do most of the day-to-day work of regulating
your behavior and providing you with services. But today we shall examine only the tip of that
iceberg, the President and his immediate subordinates.
Constitutional Source of Executive Powers
Article II of the Constitution establishes the executive. It is remarkably short but for the
lengthy statement about presidential election. The President is made Commander in Chief and
given the power to enforce the law, appoint top subordinates and judges, negotiate treaties, receive
foreign diplomats, commission officers, convene Congress, and veto legislation.
Article I of the Constitution establishes the Legislative branch. When making laws, this
branch designs and finances the executive branch and delegates its own powers to that branch.
Without such delegation, there would not be much of an executive branch.
Organization of the Executive Branch
Immediately below the President, the executive branch has 2 parts: the Executive Office of
the President, and the Departments and Agencies.
Apart from these two parts there is the somewhat strange office of the Vice President,
constitutionally a legislative office unless the Presidency becomes vacant. Historically, the VP did
very little. He did not attend Cabinet meetings until the 1920s, under President Harding, and he was
not treated as an executive officer at all until the 1950s, under President Eisenhower.
1
1. Executive Office of the President
This comprises people who work in or near the White House and have little or no legal
authority but do have great proximity and access. They report directly to the president. Their role is
advisory. They help the President do his job but have no operational authority: they cannot run the
programs that provide you with services and regulate your lives.
The different components of the Executive Office of the President are the following:

White House Staff
Chief of Staff (runs the White House and helps the President run the Executive
Office)
Speech writers
Counsel
Legislative Liaison (helps the president coordinate relations with the legislative
branch)
Press Secretary, etc., etc.
Within the White House staff the top people are made “Counselors to the President.” Some
of them sit in cabinet meetings, courtesy of the President. Some become more important than some
cabinet members.

The Rest of the Executive Office
NSC (National Security Council), OMB (Office of Management and Budget), CEA
(Council of Economic Advisors), The U.S. Trade Representative, etc., etc.
The NSC helps the President coordinate the work of the State and Defense Departments and
intelligence agencies. The OMB helps the President coordinate the budget requests of the various
executive departments and prepare the comprehensive executive budget proposal. The head of the
2
OMB is quite important, more important than the Secretary of Commerce, for example. The CEA,
despite its name, doesn’t really give the president advice on economic policy so much as measure
and predict economic performance. The Trade Representative is also quite important. He negotiates
trade agreements. Although an ambassador, he reports to the President, not the Secretary of State or
Commerce.
2. Departments and Agencies
Besides to the Executive Office of the President, there are the various executive
departments (State, Defense, Treasury, etc.), whose heads make up the Cabinet.
Usually the President adds the OMB Director, the White House Chief of Staff, and maybe
others to the Cabinet.
There are also independent executive agencies. Examples include the GSA (General
Service Administration), EPA (Environmental Protection Agency), CIA (Central Intelligence
Agency), FDA (Food and Drug Administration), NSF (National Science Foundation). The heads of
these agencies are appointed by the president. These agencies are not in any executive department
but are like executive departments, only narrower in scope. Their heads normally are not in the
cabinet.
All these units have operational authority, established (and limited) by Congress.
The personnel, including the heads, of both the executive departments and of the
independent executive agencies may be fired by the President.
But there are two other sets of executive bodies whose personnel may not be fired by the
President: Independent Regulatory Commissions and Government Corporations.
3
Among the Independent Regulatory Commissions are the Federal Reserve Board (Central
Bank) and the SEC (Securities Exchange Commission). These are more politically independent by
design than the departments and executive agencies.
Among Government Corporations is the US Postal Service (formerly a department) and
the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. These are much like private corporations but are
“owned” by Congress.
Next we note an interesting shift of power from the Cabinet to the Executive Office of the
President.
Shift of Influence, cabinet  executive office
In the 19th century cabinet officers were powerful people enjoying great proximity and
access to the president. Until the 1930s, the President’s staff consisted of little more than a personal
secretary. After WWII, Presidents expanded their staffs and relied less and less on the cabinet for
advice. Now the President meets daily with staff, while some cabinet officers have a hard time ever
seeing the President.
How can one explain this shift?
H1: Bigger government has meant a greater need for coordination among cabinet
departments; the executive needs a small team to direct the vast government structure. For
example, the OMB helps the president coordinate and consolidate the different department’s
budgets in one comprehensive proposal. In managing relations with any given foreign country, the
president relies on the NSC to help coordinate the various departments’ policies toward that
country.
H2: Department heads (cabinet secretaries) are captured, by their clients and by civil
service employees. For example, the Secretary of Defense speaks for the generals; the Secretary of
4
Agriculture speaks for the farmers, etc. Therefore, the President cannot fully rely on cabinet
secretaries to act on his agenda.
H3: Cabinet secretaries are bound by law - - by the authorizations that created and
empowered their offices - - and by Congress’s power of the purse. They are not so easily controlled
by the President because of their special dependence on Congress. By contrast, Executive Office
staff do not have a special relationship with Congress; they are beholden to the President alone and
are motivated to advance his goals.
It is hard to decide which of these three is the best explanation. They all have some validity.
However, that the shift was gradual over a long period of time suggests that H1 provides the best
explanation.
We now turn to consider the President’s many jobs:

Chief of State
The president is in many ways like a king; he has ceremonial duties and is the figurehead
embodying the state.

Head of Government
The president is also like a prime minister in that he leads a government that administers
acts of the legislature.

Chief Executive
The president is like a corporate CEO too. He is the sole top executive: unlike a PM, he
does not need to take a vote of the cabinet. In the US we often refer to the President, governors, and
mayors as chief executives--a very American label--rather than heads of government.

Commander-in-Chief
5
Though a civilian, the President is also like a general or flag officer. He commands all the
armed forces, including state militias when in federal service.

Party Leader
The President is like a Prime Minister in another way: he is the head of his party. But the
President is weaker because he cannot always command a majority in Congress even if his party
has a majority. In the US, parties are not so centralized or disciplined that the President can order
party members to vote a particular way in the legislature.

National Political Leader
The President leads the people and explains the government’s policies to them.
Now we turn to consider the balance of power between the executive and legislative
branches.
Presidential Power and Congressional Checks
President’s Powers
Congress’s Checks
Commander in Chief The exact meaning of this
Congress
is not clear in the Constitution, but it is

Raises forces,
understood, partly from British usage.

Regulates forces,

Appropriates money to armed
forces,

Declares war.
Often Presidents have gone to war without
really getting Congressional approval (e.g.
Korea, Vietnam). In response Congress passed
6
the War Powers Act (1973). Unless Congress
has declared or otherwise authorized war, this
requires that the President notify Congress
within 48 hours of troop deployment overseas,
and that after 60 days of troop deployment he
either secure Congressional consent or bring the
troops home. Absent consent, he has 30 days to
bring them home. There are serious questions
about the constitutionality of the War Powers
Act. Both Bushes secured Congressional
approval of their Middle East wars. Bush Sr.
attacked Panama in 1990, and Clinton attacked
Serbia in 1998, without Congressional
authorization.
Chief Diplomat
Congress has legislative authority over
The president more or less runs the foreign
commerce. Senate confirms diplomatic
relations of the country.
appointments and ratifies treaties.
Slight Digression: It would be an exaggeration, but not too bad a one, to say that Congress
mostly runs domestic affairs, “the inside stuff,” while the President mostly runs foreign affairs, “the
outside stuff.” It would also not be wrong to say that most voters think that Republicans are more
adept in managing foreign affairs while Democrats are more adept in managing domestic affairs.
Some authors have used these two observations to explain voters’ preference historically for
7
divided government in general and for a certain pattern of divided government in particular: since
WWII, voters have often elected a Republican President and a Democratic Congress.
In running foreign affairs, the President may make two types of agreements with other
countries: treaties and executive agreements.
Two Types of International Agreements
1. Treaty
A treaty needs to be ratified by a 2/3 vote in the Senate and can be on any subject. It may
even override state law. This last fact helps answer the question of why treaties require Senate
approval and why they require such a high vote to pass. Those requirements are a safeguard against
federal encroachment on states’ rights.
2. Executive Agreements
Executive agreements are of two kinds: pure and congressional-executive. Unlike a treaty,
neither one of these can violate state laws, and neither requires a 2/3 Senate majority.
Pure: These are about issues within the President’s jurisdiction and, therefore, do not
require a congressional vote. They are typically about things on which the President has to take
quick action. An example is an armistice.
Congressional-Executive: These are about any issue within the federal government’s
jurisdiction, so they are subject to ordinary Congressional law and require a congressional
(majority) vote. An example is a trade agreement (to reduce tariffs, or whatnot).
How can you tell the difference between a treaty and a congressional-executive agreement?
When do you call something a treaty or a congressional-executive agreement?
The Constitution, which mentions only treaties, does not say. Presidents have discretion in
which route to take, depending on their needs. For example, in 1845, President Sam Houston
8
wanted to rush Texas into the US. President John Tyler (who wanted to expand the US) found that
he was short of the 2/3s Senate vote needed to ratify a treaty between the US and Texas. Instead,
Tyler called the agreement between the US and Texas a law and got a simple majority in both the
House and Senate to incorporate Texas into the Union. He invoked Congress’s power to admit new
states.
We now continue with the President’s powers and Congress’s checks on the powers.
President’s Power
Chief Executive
Congress’ Checks and Balances

Executes (enforces) the law

Authorize programs

May demand the opinion of his cabinet

Appropriates funds

Appoints and fires executive branch

Confirms executive appointments
employees, including cabinet members
Oversight: Congress also monitors executive
agencies’ performance.
Head of State

Pardons

Commissions officers
no checks
Legislative

Convenes Congress (This is no big deal
in modern times, since Congress stays in
session for a long time.)

Adjourns Congress if need be
9

Confirms general and flag officers

Legislates

Recommends legislation (This too is no
big deal.)

Vetoes bills (This is a significant power.)

Overrides vetoes

Must follow for leadership to work.

A pulpit too, but less bully.
Apart from these formal powers the
President has some more informal
powers:

Leads party (The President coordinates
his party’s legislative moves.)

Bargains with Capitol Hill (The
President has considerable power to
offer people inducements.)

Bully (clutch) pulpit (The President can
use the salience of his office to capture
the public’s ear on a particular issue.)
Next we consider the actual sources of the president’s power.
Source of Presidential Power
Lowi, Ginsberg, Shepsle, and Ansolabehere argue that the US President is the world’s most
powerful person. What, we may ask, is the source of that power?
H1: The President draws his power from the formal-legal structures of the US government.
10
H2: The President is responsible for the direction of the government and is not easily
replaced, so most of us wish him well and follow his lead even if we did not vote for him.
H3: The President is the most salient policy coordinator. Potential coalition members face a
coordination problem—they need the equivalent of a Santa Monica Pier where they can “meet.”
The President is the equivalent of the Santa Monica Pier. There is no alternative to the President in
terms of power and prominence: if circumstances make it desirable to follow someone’s lead, he
becomes the focal leader. Also, thanks to this unique position, the President’s public
pronouncements bind him to the commitments he makes. That makes his commitments especially
credible.
H1 and H2 are somewhat plausible. But legal powers are less than real power, and there has
to be a reason why it is the President who is held responsible for so much. H3 brings out the
incentive we have to follow his lead.
11
LECTURE NOTES
UCLA
PS 40
Department of Political Science
Introduction to American Politics
Fall 2013
Prof. Thomas Schwartz
Hunk 14 PROBLEM OF GOVERNANCE OR CONTROL
Today we consider the problem of enforcing or implementing policies. Distinct from the
problem of making good laws, it concerns how legislation translates into practice: --how, for
example, the Department of Health and Human Services implements the Affordable Care Act.
Earlier in the course we mentioned that the federal government (Congress) under the Articles of
Confederation had this problem: it could not enforce its will.
A telling example of the problem of implementation is George Washington’s suggestion to
Congress that cattle and grain be taken from the farmers in Long Island so that the British, who had
just landed there, could not get them. Congress took his advice, but nothing happened: the farmers
kept their cattle and grain.
A couple of other examples are Lincoln’s ordering General McClellan to attack Richmond,
and his ordering General Meade to pursue Lee after Gettysburg. They failed to carry out Lincoln’s
orders.
Similar examples involve Soviet leader Gorbachev’s initial efforts to reduce drinking and
then to reform the economy in the USSR. His orders had scant effect.
These examples are instances of the agency problem. How does someone, a principal, get
someone else, an agent, to do something?
Much of political theory is about how government should be organized to reach good
decisions - - and what, for that matter, constitutes a good decision.
Much of political science, in contrast, is about what policies are made and how.
1
Our problem today is a third one: the problem of governance, or control - - the problem of
how policies are enforced, of how political decisions have effect.
How do you get bureaucrats to obey you? This is not a trivial problem. Even Hobbes’s
sovereign, the strongest guy around, cannot coerce everyone in society to obey him; physically it is
not feasible. A bureaucracy big and strong enough to compel citizens to obey the law must itself be
compelled to obey the law.
Principal-Agent Problem
Principal: This is someone who wishes to delegate power to someone else to do something, to
implement some policy. Examples include a king, an employer, Congress.
Agent: This is someone who has been hired or charged by the principal to do something.
Examples include lesser nobles, employees, the bureaucracy.
How, having delegated power, can a principal control his agent to get the job done? It is not
feasible to monitor the agent(s) all the time. Look:
The agent can either work or shirk, either do the job or not. The principal can either monitor
the agent’s behavior or not. For the principal, monitoring is costly. His favorite outcome is for the
agent to do the job without being monitored, while his least favored outcome is for the agent to
shirk despite being monitored. If the principal knew for sure that the agent would shirk, he had
2
rather not monitor. The agent’s preferences are obvious.
No matter what the agent does, the principal is better off not monitoring. The principal will
always play “don’t monitor.” The agent knows this. So he will always play “shirk.” Thus the
outcome consists of the principal not monitoring and the agent shirking. Both suffer. Both would
have fared better had they played “monitor” and “work.”
The principal faces a choice of either delegating or not delegating power to an agent. In case
the principal does delegate, the cost of doing so is that the principal must monitor the agent. If the
principal does not delegate power, then the cost is that the principal must do the job himself. The
principal’s problem is to minimize the cost while getting the job done.
Does the US Congress successfully monitor the federal bureaucracy? Is Congress getting its
way with the bureaucracy? And how can one tell whether it is? I mention Congress rather than the
President because Congress creates and funds the bureaucracy, all of whose authority is delegated
by Congress.
One way to tell whether Congress is getting its way is to look for compliance. One might read
the law and look at bureaucrats’ actions. In theory this is possible but in practice it is very hard to
do.
Another way, somewhat easier, is to look for sanctions (Congressional punishment) as a
measure of compliance. Presumably the greater the number of cases one observes of Congress
punishing bureaucrats, the less bureaucratic compliance there is. But this logic is faulty.
It is like driving into a town and looking to see if the jail is empty in order to evaluate the job
the sheriff is doing. An empty jail is consistent with the sheriff’s doing a great job but also with the
sheriff’s doing a terrible job. An empty jail represents the problem of observational equivalence.
Two very different causes, a very good and a very bad sheriff (or very good monitoring and very
3
bad monitoring), may give rise to the same outcome—an empty jail. Remember empty jails.
So it may seem we have no good way to evaluate whether the federal bureaucracy is doing a
good job, whether Congress is getting its will enforced. This general problem is aggravated when
there are multiple agents. Then it is hard to distinguish between shirkers and workers even when
looking.
Agency Problem in a Complex Organization
How to observe each agent’s contribution to a collective product? Example: Tug of war. How
can you tell if an individual is actually pulling or just huffing and puffing? Example: (True story) A
group of Chinese villagers had to pull barges up the Yangtse River with ropes. Because it is hard to
tell how hard someone is pulling, everyone shirked a bit. As a result, all made less income than
they could have. They solved this problem by hiring another villager to whip them. He whipped
them all whenever the team fell short of some specified rate. (Oh, and the whipper himself was a
reliable agent because he enjoyed the work. Or maybe the wives monitored him, but they enjoyed
the show.)
Another example: Suppose you have hired two people to row you to Catalina (each person
manning one of the two oars). When you tell them that the boat is moving too slowly, each one
blames the other and says that he is rowing slowly in order to adjust to the other’s slowness (to
keep the boat from going in circles). How do you know who is telling the truth? How can you
isolate any one individual’s contribution?
Yet another example: Suppose, in a community’s school system, that test scores are
declining. The teachers, administrators, and parents blame each other. It is hard to tell who is at
fault.
Congress’s Problem
4
Congress needs to delegate power to the bureaucracy, and it needs to control the bureaucracy.
The problem is that Congress is one principal monitoring a great number of agents.
Congress has some tools (“guns”) it can use: appropriations and authorizations. Congress can
cut funding to bureaucrats or rescind their legal authority.
The difficulty is that, with so many agents, Congress has a hard time telling where to use its
tools (where to aim its “guns”). Because it is hard to isolate individual agents’ contributions,
Congress cannot use rewards and punishments effectively.
Congress’s task is the oversight of the federal bureaucracy. Oversight refers to legislative
efforts to ensure bureaucratic compliance with legislative goals.
Has Congress lost control?
There are two conventional impressions: One is that Congress has delegated much of its
authority. The other is that Congress has neglected its oversight obligation because there is a
paucity of oversight hearings and sanctions (an “empty jail”).
The first impression is correct; the second is not. The second impression is based on faulty
logic: the paucity of hearings and sanctions may or may not be the result of Congressional neglect.
Remember that empty jail.
Congress’s Solution: checks & balances inside the bureaucracy
One can distinguish between two kinds of oversight:
1. Police Patrol
Akin to real police patrols, this kind of oversight involves Congress’s selecting and
examining a sample of bureaucratic actions to look for violations. The aim, of course, is to punish
and deter violations. Police patrol oversight is comparatively centralized, active, and direct.
Congress itself initiates and carries out the monitoring of the bureaucracy.
5
2. Fire Alarm
Akin to real fire alarms, this kind of oversight involves Congress’s establishing rules
and procedures for citizens to complain about the bureaucracy - - to ring an alarm - - and seek
redress. It is less centralized, less active, and less direct than police patrol. Like the LAFD,
Congress does not send out its hook-and-ladder looking for fires but waits for an alarm to ring. And
except in the worst cases, alarms are usually answered by superior bureaucrats or courts or
congressional staff, rarely by congressmen themselves (the book is wrong here).
Fire-alarm oversight gives the power to monitor bureaucrats’ behavior to those who
have the greatest incentive to monitor it: the victims (potential and actual) of bureaucratic
noncompliance.
As a matter of regular practice, Congress uses fire alarms quite a lot.
Private citizens, corporations, labor unions, and interest groups become the monitors of
bureaucratic agencies; they sound the fire alarms to which other bureaucratic agencies, courts, or
Congress itself responds.
It is important to note, however, that Congress cannot rely on the fire alarm model to
monitor all government agencies. Some, such as the CIA, operate abroad and do not appear to have
any domestic clients that can complain about their noncompliance - - except, of course, that we
might all complain about the overall product.
Advantages of Fire Alarms
6
Fire Alarm Examples
One can identify at least five ways in which Congress uses fire alarms:
1. Subgovernments
These are also known as iron triangles. A bureaucratic agency, its relevant congressional
committee staff, and its clientele (industry, interest group, beneficiaries) work together. Example:
The lumber industry, the Department of Agriculture, and the House Agriculture Subcommittee on
Forestry. They are in constant touch and keep each other informed of problems.
2. Organization of Interests
Congress initiates the effort to organize an otherwise unorganized group of people or
industries so that they can monitor the activities of the bureaucracy regulating them. Congress
creates an agency to act as the organizing force. Remember that individuals who share some
interest nevertheless face a prisoners’ - dilemma problem in organizing. Congress can help them
solve that PD. For example, the Departments of Agriculture and Commerce were created to help
farmers and business interests to organize.
3. Casework
This, as I mentioned earlier, refers to Congressmen’s willingness to help their constituents
7
deal with government bureaucracies. The system is set up so that everyone has an incentive to act
in the right way: bureaucrats would like to please Congress (on which they depend for funding),
Congressmen would like to take credit for having helped their constituents, and voters would like
to have their problems solved. Example: A veteran who doesn’t receive his VA pension check calls
his Congressman’s local office and the check arrives two days later.
4. Administrative Procedures Act of 1946
This and later acts give citizens legal standing before agencies and courts to complain about
noncompliance by government agencies. Congress has made it fairly easy for citizens or industries
that are hurt by some bureaucrat’s action to complain to higher bureaucrats or to courts. Also
Congress has required that before implementing new regulations or policies a federal agency must
announce its intention to do so; this gives individuals and groups that expect to be affected by the
new policy time to take action. With these acts, Congress has made various parts of government
(courts etc.) more accessible to citizens’ fire alarms.
5. Direct Congressional Intervention
Finally, Congress has made itself accessible to citizens’ complaints by reserving the power to
intervene directly and limit or rescind an agency’s jurisdiction.
Example: The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) tried to regulate breakfast-cereal
commercials aired during Saturday morning cartoon shows, and also funeral parlors. The industries
involved complained to Congress. Congress agreed with the industries and said that the FTC could
not regulate them.
Another example: A federal agency was trying to help West Virginia attract new businesses.
Other states complained that businesses located in their territories were being drawn away, contrary
to the authorizing law. Congress agreed and closed the agency.
8
The discussion so far, centering around fire alarms, involves Congress’s delegation of power
and its decentralized style of management. One can also identify a completely hands-off style. One
can imagine situations in which it would suit Congress to delegate power completely. In one such
situation Congress wants to shift responsibility for tough choices (e.g. on abortion, to the courts). In
another, only a complete delegation of power can ensure that Congress will resist the temptation to
engage in “bad” behavior. Knowing itself to be vulnerable to political pressure, Congress may
decide to take itself out of decision processes that are best isolated from politics. A good example is
the management of the US money supply. Remember that under the Articles of Confederation
irresponsible management of individual states’ currencies (printing excessive amounts) ultimately
ruined their systems of credit and with it their exchange economies. It is not hard to see how
political pressures may tempt Congress to manipulate money in a similar way, with terrible
consequences.
That explains the independent status of the Federal Reserve Board (the US central bank).
Congress has taken its hands completely off the Fed.
The Federal Reserve Board Controls the Money Supply
The Fed’s task of controlling the money supply is critical to the economy’s health. Too much
or too little money leads to trouble.
Too much money in the systeminflation (too many dollars chasing too few goods raises
prices).
Too little money in the systemunemployment (too few dollars chasing too many goods lead
companies to produce less).
The Fed uses three tools to control the money supply:
1. Lends money to banks and sets interest rates. If it lowers interest rates or lends to banks
9
liberally, then money becomes cheaper and is easier to find, and banks lend more to borrowers at
lower rates. This generally spurs the economy but may create inflation. The reverse occurs if the
Fed raises rates or cuts back on loans to banks.
2. Sets Reserve Ratio. The Fed can change the amount of money it requires banks to keep in
cash reserves. Increasing this “reserve ratio” reduces the amount of money the banks can lend. That
reduces the money supply in the system.
3. Conducts Open Market Operations. The Fed sells and buys government bonds. It thereby
acts as a money sponge. By selling new bonds the Fed reduces the money supply (the purchasers
give the Fed cash in exchange for a piece of paper; the Fed puts the cash in its vault). The Fed will
sometimes wring itself out by buying back government bonds to increase the money supply.
10
LECTURE NOTES
UCLA
PS 40
Department of Political Science
Introduction to American Politics
Fall 2013
Prof. Thomas Schwartz
HUNK 15 POLITICAL PARTICIPATION, OR WHO VOTES?
So far we have studied three branches of government – the courts, Congress, and the
executive. Now we turn to the fourth branch: you all, the citizenry. In the remainder of the course
we ask how you - - voters, parties, interest groups - - affect politics.
Political Participation by Citizens
There are many ways to participate in politics. One is to vote.
Voting has four steps:
- Register to vote. This once was a hard step; now it is easy
- Go to the polls. - Select a subject on which to vote – a particular office or ballot issue.
- Make a choice - - pick one of the options - - and record it as instructed.
Other forms of participation:
- Write to an office holder.
- Speak publicly.
- Persuade others privately.
- Join associations (Sierra Club, trade organizations, labor unions, NRA, etc.).
- Contribute money to political campaigns. (In most other countries campaigns are
publicly financed.)
- Join a party.
- Work for a party or candidate organization.
- Run for office.
Why Vote?
1
It is hard to explain who votes and how, because it is hard to explain why people vote at all.
The paradox of not voting is that one vote makes no difference, so why bother to vote? - - but
people do. In other words, because a single vote never makes a difference, it is hard to explain
voting the same way we explain other acts. The act of voting is a puzzle.
When is it rational to vote? Compare this question with another: When is it rational to
gamble?
Let a coin be tossed. When is it rational to bet on heads?
Consider the following decision matrix (or table). It looks a bit like PD and other games, but
it is not a game at all because, instead of two or more players, it has but one. He is playing against
“nature,” or “chance,” not against another player.
“Bet” and “Don’t bet” are strategies. “Heads” and “Tails” are states of nature. It is rational to
bet only if the probability of winning times the amount of winnings is greater than or equal to the
cost of betting, that is,
Rational if p x winnings ≥ bet.
Suppose:
p = .05 (the coin is fair)
bet = $1
and
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winnings = $2.50
Then
0.5 x 2.50 = 1.25 > 1.
So it is rational to bet.
But now suppose that winnings are only $0.75. Then the bet is irrational. Or suppose the
potential winnings stay at $2.50 but the probability of heads drops to 0.25 (an unfair coin). Then
the bet is irrational.
We can apply the same kind of logic to ask when it is rational to carry an umbrella. Say it
rains with probability p. Then it is rational to carry an umbrella if and only if:
p x value of staying dry (compared with getting wet) ≥ cost of carrying umbrella.
Let p = 0.1, cost = 0.5, and value of staying dry = 10. Then it is rational to carry an umbrella if
0.1 x 10 ≥ 0.5,
which of course is true. The expected payoff (gain) from carrying an umbrella (0.1 x 10) exceeds
the cost (0.5), so it is indeed rational to carry an umbrella.
Suppose, however, that the cost of carrying the umbrella were not 0.5 but 2.0. Then it would
no longer be rational to carry an umbrella.
Now compare gambling and umbrella carrying with voting.
3
Here, f is the voter’s favorite candidate: he votes for f or does not vote at all. The cost of
voting is the opportunity cost - - the value of forgone benefits, such as sleeping, watching T.V., or
(best of all) studying political science.
Judged as usual, it is rational for a voter to vote for f if and only if the probability that his
vote will make a difference (p) multiplied by how much he stands to gain by f’s victory equals or
exceeds the cost of voting, that is,
p x value of f ≥ cost of voting
Suppose that
cost of voting = $1
value to voter of having f win = $90,000
and
p = 1/100,000.
With these values, which are unrealistically favorable to the voter’s calculus, the inequality is not
4
satisfied. It is irrational to vote.
At least according to this way of assessing the rationality of actions, voting seems irrational.
If anything, the probability that a person’s vote will be pivotal or decisive is generally much
smaller than 1/100,000.
[Hitler was elected head of the Nazi Party by one vote, and President Andrew Johnson
escaped impeachment conviction by one vote. But the voters were a small group, not a public
electorate.]
Why, then, do people vote?
Several hypotheses have been entertained: - One is that the election is close. But not all elections are close, and even unusually close ones
are never decided by one vote. It is true that a voter is more likely to be pivotal in a close election
than in a not-so-close election. But that is like saying a tall man is more likely than a short man to
bump his head on the moon.
Another hypothesis is that voters make a mistake, believing their act is efficacious although it
really is not—a belief encouraged by turnout propaganda. But it is hard to believe that such a
simple error would be so popular for so long.
A third hypothesis is that voting is not very costly - - or most people don’t find it so. True, we
are a lazy species: we prize leisure. But for that very reason we forego little of value by voting.
Besides, we are also a restless and gregarious species: sitting still in solitude often fails to please,
however inconsequential the alternatives. Even so, this hypothesis identifies no positive payoff
from voting. At most it helps explain voting.
A fourth hypothesis links voting to acts of charity: we are inclined to be altruistic, to help our
fellows, to benefit society and not merely ourselves. True, but an inconsequential act benefits no
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one.
A better hypothesis is that we are disinclined to free ride: we feel it is unfair to profit from the
efforts of others (those who share our political ideals) without pitching in ourselves.
Possibly the most popular hypothesis is that citizens see voting as their duty and receive some
gratification from doing their duty. This hypothesis modifies the above rationality condition to say
that voting is rational if and only if p x value of winning + D ≥ cost, where D is the gratification
that comes from doing one’s duty.
A more general hypothesis is that the act of voting has not only investment value but also
consumption value. This means that the act of voting is important not only because it helps the
voter further his aims but also because he finds the act itself gratifying. Most of our acts have both
investment and consumption value. Think of eating, sleeping, drinking, and procreating. A good
job has both kinds of value: it supports you but you enjoy it too. Still this is a weak hypothesis
because D is hard to measure, because it is hard to predict in advance whether D is great enough to
spur voting, and because it is hard to tell thereby why some people vote while others do not.
A problem similar to the paradox of not voting involves the act of acquiring information
about politics. Why would anyone spend time learning about the issues and candidates? Why
would anyone read the newspaper?
In response, one might focus on the consumption value of learning about politics. This would
suggest that newspaper editors who are interested in increasing their publications’ readership often
have to resort to including juicy tidbits of gossip in articles about politics. Sensationalism is often
the only way of getting people to read. It gives the act of reading more consumption value.
Similar Problems of Participation
One can also ask, Why contribute money? or Why join a party or interest group?
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In both of these problems the logic is similar. You have to choose between participating and
not participating (contributing money, joining a group, etc.). Your payoff from participating
depends on what everyone else does. You are playing a game with everyone else who shares your
interests. The game is a multi-player PD. Here are your payoffs:
This prisoner’s dilemma is in essence the septic-tank problem discussed in Hunk One.
The problem is that your action makes no difference. No matter what “everyone else” does –
participate or not – you are always better off not participating, not contributing to the shared goal.
Your incentive is to free-ride on the effort of others.
To sum up: It is hard to explain participation, for two reasons. One is that participation is not
like most other behavior: a single vote makes no difference. Yet a good explanation cannot imply
that no one votes. The other reason is that participation varies: some people participate and others
do not. A good explanation of participation has to be able to account for variation: it cannot imply
that everyone votes.
Who Votes?
Let us now take a different tack. Instead of asking why, let us ask who and examine the
variation just remarked.
Initial studies of voting found that the rich were more likely to vote. Why would richer
7
people vote more? Plausible reasons:
 They are more knowledgeable about politics.
 They have more time.
 They are more likely to have personal acquaintances running for office.
 They stand to lose more if election outcomes go against their preferences.
 They are less likely than poor people to feel alienated from the system.
 They feel more efficacious, or potent.
All these reasons were suggested, at one time or another, by students. Note that none
mentions cost. Maybe that is as it should be: voting is not that costly. People like going out and
doing things. They are generally not so lazy that the act of voting proves too cumbersome. Instead,
people are gregarious and restless. They also like to talk about having done things. This
observation, in combination with the fact that people do have a sense of civic duty, is a nice
potential explanation.
At first, political scientists thought along similar lines. They found that wealth or income was
positively correlated with voting, thought that wealth drove (caused) voting, and considered some
of the explanations just surveyed.
They were wrong. It was education, not income, that was the real cause of voting.
8
It turned out that the observed correlation between income and voting was spurious. Educated
people voted more, and educated people tended to be richer. Therefore, income appeared to drive
voting. In reality, when people with the same educational level were compared, their differences in
income had scant effect on their likelihood of voting. Differences in income mattered only to the
extent that they were associated with differences in education. But when people with the same
income were compared, their likelihood of voting increased with their level of education.
Another example of spurious correlation: When people wear warmer clothes, they catch
more colds. Of course, it is not the wearing of warm clothes that’s causing the colds but of a third
factor, cold weather, that’s causing both the colds and the wearing of warm clothes. Again, the
more frequently people hire lawyers the more likely they are to go to prison. Are criminal suspects
better off not hiring lawyers?
9
A spurious correlation arises when two factors (such as income and voting) appear to be
causally related but in fact are both caused by a third factor (education).
Although income may in some sense be an acceptable “explanation” – that is, knowing a
persons’ income would help us to predict his likelihood of voting – education is a superior
explanation. Education explains more of the variance we observe; if nothing else, it explains the
differences we observe in the likelihood of voting among people who have the same income.
Thanks to various studies, we now know the following things about who is more likely to
vote:
1. Income. We already discussed this. Greater income is associated with greater likelihood of
voting. BUT: the correlation is spurious, or noncausal.
2. Education. More educated people vote more than less educated people. Someone who has
completed grade school is about 8 percent more likely to vote someone who has not.
Someone who has completed high school is about 22 percent more like to vote than someone
who has not. The difference in the likelihood of voting for a college graduate and someone
with a graduate degree is not so great.
3. Age. The likelihood of voting is highest for people around 40 to 50 years old. It declines
on both sides of this peak: the very young and the very old are the least likely to vote.
4. Sex. When it comes to voting, men and women are similar until they reach 65 or so. After
that, men are less likely to vote. Maybe men are less healthy - less mobile and more senile.
5. Marriage. Married people are more likely to vote than single people.
6. Mobility. The more mobile the person, the less likely he is to vote. This makes sense:
someone who moves knows less than others about local office holders and issues and the
jurisdiction in which he lives and must register, and every time he moves he cancels his
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previous registration.
7. At first blush, race appears to have an effect on voting, but when one controls for such
other factors as education, its effect vanishes. A person’s race does not affect how likely he is
to vote.
8. Employment in the Public Sector. This makes quite a difference for voting. Public
employees are much more likely to vote than others, (83 vs. 65 percent). Maybe they know
more about public issues. Maybe they have a bigger stake in electoral outcomes. Or maybe
they more often get time off to vote.
Key points to remember: turnout (voting) is boosted by education, marriage, public
employment, and age, whereas race and income are spuriously correlated with voting.
Variations in Turnout
Turnout varies, not only among population groups, but over time and space. Turnout is: -  Lower since 1976. The onset of the decline in turnout coincides roughly with the time 18
year-olds were allowed to vote. (Test by looking at earlier expansions of the electorate.) It
also coincides with the peak of disillusionment owing to Vietnam and Watergate. (Test by
looking at earlier periods of turmoil.)
 Lower in the South (less than 50 percent). The South was traditionally a one- party region:
Democrats dominated elections. Incumbents were rarely challenged, so there was little
incentive to vote. Also, blacks were discouraged by such means as the poll tax and threats of
violence. Now the South is no longer a one – party region. Even so, turnout remains
relatively low, possibly out of habit. Also education has historically been greater in other
regions.
 Lower in Congressional (“Midterm”) elections. These take place in the middle of the
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President’s term, when national awareness is lower and issues are not so salient.
 Lower in the US than in Europe. US: 50-60 percent. Europe: 75-90 percent. Why the
difference between the U.S. and Europe? Some suggestions from students:
 Longer intervals between elections in Europe makes people more excited about voting.
 European countries usually have multiparty systems that make it easier for voters to find a
party they like.
 Europeans are more civic-minded, have a stronger sense of duty.
 European countries have had a shorter experience with democracy, so they value it more.
 European political systems are more social-democratic than ours: government provides a
strong “social” safety net for citizens and in general plays a far greater role in their lives.
Thus, Europeans have more at stake during elections.
 Europeans pay more taxes and thus have a greater incentive to monitor their government.
More professional explanations of low turnout in the US: - 1) Apathy
2) Hard to register. (Harder anyway than in Europe, where everyone is automatically
registered.)
3) Mobile voters. Compared to others, Americans move around a lot. Thus it is less likely that
they know or care much about local issues. Also residency requirements make registering in
new places a bit harder than in Europe.
4) Mobile districts. Every 10 years, and sometimes more often, congressional districts
change. To make matters worse, there are a great number of different kinds of districts
(county, local, school board, etc.) that cut across each other and are also changing over time.
It is confusing: you stand still while the electoral communities to which you belong keep
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moving.
5) Americans vote much more frequently and on many more issues and candidates. In the US,
within the course of four years a voter typically has an opportunity to vote in many elections
covering hundreds of issues and candidates. By comparison, Europe has few elections, and
typically each election is about one office. So comparing turnout per election is misleading. A
fairer test of turnout would compare European turnout with the percentage of US citizens who
vote at least once in 4 years. Such a test for the period 1972-76 reveals that the turnout in
Europe and the US is about the same: roughly 75 percent of eligible voters (and 95 percent of
registered voters). In other words, comparing U.S. and European turnout is like comparing the
food-consumption of cops and firemen in a town where firemen eat one or two big meals a
day (which they cook) while cops eat quite a few smaller meals (at doughnut shops): do we
compare average meal sizes or average daily consumption?
13
LECTURE NOTES
UCLA
PS 40
Department of Political Science
Introduction to American Politics
Fall 2013
Prof. Thomas Schwartz
HUNK 16 PARTY TIME
Now we ask: What do parties do? Why do they exist? What are the makeup and resources
of the two US parties? We begin with the first question.
What Parties Do

Parties are part of the legal apparatus of elections. Specifically, they are the legal vehicles
for nomination. This is done either in primary elections (now the usual practice) or
conventions (used in few states, but retained for presidential nominations). Of course,
California now has the top-two system, based on nonpartisan primaries. Unlike European
parties, US parties are decentralized, so that various party structures run the nomination
processes at different levels: local candidates are nominated solely by local party members.

Parties help recruit candidates and supporters.

Parties raise money for campaigns. (Until the 1970s, US parties were the main source of
campaign money.)

Parties organize the electorate. Parties gather information on the electorate and nag party
members and sympathizers in the electorate to vote for their candidate.

Parties provide their members and aspiring candidates training and help with campaigns.

Parties provide platforms. These are statements of a party’s position on different issues.
Compared with European ones, US party platforms are far less binding on party members
and candidates. US candidates feel less obliged to stay loyal to their party platforms. In the
US, parties cannot exercise much control over their candidates’ behavior.
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
Whipping. This refers to a party’s efforts in a legislature to coordinate information and
direct action among members.

In Congress, parties assign their share of members to committees, and the majority party
picks chairmen. That often happens in state legislatures, too.

The majority party pretty much controls the legislative agenda: nothing is voted on that the
majority party solidly opposes.
Party Structure
Electoral Level
Parties organize elections at different levels: national, state, county, congressional district,
other types of constituency (e.g. city council districts), and even voting precincts. At each level
there is a distinct party structure. Statewide party organizations have a lot of autonomy. In effect,
the structure of US parties is federal: there is a national party organization sitting atop a pyramid of
lower-level but mostly autonomous party units.
At each of these levels there is pretty much the same set of actors: chairmen, committees,
conventions (at national and state levels), and primary voters. (Depending on the state, voting in
party primaries may be open only to a party’s registered members.) The National Chairman is
appointed by the presidential nominee. The National Committee consists of a committee man and
committee woman from each state (and territory), chosen by state convention.
Legislative Level
At the legislative level parties have leaders, and caucuses.
We turn now to consider a couple analytical questions: Why parties, and why only two?
Why 2 Parties?
One explanation is that state law usually recognizes only a Democratic and a Republican
2
Party and gives them the right to hold publicly run and publicly financed primaries and conventions
and to nominate candidates. To claim similar privileges a new party must first run candidates and
secure a certain number of votes without enjoying those privileges: a high hurdle to jump. In effect,
then, we have two parties because that is what state law encourages. For the most part, in the US,
the law on the number of parties is very hard to change. Emerging parties are at a legal
disadvantage.
But: Why do we have these state laws, this system? Why not zero parties or three or four
parties? These questions seem even more appropriate if we remember that the Founders neither
encouraged nor expected the emergence of parties.
A popular explanation of why we have only 2 parties is Duverger’s Law. It says that the
combination of plurality rule and single-member districts (SMD) gives rise to a two-party system.
Plurality rule, or the “first past-the-post” rule, says the candidate with the most votes (not
necessarily a majority) wins. SMD means that only one person represents a district in a legislature.
The combination of plurality rule and SMD supposedly leads to a two-party system because small
parties have scant chance to get elected: acting strategically, voters are reluctant to waste their vote
on new small parties that have almost no chance of winning.
Although the most famous “law” in political science, DL is not a great hypothesis. It fails
to explain the cases of Canada and South Korea and, recently, Britain: each has Plurality Rule and
SMD but three or four major parties - - though usually only two strong parties battling it out in
each district. Reasonably enough: within any one district the number of major parties is not likely
to exceed 2, but it does not follow that this adds up to just two national parties. Nevertheless, DL is
pretty popular among political scientists.
Why Parties?
3
H1: Parties are voting coalitions, big logrolls.
We saw the meaning of logrolling in an earlier example on food stamps and agriculture
subsidies. Maybe parties are collections of people who in effect trade votes. One problem is that
voting coalitions are hard to maintain (remember the PD) and do not last long, but parties do last
long.
H2: Parties are long coalitions whose members roll the log for everything: they commit to
voting together on every issue.
Example: Suppose Messrs. 1, 2, 3 constitute a legislature considering three bills, a, b, and
c. The table below shows the effect of each bill on each legislator. The numbers may be thought of
as dollars or units of happiness.
Messrs. 1 and 2 would vote for a, 1 and 3 for b, and 2 and 3 for c. So each bill would pass.
But then, each legislator would net -1.
But if any two legislators formed a party, they would ensure that only the bill that makes
them both better off passed. For example, Messrs. 1 and 2 can join and ensure that only bill a
passes. This would leave them with 4 units of happiness each while Mr. 3 got -9. A party is a group
4
that tries to stick together on most votes.
US Parties Compared to European Parties:
Generally US parties are Looser.
1. US parties are federal. In the US, parties are highly decentralized. Each state has its own
party apparatus, officers, etc.
2. US parties have weak discipline. Their members do not always vote along party lines. This
is due in part to the lack of centralization. However, over the past decade or two, our 2
parties have acted in a more disciplined way than in times past.
3. US parties have weak responsibility. This simply means that US parties are less accountable
for their members’ actions in office. In the US (unlike Europe) party officials cannot say
who may and may not join their party. US parties nominate candidates, but once in office
those candidates often stray from the party line.
4. US parties have weak unifying ideologies. Often the most conservative Democrats take
positions close to the most liberal Republicans.
5. In the US, there are only two major parties. Not so in continental Europe or much of Latin
America.
Origins of US Parties
Throughout most of our history we have had two major parties, as follows:
“left”
“right”
Agrarian
Commercial
Populist
Elitist
Expansionist
Anti expansionist
Pro-slave
Antislave (or less pro-slave)
5
1790s Republicans (Jefferson)
Federalists(Hamilton)
(This is not the same as today’s
Republicans.) They organized politicians
and voters outside of Congress. They
wrote letters to state legislators
encouraging them to nominate candidates
as Republicans
1820
The base of their support was in
Congress itself, but to some degree
they emulated the opposition
Republicans.
The Federalists disappeared or were absorbed into an almost all-inclusive Republican
Party. This was the Era of Good Feeling. Also the Missouri Compromise of 1820 took
slavery out of party competition for a while. Then the old Republican Party split
nationally, and started to split locally.
1828
1836
“Democratic” Republicans (Jackson
"National” Republicans (Adams
and Van Buren)
and Clay)
Democrats
Whigs (National Republicans
renamed to reflect opposition to
the “monarchy” of Jackson)
1855-1860 Democrats split, North and South
Republicans formed from Northern
Whigs and some N.Dems
plus Minor parties (Free Soil and
Know Nothings)
1860s
Civil War
1880s
South solidly Democratic, promoting segregation and states’ rights.
1898
Republican realignment with election of McKinley. Republicans now a
majority.
1932
F.D. Roosevelt gathers minorities in a coalition, among them white southerners,
Catholics, more and more northern blacks, Jews, and blue- collar ethnics; Catholics had
long been Democrats. FDR makes famous deal with the South. The federal government
will not impose civil rights on the South but will give federal benefits to
blacks. This deal married some northern blacks and the segregated South in one
coalition.
Previously blacks were overwhelmingly Republican.
1960s-2000
Mostly divided government: Congress one party (mostly Democrat), President
6
the other (Republican).
1980s-1990s
South becomes a 2-party region, like the rest of the country. Polarization begins
to increase: less positional overlap between parties
US Parties Today
The following are very rough, very old tendencies:
Democrats
Republicans
liberal
conservative
blue collar
white collar
black
white
Catholic, Jewish
Protestant
East and South
West
Labor
Business
Pro-protection
Pro free trade
40% of population
30%
less educated
more educated
The word “old” is important. President Reagan made great inroads for the Republicans into
blue-collar and Catholic votes, and in your lifetime the once solidly Democratic South has become,
if anything, a Republican stronghold.
Strategies for Democrats: Try to recapture and win big among labor unions and Roman
Catholics. Try not to lose too badly in the South. (Traditionally, successful Democratic candidates
for President have had strong support from Catholics and in the South.)
Strategies for Republicans: Try to win big among white Southerners. Try to split the
7
support for Democrats among labor unions and Catholics.
Qualification: Since 2008, Democrats have made impressive inroads into young, Latino,
and female voters and various Asian groups. Will that hold up?
Besides “owning” different groups, Democrats and Republicans “own” different issues:
voters see them as stronger on different issues.
Note that issue ownership refers to issues, such as foreign policy or health care, not to
positions on issues, such as favoring an aggressive foreign policy or opposing compulsory health
insurance.
How can one measure issue ownership-- the extent to wish an issue belongs to the
Democrats or to the Republicans? One way is to look, within any issue area, at the difference
between the percent of the population who say Republicans are better at handling the issue and the
percent who say Democrats are better. A positive difference would suggest Republican ownership
while a negative number would suggest Democratic ownership of that issue. Also the greater the
number, the more secure the ownership.
Whether a party owns an issue does not necessarily depend on that party’s particular
position on that issue. Rather, issue ownership means having a reputation for being better at
handling an issue.
We examine five different issue areas and look at which party is perceived to own each
one.
1. The economy,
2. Social and welfare (including education, environment, health care, social security),
3. Foreign affairs and defense,
4. Social and moral issues,
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5. Crime and drugs.
Generally, Republicans are thought to be better than Democrats in managing the economy,
running foreign and defense matters, fighting crime and drugs, and promoting morality. They own
these issues. Democrats are thought to be better than Republicans at managing social and welfare
issues, including education, heathcare, and the environment.
When we ask different groups about who they think is better at what issue we find
remarkable agreement.
Northern white Protestants favor Republicans overall but say that Democrats are indeed
better in social and welfare policy.
Roman Catholics agree with others that Republicans are better than Democrats in foreign
and defense matters but say that Democrats are much better than Republicans in social and welfare
policy.
Similarly, white unionists agree that Republicans are better than Democrats in foreign and
defense matters but say that Democrats are much much better than Republicans in social and
welfare policy.
White Southerners (traditionally Democratic, now Republican) give Republicans
particularly high grades on most issues but admit that Democrats are better than Republicans in
social and welfare policy.
Jews generally give Republicans low grades on most issues, including the economy, but
even they generally agree that Republicans are a better (if not by much) than Democrats in
managing foreign and defense affairs.
Among blacks the perception that Republicans are better than Democrats in managing
foreign and defense policy is less widespread; nevertheless, they agree that Republicans are much
9
better than Democrats at fighting crime and drugs, and they rate Republicans better on foreign and
defense issues than on most other issues.
It is important to note that issue ownership refers to the public’s perceptions and not
necessarily to real differences in the two parties’ capabilities.
Issue ownership may help explain the fact that during the Cold War voters generally opted
for a Republican president and a Democratic Congress. The President, after all, is commander-inchief and chief diplomat, whereas Congress dictates social and welfare policy.
A consequence of issue ownership is that in campaigns each party tries to make salient the
issues that it owns. In other words, candidates emphasize the issues in which their party is thought
to excel. Even if a candidate has some very good ideas, it does not serve his interests to emphasize
an issue area that his party does not own. Emphasizing it makes it more salient, and that is likely to
help the other party.
Advice to candidate: If your party owns an issue, strive to make it salient, to get it in the
news and in debate with your opponent. If his party owns an issue, shut up about it (even if you
have some good ideas).
Ideologies
They are bundles of issue positions thought to go together, usually with a rationale. We
normally think that conservatives are against abortion, for gun rights, and against higher taxes. The
fact that we sometimes refer to liberal Republicans and conservative Democrats shows that
ideology is different from party.
Where does ideology come from? Three hypotheses:
a. Politicians/Parties
b. Intellectuals
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c. Interest Groups
H1: Politicians/Parties: Politicians create ideology to say where a party stands. They bundle
issues into an ideology to form winning coalitions. Danger: if circumstances change and it no
longer serves your interest to favor a particular issue position, you can look stupid or lacking in
integrity for changing your position.
H2: Intellectuals: They decide what issues go together by finding a common rationale. Politicians
and voters follow their reasoning.
H3: Interest Groups: Small groups who feel strongly, they shape ideology and parties. Example:
unions and blacks joined unionism and civil rights together as an ideology out of their group
interests. Interest groups bundle issues before politicians can.
Ideology matters, whatever its source, because it helps congeal preferences. A party almost forces
members to stick together on all issues. But one can easily be a liberal on one issue, a conservative
on another, and a moderate on yet a third, and some partisans are more liberal (or conservative)
than others. Even so, conservatives (or liberals) on one issue are more likely than average to be
pretty conservative (or liberal) on other issues.
11
LECTURE NOTES
UCLA
PS 40
Department of Political Science
Introduction to American Politics
Fall 2013
Prof. Thomas Schwartz
HUNK 17 THE FEDERAL ELECTION SYSTEM
Here we shall talk about the mechanics of how the President and Congress are elected.
Congressional elections.
The Senate has, as you know, two members from each state, elected for staggered six-year
terms. But state representation in the House is proportional to a state’s population. For example,
California, the largest state in population, has 53 representatives. House members - - Congressmen,
as they are officially known - - are elected for two-year terms. Every 10 years, after the national
census, representation in the House is evaluated and, if necessary, changed: the House is
reapportioned.
Election outcomes depend not only on voting but on three procedural (or institutional)
choices made by statute: - States pick the voting rule, including such things as whether or not there are party
primaries, how residents can register to vote, etc. Nomination is usually in party primaries,
although some states (e.g. Connecticut) have conventions and some (e.g. Louisiana and now
California) forego partisan nomination altogether. California’s new system is a hybrid, the Top 2
System: a primary nominates the 2 candidates with the most votes, regardless of party label, even if
one of the two has an out-and-out majority. This is a semi-partisan system: candidates can (and
normally would) have party labels, and the top two face off in a general election even if one of
them has received a majority of primary votes. By contrast, in a non-partisan California election,
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e.g. for mayor, there are no party labels, and a candidate receiving a majority at the first round of
voting immediately wins the election.
Congress picks the exact method of apportioning House seats among the states.
States decide their district maps – how they are to be divided into districts.
Elections in Each District
Usually party primaries take place to nominate the candidates, and then there is a general
election. Each district elects one representative: we have (as we say) single-member districts.
Usually the voting rule is Plurality Rule, or “first past the post”: the candidate with the most votes
(not necessarily a majority) wins. Some states in the South are exceptions: if no one gets more than
50 percent they hold runoff elections. That applies to party primaries as well as general elections.
The main alternative to the single member district (SMD) system is party-list proportional
representation, or List PR, which represents parties in proportion to their votes. Compared with
legislators in other countries, U.S. congressmen rely less on their party affiliations and more on
their personal records of service to their districts. In other words, in the US the vote for
representatives is often more a personal vote than a partisan vote.
Presidential Elections
The process by which the President and VP are elected is an arcane one, which many
Americans do not understand well.
Officially, the President and VP are not directly elected by the voters. Instead, voters vote
for presidential electors (members of the “electoral college”), who then vote for the President and
VP. Each state chooses (in any way it wishes) electors equal in number to the number of its House
seats plus two. Up until the 1820s electors were chosen mostly by state legislatures; now all are
chosen by popular vote. Every state but Main and Nebraska has adopted the winner-take-all rule:
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whichever presidential candidate (or slate of pledged electors) receives the most votes wins all of
that state’s electoral votes. For example, in California if the Democrats get 40 percent of the
popular vote, the Republicans 35 percent, the Tree Huggers 17, the Creationists 5, and the Flat
Earth Party 2, then the Democrats get all 55 of California’s electoral votes.
Although states are free to choose any rule, with two exceptions all have opted for the
winner-take-all rule, no doubt because this makes each state a greater prize for the candidates and
encourages candidates to promise it more - - though it also encourages candidates to ignore states
that already have a clear partisan majority (as the Democrats do in California).
Electors are pledged to vote for their party’s candidate. In each state each party picks its
own slate of electors at its state convention. For example, in California the Democratic and
Republican Parties each nominates 55 electors. Even though their names are not on the ballot, these
are the people for whom voters actually vote on election day. A vote for Obama (Romney) was
really a vote for the 55 Democratic (Republican) elector candidates who pledged, if elected, to vote
for Obama (Romney). Whichever candidate has the greatest number of votes, his party’s electors
are elected. They then cast their votes for him.
If there is a nation-wide majority among the electors for a candidate, then that candidate
wins. If, however, there is no majority, then the House elects the President (from among the top
three vote getters). Each state delegation casts one vote, so a candidate needs a majority of states to
win. This occurred once, in 1824. If there is no majority, then the Senate elects the VP from the top
two vote getters. This too occurred once, in 1836.
It is possible for a presidential candidate to get the most popular votes and still lose for want
of a majority of electoral votes. That happened in 1888, 2000, and probably 1960.
Our presidential-election system has three sources:
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The U.S. Constitution - - which creates the electoral-college system.
State law - - which says how electors are chosen, and, in particular, institutes both popular
voting for electors and the winner-take-all rule.
Party rules combined with state law - - These require nomination by national convention
and set up the primary (or caucus) system for choosing convention delegates pledged to particular
candidates. Nowadays primaries pretty much decide the outcome before the conventions, which are
mostly formalities.
What else affects outcomes? Money!
Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 (FECA)
FECA and later amendments and court decisions are the framework for the role of money.
The Federal Election Commission (created by FECA) polices money contributions in
Federal campaigns;
Individual limits:

$1000 to candidate

$2000 to party

$5000 to any political action committee, or PAC

no limit on candidate giving to self

no limit on “unaffiliated” groups (now including corporations and unions)
supporting a candidate if they are independent: they cannot coordinate with the
candidate’s own organization. To be tax-exempt they cannot focus their budgets too
narrowly on campaigns.
Who benefits most from money? Incumbents. They can most easily create PACs and shake
down big donors.
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Possible Problems of US Electoral System
1) Money plays a big role. This is true but its negative effects are almost certainly
exaggerated. Over time, contribution limits have mostly helped incumbents of both parties.
2) Gerrymandering. This is the practice of drawing district lines to help the incumbent party
maintain or increase its power. In most states (CA is now an exception) the party that controls the
state legislature can draw lines so that the supporters of the other party are packed into one or few
districts. They end up controlling those districts but waste a lot of votes in the process. Consider the
following example.
Suppose there are three districts in which Democrats (D) and Republicans (R) are
distributed as follows:
The Republicans end up with only one representative, and the Democrats with two, even though
overall the Republicans are a majority (5 to 4). One problem here is that the three districts are not
equal in population. We know that Wesbury v. Sanders requires Congressional districts to be equal
in population. But the next example shows that gerrymandering may be a problem even when
districts are equal in population.
Suppose the three districts are the three columns in the following “map”:
R
R
D
R
D
R
R
D
D
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They elect:
R
D
D
Districts are now equal in population, but we have the same problem as we had before:
Republicans are more numerous but Democrats win a majority of seats. However, if we redivide
our little map into three rows, Republicans win a majority of seats. Either way, party success
depends in part on the district map.
3) Plurality Rule. Electing to office the candidate with the most votes, regardless of whether
he has a majority of votes, may lead to anti-majoritarian outcomes. To illustrate, suppose three
minority groups, Liberals (the largest of the three), Moderates (the second largest), and
Conservatives (the smallest), have the following preferences:
Liberals
Moderates
Conservatives
Libby
Maude
Connie
Maude
Libby, Connnie
Maude
Connie
Libby
Given these preferences (and sincere voting) Plurality Rule picks Libby. But a coalition of
Conservatives and Moderates – a majority – prefers Maude to Libby. Also a coalition of Liberals
and Moderates – another majority – prefers Maude to Connie. Thus, Maude is preferred by
majorities to the two other candidates. Maude is said to be the Condorcet winner: she beats all the
others in pair-wise contests. Plurality rule does not guarantee that a Condorcet winner would win
the election.
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Let us see if a runoff (or double-vote) election system, requiring the winning candidate to
secure a majority’s support, solves the problem. Suppose that the Moderates are the second biggest
group. Then a runoff between Libby and Maude is required, and Maude wins that runoff. So it
appears that a runoff system fixes the problem.
But that is not guaranteed. If the Conservatives were the second-largest group, then the
runoff election would be between Libby and Connie. Although we cannot tell who would win, we
know that it would not be Maude, the Condorcet winner. So the problem still is not fixed.
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LECTURE NOTES
UCLA
PS 40
Department of Political Science
Introduction to American Politics
Fall 2013
Prof. Thomas Schwartz
PAPER THIS WEEK DISCUSSION SECTION
HUNK 18 How to Predict and Explain Presidential Elections
Much of today’s discussion applies to elections of all sorts, but we shall focus on
presidential elections.
The ideas of prediction and explanation are intimately related. A good explanation is a
retrospective prediction; a good prediction is a prospective explanation. It is hard to predict
something without understanding the process driving it—the very thing we expect of a good
explanation.
We will consider five models that predict the outcomes of presidential elections. A model is
a simplification of reality, or of the processes, mechanisms, and motivations underlying reality. It is
an hypothesis that often oversimplifies things in order to get at the heart of how something works.
1. Personal Characteristics of the Candidates. Ideally one could look at the personal
characteristics of candidates to predict electoral advantages. No one has really been able to do this
particularly well. Still it is important. At an impressionistic level it is obvious that voters who are
not especially tied to a party look for an effective leader and problem solver, and for that they seek
charisma and a record of success. It is not surprising that the modal prior job of our presidents has
been governor—in a way the most similar job. Not counting vice presidents who succeeded on the
death or resignation of a president, other presidents have mostly been generals and (in the early
days) cabinet officers. Only four successful presidential candidates have lacked any executive
experience, and three of them--Lincoln, Kennedy, and Obama- -were famously charismatic. At any
1
rate, this model portrays voters (or a notable number of them) as personnel (or "human resource")
managers who are more pragmatic than ideological in their measures of candidate competence.
2. Party-Relative Advantages. Different parties enjoy different groups’ support and “own”
different issues. Because voters use candidates’ party labels as informational cues about what to
expect from them while in office, one can use the electorate’s party composition as a way of
predicting election outcomes.
3. Economy (retrospective voting)
4. Ideology (one-dimensional or median-voter model)
5. Electoral College Arithmetic
We skip #1 and go straight to model #2.
2. Party
Traditional group assets support the following advice:
Democrats: Win big among labor unions and Catholics-- two of your very biggest
traditional support groups, which have been drifting away as of late. Try not to lose
too badly in the South -- once your very biggest support group.
Republicans: Win big among white Southerners and in the West (your traditional
region of strength). Try to split Catholic and union vote.
In general, parties must retain the groups they traditionally “own” and try to make inroads
into the other party’s supporters. Warning: Simple categories are too simple, and they change over
time. Once virtually 100 percent Republican, blacks are now overwhelmingly Democratic. Among
Latinos, Puerto Ricans tend to vote Democrat while Cubans consistently vote Republican. Among
East Asians (the current liberal neologism “Asian” for people of the Mongoloid race evinces
2
ignorance of geography), the Chinese were traditionally Republican, the Japanese Democratic. No
more -- though the Vietnamese are heavily Republican.
The issue assets reviewed earlier are these: -Democrats “own” social and welfare issues, e.g. health care, education, the
environment.
Republicans “own” foreign and defense issues, morality, and crime.
Generally, a party will do well when the issues it owns are the most salient issues of the day
and it is able to hold on to its traditional supporters’ support.
Far more important than the above models are the next two:
3. Economy. (Retrospective Voting)
The rough idea is that the current state of the economy affects the approval rating of the
President and the victory or defeat of the incumbent White House Party. Voters look back at
economic performance under the President to form their opinions of him and, if he is not running
for reelection, of his party’s candidate.
Gallup finds that presidential popularity moves with economic performance (however
measured). When the economy is doing well, the President’s approval rating goes up, and when the
economy is doing poorly, the President’s approval rating goes down. For example, in 1980 and
1984 Reagan enjoyed high approval ratings; but between those years the economy were in a deep
recession and his approval ratings tanked. When the economy began to recover in 1984, his
popularity soared in time for his reelection. Obama started off the same way. Did he end up in a
similar position?
Presidents understand this connection well and hope to have recessions, if one is
unavoidable, early in their terms so that they are over before the next election rolls around.
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Let “+” signify no abnormal inflation or unemployment and “-” signify the presence of
abnormal inflation or unemployment. So “+” signifies good economic performance while “-”
signifies poor economic performance. The table below gives us some indication of the connection
between economic performance and incumbent-party success. (The “?” signifies borderline cases.)
Presidential
Election
4-Year
Economy
Incumbent Party
Win or Lose?
9-Month
Economy
1960
-
lose
+?
1964
+
win
+
1968
+
lose
-
1972
-
win
+
1974
-
lose
-
1976
-
lose
-
1980
-
lose
-
1984
-
win
+
1988
+
win
+
1992
+?
lose
-
1996
+
win
+
2000
+
lose
+
2004
+
win
+
2008
+
lose
-
2012
-
win
-(?)
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Note that the table reports the correlation between economic performance and incumbent
party success, not incumbent candidate success. So although Reagan could not run for reelection in
’88, Bush the Elder’s victory that year is still treated as win for the incumbent party.
The table shows that the connection between economic performance during a president’s
four-year term and his party’s electoral success is weak. There is no uniform pattern. However,
when we look at the connection between economic performance during the 9 months prior to the
election and the incumbent party’s success, we see a strong relationship. The state of the economy
in the 9 months leading up to an election explains (or predicts) all the election outcomes for the
years considered here except 1960 and 2000. But in those two years the popular and electoral votes
were both very close— virtual ties—and the incumbent party actually won the most popular votes
in 2000 and probably in 1960 (when both parties were defeated by an insurgent “Democratic” slate
in Alabama, half of whose electors were persuaded by LBJ, after the election, to cast their votes for
Kennedy, to whom careless textbook writers credit them). So the state of the economy during the
half year or so before the election does a remarkably good job predicting the popular vote. If we go
back before WWII, the only clear exception is 1936, when FDR was reelected at the height (or
depth?) of the Great Depression.
It is as if voters are voting in a referendum on the current direction (not the state) of the
economy. The Retrospective Economic Voting Model says that is exactly how people vote.
How could this be true when so many voters are concerned about so much more?
The answer is that there may be a pivotal or swing group of voters (a few million) who are
voting as if in a referendum on the direction of the economy. Probably most voters stick with their
long-standing party preferences. The swing voters can magnify their efficacy.
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Do people vote on the basis of their personal economic well-being, or on that of the
economy as a whole? In other words, do people vote their pocketbooks? We don’t quite know the
answer to this question.
Because the economy plays such a big role in influencing election outcomes, is there
anything that an incumbent can do? Can an incumbent president who is presiding over a weak
economy get himself reelected? Can a challenger unseat a president who is presiding over a strong
economy? The evidence presented in the table above suggests there is not much that can be done.
Romney may have campaigned poorly compared with Obama, but the weak economy was (slowly)
recovering.
Puzzle: In 1992 both the US and Britain were in an economic recession. In the US, the
incumbent, Bush the Elder, lost, while in Britain the incumbent, Conservative Prime Minister John
Major, won, if not by much. How do we explain this? Why are US voters more likely than their
British counterparts to vote on the economy? One answer may be that in the US, because of the
separation of powers and the fragmented nature of government, the President cannot dictate policy
and voters know that. Because there are so many actors on the stage, it is hard for voters to judge
policy or attribute responsibility. But in Britain the PM has the power and responsibility
(accountability) virtually to dictate policy. So British voters can more easily vote on policy while
Americans must fall back on retrospective referendum voting - - on following the simple norm of
cheering or booing the way things are.
In 1994 House Speaker Newt Gingrich ran like a PM. He drew up a “Contract with
America” in which, much like a PM, he outlined the policies which he was committed to
implementing. He made the election a referendum on those policies. The Republicans captured
Congress for the first time since the 1920s.
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If US presidents were to run for office as PMs do in Britain, they would put together a
package of policies that they would promise to implement if elected and make the election a
referendum on those policies rather than the state of the economy. FDR did this, but it hasn’t been
done much since then because Republican presidents and presidential candidates have been able to
use their reputation as good foreign policy managers and Cold Warriors to win office. They have
not had to make the kinds of extensive commitments to the voters that a PM has to make. “Nine
Eleven” may have reinforced that pattern. But as the war on terrorism fades into history,
presidential candidates may start to run like PMs. Such a trend would bring with it greater partisan
behavior and greater accountability. The President would need greater party discipline to deliver on
his promises and would assume greater responsibility in the eyes of voters for carrying out his
proposed program. The partisan polarization we see and flap our jaws about today may be a step in
the direction of more responsible government.
4. Ideology. (One-Dimensional or Median Voter Model)
According to this model, every voter has a favorite point on the liberal-conservative
continuum and votes for the candidate closest to that point.
In a two-party or two-candidate election under majority rule, the two parties would race to
match the policy preferences of the median voter. That is to say, they would try to align their
policies with the preferences of the voter whose place on the one-dimensional spectrum is such that
no more than a half of the voters are on either side of him. Suppose candidate Libby is closer to
the median voter than candidate Conny:
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Then Libby is closer to a majority - - to the median plus those on the right. So they would vote for
Libby unless Conny moved closer. The result: a race to the center - - the median voter’s position.
Consequence: Each candidate tries to get closer to the median than the other candidate.
The median tends to be “fair’ in the sense that it is preferred to every other policy by a
majority. No majority has a favorite spot on either side of the median. The median is a Condorcet
winner.
Lessons for Candidates:
1) Mobility: move toward the median. (Clinton did this after 1994, and to some extent so
did Obama this year.)
Problems:

Conscience: The candidate may not want to change his positions.

Commitment: The candidate may have won his party’s primary by committing
himself to certain policy positions, and he cannot drop them at general-election time.

Credibility: The candidate may not want to harm his reputation for keeping his word
and sticking to his principles by appearing fickle.
2) Persuasion: Pull the median towards you: get voters to change their minds.
3) Sling mud: Push your opponent away from the median.
All this tells you:
1) Candidates will tend to end up close together.
2) Candidates who cannot or will not move (like Barry Goldwater in 1964) will probably
lose.
3) US parties move together.
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The result is an appearance of no real competition: candidates take similar positions, near the
median voter. But remember: it was competition that made them race to the median.
What if there were three Candidates?
The Ideological or Median Voter Model works well for two candidates, but not for three.
A third-party candidate on the left hurts Democrats, as Ralph Nader hurt Al Gore in 2000.
One on the right hurts Republicans, as Ross Perot hurt George H. W. Bush in 1992. Even so, a
clever enough candidate can exploit the one-dimensional structure by breaking my simple “rules,”
remaining immobile, and luring a third candidate into the race. In the 1858 Illinois Senate race,
Lincoln (Republican) exposed Douglas (Democrat) to be more anti-slavery than he had admitted by
asking him repeatedly during their still-famous debates whether Western settlers could somehow
ban slavery despite Dred Scott. Yes, Douglas conceded, in effect moving leftward. That infuriated
the South, which split the Democratic party in 1860 by nominating John C. Breckenridge for
President, in opposition to Lincoln and Douglas. That split, so cleverly engineered by Lincoln,
made Lincoln the victor.
5. Electoral College Arithmetic. There were (and probably will be in 2016) ten battleground
(or swing) states (some would exclude 2 and 6):
1. Florida (29)
2. Pennsylvania (20)
3. Ohio (18)
4. Virginia (13)
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5. Colorado (9)
6. North Carolina (15)
7. Wisconsin (10)
8. Iowa (6)
9. Nevada (6)
10. New Hampshire (4)
They yield 130 electoral votes. The rest were solidly of one party, giving Romney 191 votes and
Obama 217. Thus Romney needed 78 of those contested votes, Obama only 52. Better yet for
Obama: all 10 of those states voted for him in 2008.
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