American Government
U.S. Congressional Elections &
Participation
Congressional Elections
• Elections for the U.S. Congress in particular may be as
competitive and nearly as important as the presidential
campaign.
• The congressional elections are important because of the
central role the Congress plays in making policy. Unlike a
parliamentary system, the American system is one of separate
powers between Congress and the president. All laws are
written in and must be passed by the Congress.
• Also as opposed to parliamentary systems, party discipline is
often less strictly observed. Members of Congress are free to
vote on policies as they think best, including what they think
best for winning their own reelection.
• As a result, congressional leaders must put together a winning
coalition one member at a time, rather than count on unified
support from highly disciplined parties, thus making every
congressional victory or defeat important for both parties.
Congress & Bicameralism
• In government, bicameralism (bi + Latin
camera, chamber) is the practice of having
two legislative or parliamentary chambers.
• Thus, a bicameral parliament or bicameral
legislature is a legislature which consists of
two chambers or houses.
• Bicameralism is an essential and defining
feature of the classical notion of mixed
government. Bicameral legislatures tend to
require a concurrent majority to pass
legislation.
Bicameralism & the Founders
• Great Britain had bicameralism to represent
the classes. The Founding Fathers of the
United States eschewed any notion of
separate representation for aristocracy, but
they accepted the prevailing disposition
towards bicameralism.
• As part of the Great Compromise between
large states and small states, they chose to
represent by region rather than class.
Divided Government Merits
• Some political scientists believe that
bicameralism makes meaningful political
reforms more difficult to achieve and
increases the risk of deadlock (particularly in
cases where both chambers have similar
powers).
• Others argue strongly for the merits of the
'checks and balances' provided by the
bicameral model, which they believe helps
prevent the passage into law of illconsidered legislation.
Divided Government in Practice
• Having separate and independent elections
for every office means that it is possible for
one party to control the Congress while a
member of the other party is president.
• This so-called divided government has
become very common. Different parties have
controlled the House and the presidency for
16 of the last 24 years.
• The Republicans have held the majority in
the House since 1994. They also controlled
the Senate from 1994 until 2000, the last six
of Democratic President Bill Clinton's eightyear administration.
U.S. Congressional Elections:
Nuts & Bolts
• The House and the Senate have nearly equal
powers, but their means of election are quite
different. The Founders of the American Republic
intended members of the House to be close to the
public, reflecting its wishes and ambitions most
faithfully in legislating.
• Therefore, the Founders designed the House to be
relatively large and to have frequent (two-year)
elections. Originally, a two-year term was
considered by some to be too long.
• Today, it is more common to be concerned that
frequent election means that incumbents are always
running for reelection and therefore seldom consider
what is best for the nation, only what is best for
their electoral fortunes.
U.S. & FPTP “First Past the Post”
• Section II of Article 1 of the Constitution states "The
House of Representatives shall be composed of
Members chosen every second year by the People of
the several States.... Representatives...shall be
apportioned among the several States which may
be included within this Union, according to their
respective Numbers."
• The Constitution did not, however, specify the
manner in which representatives are to be
apportioned -- only that there be a certain number
of representatives from each state. The framers of
the early government of the United States also did
not prescribe the means of electing representatives.
SMDs & Congress
• This arrangement changed with an
apportionment act in 1842 (5 Stat. 491).
This act set the House membership at 223
members and contained a requirement for
single-member districts.
• It stated that representatives "should be
elected by districts composed of contiguous
territory equal in number to the number of
representatives to which said state may be
entitled, no one district electing more than
one representative."
• Thus single-member districts were officially
instituted by Congress.
SMD Advantages
• provide voters with strong constituency
representation because each voter has a single,
easily identifiable, district representative
• encourage constituency service by providing voters
with an easily identifiable "ombudsman"
• maximize accountability because a single
representative can be held responsible and can be
re-elected or defeated in the next election
• ensure geographic representation.
Democracy in the World: PR Systems
• Proportional representation, also known as
full representation, is an electoral system in
which the overall votes are reflected in the
overall outcome of the body or bodies of
representatives
• Proportional representation involves a close
match between the percentage of votes that
political parties receive and the number of
seats they obtain in legislative assemblies.
Proportional Voting: Votes & Seats
TABLE 1: A 100 SEAT LEGISLATURE ELECTION
PARTY
% OF VOTE
IN ELECTION
# OF SEATS
IN GOV’T
Liberals
22%
22 seats
Conservatives
25%
25 seats
Green
18%
18 seats
Communists
05%
05 seats
Fascists
10%
10 seats
Christians
10%
10 seats
Socialists
10%
10 seats
Italian Elections – Proportional Voting
Senate & House Elections
• Each House seat represents a geographic constituency, and
every member is elected from a unique, or "single-member,"
district by plurality rule; that is, the candidate with most votes
wins election.
• Each of the 50 states is assured of at least one seat in the
House, with the rest allocated to the states by population.
Alaska, for example, has a very small population and therefore
holds only one seat in the House. California is the largest state
and currently holds 53 seats.
• The Senate was designed to represent the states and, in fact,
senators were originally selected by state legislatures. It was
not until passage of the Seventeenth Amendment to the
Constitution in 1913 that senators were directly elected by
their state's voters.
• Every state has two senators elected for six-year terms, with
one-third of the Senate seats up for reelection every two
years. In effect, then, senators are chosen by plurality vote of
the electorate, with a state serving as a single-member district
Two Party System
• Elections that are decided by plurality rule,
especially from single-member districts, are
very likely to result in a system with exactly
two major political parties.
• This is so because any third-party candidate
has very little chance of winning.
• Voters prefer to avoid "wasting" their votes
on what they consider to be hopeless
campaigns, and candidates who want to win
election therefore avoid affiliation with any
hopeless party.
Duverger’s Law
• Duverger's Law is a principle which asserts that a
first-past-the-post election system naturally leads to
a two-party system.
• The discovery of this principle is attributed to
Maurice Duverger, a French sociologist who
observed the effect and recorded it in several
papers published in the 1950s and 1960s. In the
course of further research, other political scientists
began calling the effect a “law”.
• It is important to realize Duverger's law suggests a
nexus between a party system and an electoral
system - with a proportional representation (PR)
system creating the electoral conditions necessary
to foster party development and a FPTP system
marginalizing many smaller - single issue - political
parties.
Congressional Elections Votes / Seats 2004
Partied
Seats
1
2002
2004
+/-
Strength
Vote
%
Change
Republican Party
229
232
+3
53.3%
55,713,412
49.2%
-0.4%
Democratic Party
204
202
-3
46.4%
52,745,121
46.6%
+1.6%
Independent
1
1
0
0.2%
674,202
0.6%
+0.1%
Libertarian Party
-
-
-
-
1,040,465
0.9%
-0.5%
Green Party
-
-
-
-
331,298
0.3%
-0.1%
Independence Party
-
-
-
-
246,070
0.2%
0.0%
Working Families Party
-
-
-
-
145,979
0.1%
N/A
Constitution Party
-
-
-
-
132,613
0.1%
0.0%
Reform Party
-
-
-
-
85,539
0.1%
+0.1%
Other parties
-
-
-
-
2,063,606
1.8%
-0.8%
Total
435
435
Source: Election Statistics - Office of the Clerk
1
Popular Vote
Vacancy due to death of Patsy Mink (D-Hawaii.
0
100.0%
113,192,286
100.0%
–
SMD Representation Bias: Solutions?
• Multi-member Separate Voting districting versus
single member districts
• Multi-member Separate Voting – More is better?
• All candidates run in one big district, each voter votes in
each race
• Example: City with 4 At Large City Council seats: Vote for
4 seats (with candidates running for an individual seat
rather than any of the seats)
• Ex 1 (SMD). Candidate A runs for Seat 1 while Candidate C
runs for Seat 2 and you vote for each separately
• Ex 2 (MMSD). Vote for Candidate A on Seat 1 and vote for
Candidate C on Seat 2 where each candidate gets a
plurality vote.
• Assume 60% D and 40% R and these voters all vote
straight party district. What will happen:
Elections with Multi-Member Separate Voting
TABLE 1: MMSV in Columbia City Council Election
SEAT 1
D CANDIDATE 60%
R CANDIDATE 40%
SEAT 2
D CANDIDATE 60%
R CANDIDATE 40%
SEAT 3
D CANDIDATE 60%
R CANDIDATE 40%
SEAT 4
D CANDIDATE 60%
R CANDIDATE 40%
More isn’t Necessarily Better
• Multi-member districts have the same
bias that single member districts do.
• The Democrats win every seat. Multimember Separate Voting tends to
favor the majority dramatically.
Possible Future: MMCV
Multi-Member Cumulative Voting
• As a cure to the under-representation of various
groups in the American system, other kinds of
electoral systems are available.
• MMCV is a variant of proportional voting.
• Recall the example of the 4 City Council Seats
• One open race for all the seats, where any number of
people can run
• Voters may cast a total of Four Votes
• NEW: Votes can be distributed however the voter wishes to
(you can give all 4 votes to 1 candidate, divide it out
among two candidates equally, 1 vote for four different
candidates, etc.)
• The Top Four Vote Getters Win.
TABLE 2: POSSIBLE VOTE STRATEGIES UNDER MMCV
Election Candidates
Strategy 1
Strategy 2
Strategy 3
Strategy 4
Candidate A
4 votes
2 votes
1 votes
3 votes
Candidate B
0 votes
0 votes
1 votes
0 votes
Candidate C
0 votes
2 votes
1 votes
1 votes
Candidate D
0 votes
0 votes
1 votes
0 votes
Candidate E
0 votes
0 votes
0 votes
0 votes
CUMULATIVE
4
4
4
4
MMCV: Diversity
• Result? More diversity in terms of who gets elected.
Highly motivated groups can strategically vote to
get representation (they can mass all 4 votes of
each voter with one candidate thus, despite the fact
they don’t have a majority in the district, they are
able to get a representative).
• This isn’t just theory: Alabama Chilton County has
MMCV.
• 40% Black 60% White, 55% D 45% R
• The Chilton County Commission was under SMD
• The result then was all 5 commissioners were white and
Democrats.
• They went to MMCV
• They now have a black member and two Republicans.
Voting in Perspective
• Why is this important? The Courts may be
considering forcing MMCV in place of SMD.
• Side-effects: increases the costs of voting (the
task of voting is much more difficult).
• With Congress, district elections would be statewide (this is a much more complicated election
system) and that presents Constitutional
problems.
• Local issues would necessarily take a blow in
favor of state-wide issues (since congressman
would be elected state-wide rather than locally)
Factors in Congressional Elections
• Throughout most of U.S. history, congressional elections were
"party centered." Because most voters had long-term loyalties
toward one political party or the other, they tended to cast
their votes along party lines.
• Members of Congress were often reelected, sometimes holding
their position for decades, because a majority of their
constituents supported their party. Their efforts as individual
incumbents often only marginally added to or subtracted from
their support.
• This is REGULAR PARTY VOTING.
• In more recent years, candidates' personalities and issues
have emerged as forces that add to the impact of party
loyalties.
• Elections have become: CANDIDATE-CENTERED
The Incumbency Advantage
• Candidate-centered voting is a major advantage to
incumbent members of Congress.
• Incumbents, in general, receive far more exposure on
television and in newspapers than those challenging
them.
• With greater media exposure and substantial influence
over public policy, incumbents are also able to raise far
greater sums of money with which to campaign.
• For these reasons and more, incumbents who run for
reelection are very likely to win.
• In 2002, 398 House members ran for reelection, and
only 16 were defeated, while a mere three out of 26
senators running for reelection lost. With a reelection
rate of 88 percent for the Senate and 96 percent for the
House, it is fair to say that congressional elections are
not just candidate centered but incumbent centered as
well.
Incumbency
• Incumbency advantages involves the ability
of congressman to make themselves popular
with the voters in their district. Thus they
can insulate themselves from regular party
voting.
• Regular party voting is voting your
partisan identification.
• A congressman that makes himself
personally popular doesn’t have to worry
about the ebb and flow of popularity for
Democrats or Republicans as a whole.
• Thus they can insulate themselves from
challengers.
Assessing the Incumbency Advantage
• Most incumbents who run for reelection get reelected. Since WWII,
92% of incumbents who ran for
reelection got reelected.
• The incumbency advantage can be a
bit overstated, though.
• a. Not much competition.
• b. Incumbents who are vulnerable don’t
have to run for reelection. The vulnerable
incumbent can (and often do) retire. Thus
they self-select out of reelection.
Causes of Incumbency Advantage
• Experience – an incumbent by definition is experienced. He or she
has already won at least one election. They have an inkling on what
to do to get elected.
• Franking – congressional privilege that allows congresspersons to
send out mail to their constituents FOR FREE. It’s in the Constitution.
Challengers don’t get to send out free mail to the district or state.
• Free Media – local media like covering congressman. Furthermore,
they can go on national TV shows, they have an office in Washington
that can create media releases.
• Pork – congressman bring federal spending into their local areas to
benefit the district (which thus increases goodwill in the district for
you). Naturally challengers can’t do this.
• Casework – when individual constituents have a problem and call
their congressman. It’s an easy, non-controversial way of making
voters happy. People helped (no matter what party) will be more
likely to vote for him and they will tell their friends. A large proportion
of their staff is dedicated to doing casework.
• Campaign finance – the ability to raise money. They have a big
advantage over challengers because they are already in congress with
a vote over legislation and thus interest groups will attempt to
influence them (whatever their party).
CONTRIBUTIONS TO INCUMBENT AND CHALLENGER
CANDIDATES TO THE U.S. HOUSE FROM PACs
1983-2000
Ultimate Cause of I.A.
• Bottom Line Cause: Scaring away quality challengers.
• The average challenger is not necessarily (not even likely
to be) the best candidate available in the district.
• Why are there no quality challengers?
• Because incumbents are very good at making
themselves look invulnerable – thus true and quality
challengers don’t run loosing campaigns (they will run
somewhere else). It is no coincidence that when an
incumbent retires or dies that a number of individuals
(quality) run for the office.
• Sometimes a quality challenger does come out of the
woodworks and runs…and the incumbent does much
worse (he may even loose). Ex. Richard Hardy, 1992.
Districts & Redistricting
• As mentioned earlier, House members
run in ‘districts.’ These districts have
their geographical boundaries set,
generally, every 10 years by the state
legislature and based on the decennial
census.
• Single Member Districts (SMDs) are
districts where only one representative
will ‘win’ election and represent that
district.
Redistricting
• Redistricting: the process of redrawing
district lines.
• Politics of Redistricting - Gerrymandering:
Drawing district lines to advantage a
particular group and/or disadvantage a
particular group.
• There are 2 kinds of gerrymandering:
• 1. Packing – place all the members of the other
party into one district.
• 2. Dilution – spread out the members of the
other party so that they don’t have enough votes
to win any district, though they have a block of
voters in each district.
Gerrymandered District
Gerrymandering: Urban vs. Rural
• The folks in the rural districts wanted to ‘disadvantage’ the
urban districts (the rural leadership controlled the state
legislatures).
• This was accomplished by having one really BIG district (in
terms of population) with all the urban voters ‘packed’ into it
while the rest of the state consisted of numerous equal size
(geographically) but smaller (population) rural districts.
• In the 1960’s, the Supreme Court decided this sort of district
packing was held to be illegal. The Key Case was: Baker v.
Carr.
• Baker v. Carr: established the principle of one man, one vote.
Equal voting power should be distributed across a population
equally.
• SC explicitly made an exception for the United States Senate.
Hypothetical ‘Packed’ District
FIGURE 1: PACKING A DISTRICT
500K
500K
1MIL
500K
500K
Gerrymandering: Party vs. Racial
• Party vs. Minority Discrimination
• Gerrymandering for the purposes of ‘party’ is legal.
• Gerrymandering for the purposes of ‘racial’ discrimination is
illegal.
• The distinction: racial characteristics are easily
identified…while party is hard to define and not a
necessarily reliable distinction.
• Gerrymandering IV: Affirmative Action
• Blacks are ‘represented’ in Congress disproportionate to
their numbers in the population.
• In the early 1990’s a new Voting Rights Act was passed that
allowed gerrymandering for the purpose of affirmative
action.
Hypothetical Majority-Minority District
FIGURE 1: MAJORITY-MINORITY DISTRICTS
10% BLK
5% BLK
70% BLK
5% BLK
10% BLK
Majority-Minority Districts
• The result was gerrymandering to create Majority-Minority
Districts. It was ‘effective’ in that blacks were being elected to
Congress.
• Congressman sued for loosing their seats on the basis of racial
gerrymandering.
• The Supreme Court decided that race cannot be a predominant
factor in drawing district lines in a 1993 Supreme Court
decision (Shaw v. Reno). They determined that creation of a
"majority-minority" district solely for racial reasons was
unconstitutional.
• Gerrymandering cannot be explicitly about race. Those
districts were held unconstitutional, though Majority-Minority
districts were not held unconstitutional.
• Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, joined by the court's
conservatives [in the 1993 opinion], wrote for the majority
that the oddly shaped district embodied unfounded
assumptions about how blacks and whites vote, and that racial
gerrymandering threatened to "balkanize" the country."
Racially Gerrymandered District 1992
Supreme Court & Racial Redistricting
• The Court returns to the issue in 2000 (Miller v. Johnson): by a
5 to 4 vote, the justices upheld a congressional district
challenged because of its heavy minority voting population.
• It rejected a claim that the state legislature violated the
constitutional prohibition against racial discrimination when it
shifted heavily black precincts into the 12th Congressional
District.
• Supreme Court ruling sets a precedent allowing states to
create "majority minority" voting districts as long as the
redistricting criteria are primarily concerned with factors such
as voting behavior. Since blacks and Hispanics vote heavily
Democratic, then in a district with a large number of
Democrats a high proportion of them could well be racial
minorities.
• Supreme Court Stephen G. Breyer's opinion: "The evidence
taken together . . . does not show that racial considerations
predominated in the drawing of District 12's boundaries. That
is because race closely correlates with political behavior" in
North Carolina. Blacks in this state traditionally vote 90%
Democratic.
Racially Gerrymandered District 1998
Racial Gerrymandering Reconsidered
Some points to consider…
• It didn’t always work.
• The argument can be made that affirmative action
gerrymandering helped the Republicans. It had a
‘whitening’ effect on other districts.
• This was racial ‘packing’ in that you were throwing
all these solid Democrats into one district. Some in
fact argue that the 94’ revolution might, in part, be
the result of this.
• This raises questions about Representation: are
you ‘better off’ having someone who looks like you
represent you.