Impactos de la representación turística y conclusiones

Evidence from this experiment suggests that parties do influence legislative behavior. While the differences in party influence between the partisan 37th Session and the non-partisan 39th Session are modest, they persist across all five assessments of party influence presented above. Upon further examination of non-partisanship in Minnesota, I suspect that research, in at least two respects, will indicate even stronger evidence of the absence of party organization. First, moving forward in time replicate analyses will demonstrate stronger results. Due to the power inherent in the ability to select which candidates initially run for a given seat via the nominations process, it could take more than one session for the full effect of abolishing parties to take hold. As incumbents initially elected under the partisan regime turnover to legislators elected under the non-partisan system, one might expect to observe less vote predictability. As a result, extending the data set forward in time to cover successive legislative sessions may well reveal the full effects of non- partisanship in historically party-dominated political processes. Second, research examining the partisan composition of committees would bolster the experimental evidence presented here. Party organizations within legislatures often stack standing committees with majority party members in order to better control the legislative process. With partisan chamber caucuses disallowed from organizing legislators, one expects to observe less stacking by chamber leaders. In particular, the ability to assign committee members will become a more important tool for leaders who have fewer traditional partisan tools such as nomination control. By leveraging the surprise nature of the removal of parties from the political process in Minnesota in 1913, this research demonstrates that party organizations rely on their “brand name,” chamber caucus procedures, and power over the nominations process to discipline their members. The evidenced discussed above suggests that, all else equal, the presence of parties in the political process structures how elected representatives cast their votes.

Chapter 2 - The Impact of Income Inequality on Legislative Con-

sistency: Evidence from the U.S. Senate

Representative democracy requires that constituents evaluate office holders and make a decision on whether to reelect them. Citizens are best able to judge an incumbent’s ability to represent their attitudes and preferences when the incumbent has presented a consistent record while in office. Less consistent representative generate messages associated with a large degree of uncertainty making the job of the voter more difficult. Many factors may affect the consistency of a legislator’s voting record. For instance, legislators often face the decision of whether to vote in accordance with or adverse to their party’s position on roll-call votes. Previous work has identified several reasons why some legislators choose to vote against their party more than others. Among the most important predictors of this choice are majority leadership power (Cox and McCubbins, 1993) and electoral competition (Carroll and Eichorst, 2013). The present paper identifies an additional influence on legislative roll-call consistency, economic inequality. Because wealthy citizens impact the political process more than average or poor citizens, affluent political preferences are better represented in American politics (Gilens, 2005). High inequality implies few rich citizens. When there are few affluent constituents legislators will be more certain about how vote on legislation. Conversely, when legislators must satisfy many affluent constituents, there will be a greater variety of interests to support and a greater likelihood that those interests conflict with the party position. As a result, legislators will be most predictable when inequality is high and least predictable when economic resources are more evenly distributed. The combination of this consistent record and the disproportionate impact of high income citizens on the reelection prospects of seated legislators helps explain the high rate of incumbency victory in congressional elections.

Florida Senator Marco Rubio’s rise through state-level politics came with the support of one political benefactor, Miami billionaire Norman Braman. Braman backed Rubio in each of his four successful bids for the Florida legislature in 2000-2006.10 In 2004 Governor Jeb Bush vetoed state funds for the Braman Cancer Center, for which Rubio had been a key ally in the statehouse. Upon

winning the speakership in the subsequent legislative session, Rubio ensured the funds would be restored. The political duo also held a mutual desire for a decreased property tax plan that Ru- bio helped pass in the Florida House. When the Rubio family fell upon financial hardship once Marco termed out of his seat in the Florida Legislature, Braman assisted by supplying funds to a Florida university for a lecturer appointment Rubio would hold and hiring Jeanette Dousdebes (Rubio’s wife) at his non-profit. Today, early indications are that Braman will be the single most important contributor to Rubio’s 2016 White House bid, at least in the crowded Republican pri- mary.11 Clearly, this personal relationship between constituent and politician has produced a loyal relationship. If Braman is among a small number of Rubio benefactors, then Rubio’s voting record should be predictable. When legislators have many political benefactors vying for representation, they should behave in a manner that is less predictable.

This paper explores the impact of income inequality on legislative consistency. When inequal- ity is high, few constituents hold most of the political resources and this leads to greater certainty among legislators about how they ought to vote on legislation. First, I explore evidence suggest- ing that some citizens have more influence over their representatives than other citizens. Next, I propose a theory explaining how districts where few citizens hold most of the income have more predictable representatives than districts where income is evenly distributed. The resulting hy- potheses are tested using U.S. Senate roll-call data to construct measures of legislative consistency and U.S. Census data measure income inequality in the U.S. states, among other important predic- tors. The results indicate that income inequality does in fact lead to more predictable legislators. Finally, I conclude with a discussion of the implications of these findings for representation in American legislatures.