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This article analyzes roll call voting on China's most favored nation (MFN) and permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) status to ascertain interchamber difference and party polarization in China trade policy. In the House, party has the largest impact, with Republicans much more supportive of MFN than Democrats. Ideology has the second largest impact, with conservatives and liberals voting against moderates. In the Senate, party is the sole significant determinant of MFN voting. In House voting on PNTR, ideology has the biggest and party the second biggest impact. The lopsided nature of the Senate PNTR vote indicates that ideology, party, and constituency interests had little or no impact. In both MFN and PNTR voting in the House, constituency economic interests have only marginal effects, and only constituency interests adversely affected by trade with China have significant impact on the PNTR vote. The author concludes by situating the findings in the broad debate about interchamber difference and increasing polarization in Congress.

AbstractSocial connections between individuals can profoundly impact their political behavior. A growing body of research on legislative politics examines how spatial proximity to fellow legislators affects voting behavior within the institution. However, studies that examine this question often suffer from a fundamental identification problem in which proximity effects may reflect actual behavioral diffusion between members or, instead, homophily, in which legislators of a similar political feather flock together. We overcome this observational equivalence by exploiting a unique random seating lottery for seating assignments in the world's oldest existing parliament, Iceland's national legislature, Alþingi. Utilizing this naturally occurring randomization, we employ spatial analyses of more than 20,000 estimates of spatial dependence and find little evidence that seating proximity leads to similar voting behavior by members in this legislative context.

Party roll call votes on Medicare from 1980 to 1996 show that the Democrats were more likely to allocate a new or expand upon an existing benefit, restore money to the Medicare program, lower provider reimbursements and change program rules to cut costs. Republicans were more likely to reduce general revenue funding to the Medicare program and to increase beneficiaries' costs. Though both parties claimed to act to save the Medicare program from insolvency, their roll call voting indicates that congressional action has been primarily in the form of inconsistent and incremental tinkering at the margins of Medicare policy.

Most studies looking at the roll call voting behavior of female legislators have investigated this phenomenon at the state legislative level and for the US House of Representatives. Very little research has looked at the impact of gender on the policy records of US senators. With the number of female senators continuing to increase it is now possible to undertake such an analysis. This study examines the influence of gender in predicting the roll call voting behavior of US senators across several recent congresses. To unearth gender effects, it employs a longitudinal design based on turnover in the Senate, which holds constituency constant while allowing gender and party to vary. The results indicate that male and female senators representing the same state compile very similar voting records on the basic left/right policy dimension. However, when votes on issues of concern to women are examined, female senators tend to be more supportive than the male senators they replaced, and male senators tend to be less supportive than the female senators they replaced.

This paper presents evidence that candidate issue positions have a measurable impact on elections for the U.S. House of Representatives. For eight election years, electoral margins of Northern incumbent congressional candidates were examined to test the proposition that "moderates" within each party are better vote getters than those whose roll call records reflect their party's ideological extreme. The effects of roll call positions on election results were estimated by examining the relationships between roll call "extremism" and vote margins with district presidential voting held constant as a control for normal constituency voting habits. Although no strong support was found for the proposition that Democratic Representatives lose electoral support when they take extremely liberal roll call positions, a clear pattern emerged for Republicans: the Republican Congressmen who are the best vote getters tend to be the relative moderates and liberals who avoid the extreme conservative end of the political spectrum. An analysis of survey data suggests that the small group of voters whose electoral decisions are influenced by their Republican Congressman's roll call performance are found within the ranks of a select group who are both free of strong partisan motivations and highly politically informed.

Most analyses of congressional voting, whether theoretical or empirical, treat all roll-call votes in the same way. We argue that such approaches mask considerable variation in voting behaviour across different types of votes. In examining all roll-call votes in the U.S. House of Representatives from the 93rd to the 110th Congresses (1973–2008), we find that the forces affecting legislators' voting on procedural and final passage matters have exhibited important changes over time, with differences between these two vote types becoming larger, particularly in recent congresses. These trends have important implications not only on how we study congressional voting behaviour, but also in how we evaluate representation and polarization in the modern Congress.

Most analyses of congressional voting, whether theoretical or empirical, treat all roll-call votes in the same way. We argue that such approaches mask considerable variation in voting behaviour across different types of votes. In examining all roll-call votes in the U.S. House of Representatives from the 93rd to the 110th Congresses (1973-2008), we find that the forces affecting legislators' voting on procedural and final passage matters have exhibited important changes over time, with differences between these two vote types becoming larger, particularly in recent congresses. These trends have important implications not only on how we study congressional voting behaviour, but also in how we evaluate representation and polarization in the modern Congress. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Ltd., copyright holder.]