The Role of Personal Attributes in African American Roll-Call Voting Behavior in Congress

In: Political research quarterly: PRQ ; official journal of the Western Political Science Association and other associations, Band 62, Heft 2, S. 408-414

Abstract

In this research note, the authors explore the extent to which personal attributes influence voting behavior for African American members of Congress. The authors test the relationship between legislators' personal attributes and Poole and Rosenthal's DW-NOMINATE scores for black members of the 101st to 108th Congresses. The results suggest that personal attributes matter. They increase the explained variance in the models, and factors such as generational cohort, religion, and military experience are statistically significant. These results suggest that while descriptive members of Congress share much in common, they should not be interpreted as monolithic with respect to congressional voting. Adapted from the source document.