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The Relation Between Roll Call Votes and Constituencies in the Massachusetts House of Representatives*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

Duncan Macrae Jr.
Duncan Macrae Jr.
Affiliation:
Harvard University
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Extract

A major concern of political theorists has been the definition of the proper role of legislators in relation to their constituencies. Yet relatively little analysis has been made of the uniformities of behavior that actually prevail in these relations. Such uniformities, if they could be found, would bear directly on the theory of the party system, on speculation about the nature of representative government, and on the feasibility of proposals for a reordering of party practices.

It has been shown that the tendencies of Congressmen to vote with their party or to cross party lines are associated with the similarity or dissimilarity between party policy and presumed interest of constituency. One aim of this study is to test the applicability of this proposition to the Massachusetts House of Representatives, by examination of the relation between roll-call votes and constituency characteristics. The evidence indicates that a similar relation exists in this body, and has been present consistently throughout the last two decades.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 46 , Issue 4 , December 1952 , pp. 1046 - 1055
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1952

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References

1 Doctrines on the question are summarized by de Grazia, Alfred, Public and Republic (New York, 1951)Google Scholar.

2 Turner, J., Party and Constituency: Pressures on Congress (Baltimore, 1951)Google Scholar.

3 Lubell, S., The Future of American Politics (New York, 1952), pp. 58–80Google Scholar.

4 These data were based on the official Election Statistics of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, compiled in the office of the Secretary of the Commonwealth and issued annually as Public Document No. 43 (Boston: 1930, 1940, 1950). The index of “closeness” might be improved in several ways, though it is probably adequate for our purpose. The cutting point 60%, derived from electoral mortality studies of Congress, might be re-examined for Massachusetts. Comparison in multi-member districts might be made with other candidates than the highest unsuccessful one. And, probably most important, other data besides the past election margin might afford a better index of the representative's concern about the wishes of his constituency.

5 Three out of seven for Democrats, and four out of eight for Republicans, were the numbers of absences necessary for exclusion.

6 Massachusetts State Federation of Labor, “Official Labor Record of Senators and Representatives, 1941–1942.”

7 This general tendency was noted in the U. S. House of Representatives by Turner, , Party and Constituency, p. 25nGoogle Scholar.

8 Huntington, S. P., “A Revised Theory of American Party Politics,” American Political Science Review, Vol. 44, pp. 669–677 (Sept., 1950)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 This view is presented, for example, in Schattschneider, E. E., Party Government (New York, 1942), pp. 85 ff.Google Scholar

10 Turner, op. cit.

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