E. Scott Adler

Divided Government and the Legislative Productivity of Congress, 1945-94

This paper contributes to the literature on divided government and legislative productivity. We begin by reexamining Mayhews data on landmark enactments. We show that Mayhews claim that divided government does not affect legislative productivity is a consequence of aggregating time series that exhibit different behavior. We then extend Mayhews analysis by broadening the concept of significance and creating a new four-category measure that encompasses all 17,663 public laws enacted in the period of 1945-94. Using appropriate time-series techniques, we demonstrate that periods of divided government depress the production of landmark legislation by about 30%, at least when productivity is measured on the basis of contemporaneous perceptions of legislative significance. Divided government, however, has no substantive effect on the production of important, albeit not landmark, legislation and actually has a positive effect on the passage of trivial laws.

The Persuasive Effects of Partisan Campaign Mailers

A substantial literature has used field experiments to assess the mobilization effects of non-partisan mailers. However, little work has examined whether partisan mailers affect voters as intended. We report findings from two field experiments conducted in cooperation with partisan campaign strategists that allow us to assess the effects of negative and positive mailers. We find that mailers can affect voters—particularly their recognition of candidate names and their intent to turn out to vote. Notably, we find evidence that both negative and positive mailers stimulate intent to turn out.

Representation When Constituent Opinion and District Conditions Collide

When constituent opinion and district conditions point in two different directions, which factor is most influential for representatives who face important legislative roll calls? To address this question, we combine four types of data for the period from 2000 to 2012: key congressional roll call votes, district-level survey data, objective measures of district conditions, and other district demographics. We show (1) that material conditions in a district have an effect on legislative behavior independent of constituents’ opinions; (2) that opinions are not always a better predictor of lawmaker decisions, compared to conditions; and (3) that whether lawmakers tend to reflect constituent opinions or district conditions is a function of the demographic makeup of their districts.