M. Troy Gibson

Do Latino Christians and Seculars Fit the Culture War Profile? Latino Religiosity and Political Behavior

This article examines the effect of religious affiliation and depth of religious commitment on the political behavior of Catholic Latinos, evangelical Latinos, and secular/unaffiliated Latinos. The culture war theory connects theological conservatism with political conservatism, but because prior research shows that minority groups often have alternate experiences with churches that place religious doctrine and teachings in varying political contexts, it is not clear that Latinos fit the culture war profile. We find that religious tradition and church attendance have an additive but differing impact on ideological and partisan identification as well as various policy preferences on social issues where culture war religious divisions are usually found (abortion, gay marriage, death penalty, and support for Israel) and other non-social issues (universal healthcare and taxing and spending). We find that religiosity has the greatest effect on the political behavior of evangelical Latinos, followed by secular/unaffiliated Latinos and committed Latino Catholics, and that religious tradition is largely consistent in moving evangelical Latinos to the political right and secular/unaffiliated Latinos to the political left.

Has Legislative Television Changed Legislator Behavior?: C-SPAN2 and the Frequency of Senate Filibustering

Using data from 1959–1998, this studyexamines the impact of legislativetelevision (C-SPAN2) on the number offilibusters in the United States Senate. As previous work has suggested, theinstitutional rules of the federallegislative branch of government in theU.S. often allow for politicalgrandstanding and posturing, and theseactivities are enhanced with the presenceof television cameras on the legislativefloor. Like those previous studies, thepresent work builds a theoretical modelwherein political services are consideredsearch/experience goods, and serviceproviders (federal legislators) areexpected utility maximizers who areconcerned with promoting their policypreferences and their re-electionprospects. Poisson model estimates suggestthat the presence of legislative televisionhas worked to increase the filibuster countin the Senate. As a result, such posturingand positioning on the issues by incumbents(in front of television cameras) is costlyfor challengers to replicate and likelycontributes to lower turnover rates in thelegislative branch.

The retention of state level concealed handgun laws: Empirical evidence from interest group and legislative models

The present research extends the work of Lott and Mustard (1997) by offering the first categorical examination (using an ordered logit model) of various types of right-to-carry handgun legislation across the50 states for 1997. Such an examination is based on the “market for laws” construct built by Crain (1979) and Benson and Engin (1988), which points out that various interest group (demand side) and legislative (firm, supply side) considerations are important in modeling legislation activity at the state level. To that end, we include a number of property rights, demographic and legislative institutional variables as explanatory factors in ordered log it models and tests for nonnested hypotheses. In general, we find that the property-rights movement has significantly shaped these statewide laws as pointed out by variables which measure the amount of federal land present within each state, per-capita income, and death-row inmate executions. Population density, Republican representation, length of legislative sessions and female legislative representation have also had significant impacts on the retention of various forms of right-to-carry legislation.

The Timing of Partisan and Nonpartisan Appointments to the Central Bank: Some New Evidence

This paper empirically tests two prevalent but competing theories regarding the timing of appointments to the Board of Governors by presidential administrations. Both theories were developed simultaneously in the economics literature by Havrilesky and Gildea (1992) and Waller (1992) and are observationally equivalent by suggesting that administrations will select partisans early in their four-year terms and nonpartisans (sectoral) later in their four-year terms, although each bases this prediction on a different theoretical model. Several empirical replications (with updated data sets) presented here work to confirm the solutions put forth consistently by both models. However, the results of a new statistical test perhaps lends slightly more credence to the theoretical foundations of Wallers bargaining model.

Congressional Memberships as Political Advertising: Evidence from the U.S. Senate

The present article analyzes signaling by elected officials of moderate or centrist legislative behavior from a benefits/costs perspective. To do so, we provide statistical evidence regarding the tendency of senators to join the U.S. Senate Centrist Coalition, a congressional membership organization of moderate legislators. We find that changes in party loyalty, perhaps due to changes in constituent preferences, and U.S. Senate tenure are both important determinants of membership in the Centrist Coalition. Tests also point out that freshman senators are more likely than more senior senators to seek membership as a form of information provision.

Future employment promises as rent seeking in representative government

Researchers of legislative behavior have attempted to explain the decisions of legislators for some time. Public choice scholars have argued that legislators will “sell” political favors in exchange for some from of interest group payment that is thought to benefit the legislators electoral ambitions. Yet, legislators do not appear to receive the full value of their political favor in these exchanges. That is, the value of the policies offered appears to exceed the price paid by interest groups in the form of campaign contributions, speaking honoraria and other material payments. This imbalance has led some scholars to discount theories that explain legislative behavior motivated by material gain. However, to the extent that legislators value post‐elective employment opportunities, interest groups have an incentive to use the offer of future employment as a payment for present legislative influence. In this sense, perhaps a large portion of the difference in payments can be accounted for in the post‐elective employment careers of elected politicians. In this paper, I explore and explain this theory using a political market model and attempt to identify several attributes that I believe will be common among “prospect‐legislators” whose behavior is principally motivated by concerns with post‐elective life.

Simultaneous Estimation of Complementary Political Economic Models: An Application to Concealed-Carry Handgun Legislation

The present note provides an extension of the Mixon and Gibson (2001) study of the retention of various types of concealed gun laws across the 50 states of the US by developing a simultaneous system of demand (interest group) and supply (legislative) equations as a ‘market for laws’. This construct follows theoretical foundations laid in the public choice literature by Crain (1979) and Benson and Engin (1988). Full information maximum likelihood results presented here suggest the importance of the property rights and the Second Amendment (of the US constitution) movement on the demand side and legislator characteristics on the supply side as determinants of the prescence of unrestricted right-to-carry laws across states.