Richard Fleisher

From Abe Fortas to Zoe Baird: Why Some Presidential Nominations Fail in the Senate

Why, given a strong presumption of success, do some presidential nominations fail? Of 1,464 important nominations from 1965 to 1994, less than 5% failed. Ninety-four percent of failures were rejected or withdrawn before reaching the floor, suggesting that opponents are most effective during prefloor stages. We propose a theoretical framework based on the notion that policy entrepreneurs pursue their goals within the context of a presumption of success. Logit analysis tends to support the theory that entrepreneurs can alter the presumption of success and defeat a nomination if they (1) identify negative information about a nominee to provide a rationale for changing the presumption and (2) expand the conflict through committee hearings and the media. Presidential resources—high public approval and efforts to signal that the nomination is a high priority—increase the chances of confirmation. Contrary to previous research, divided government has no independent effect on the fate of nominations.

The Shrinking Middle in the US Congress

The virtual disappearance of moderate and cross-pressured members from the US Congress is analysed in this article. There were substantial numbers of these partisan non-conformists in both parties and in both chambers until the early 1980s when the middle began to shrink. This trend continued and accelerated in the 1990s. Partisan non-conformists disappeared through replacement and conversion . When moderate and cross-pressured members left Congress, their replacements were much more likely to be mainstream partisans in the 1980s and 1990s than they had been in earlier decades. The occurrence of some type of conversion (a shift towards the partys ideological mainstream or a party switch) is also much more common in recent decades. We present evidence that the shrinking middle in Congress resulted from electoral changes.

Explaining the Change in Roll-Call Voting Behavior of Southern Democrats

Southern politics changed dramatically since the enactment of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Most notably, we witnessed the emergence of a competitive two-party system and greater electoral participation by blacks. During this period we also saw a substantial liberalization in the voting behavior of southern Democratic members of Congress. A number of researchers have tried to use constituency variables to explain variability in liberal voting by southern legislators. The purpose of this paper is to develop and test a constituency explanation of liberal voting by southern Democrats based on the ideological leanings of white voters, the size of the black constituency, urbanization and the strength of the Republican congressional candidate. The effects of constituency variables on two measures of liberal voting (ADA scores and party unity scores) are analyzed for each odd-numbered year between 1981 and 1987. The findings of this study suggest that constituency variables do impact on southern Democrats liberalism with the willingness of southern whites to support liberal candidates exerting the strongest effect. The presence of a larger proportion of black residents is not consistently related to the measures of roll-call liberalism analyzed. Finally, the paper demonstrates that southern Democratic support for liberal positions increased independent of constituency characteristics.

The Marginal and Time‐Varying Effect of Public Approval on Presidential Success in Congress

We analyze the relationship between public approval and presidential success in Congress using time-varying parameter regression methods. Cues from constituency, ideology, and party dominate congressional vote choice, so the effect of public approval of the president is typically marginal. Because the strength of these primary cues varies through time, the effect of public approval on presidential success should also be time varying. Analysis of conflictual roll-call votes from 1953 through 2000 using the time-varying Kalman filter reveals that the effect of public approval on presidential success is marginal and changing through time. These models assume that the time variation is a stochastic process, and finding time-varying relationships may indicate model misspecification. Our theory, however, suggests that this time variation depends on a systematic factor—partisanship. A better specified model that allows systematic parameter variation confirms that the level of partisanship conditions the relationship between public approval and presidential success in Congress.

THE DEMISE OF THE TWO PRESIDENCIES

Presidential-congressional relations scholars have long debated whether the president is more successful on foreign policy than on domestic policy (Wildavsky, 1966). The debate has focused on differential success rates between foreign and domestic policy and whether the gap has narrowed over time. This focus, however, neglects an important dimension of Wildavskys argument. Wildavsky also argued that presidents should dominate Congress in foreign policy. Hence, the thesis predicts high levels of success on foreign policy as well as differences between foreign and domestic policy. Looking at the trends in success on foreign and domestic votes, we observe that whereas the difference between foreign and domestic success rates shows up consistently for minority presidents, the absolute level of support on foreign and defense issues has declined since the second Reagan administration. Analysis of opposition party base behavior reveals that foreign policy voting has become considerably more partisan.

Are There Two Presidencies? Yes, But Only for Republicans

Analysis of conflictual roll call votes in the House and Senate indicates that presidents tend to win more often on foreign policy than on domestic policy. And we find no evidence that the differences have diminished over the period from 1953 through 1984. The two presidencies phenomenon, however, characterizes only Republican administrations. We analyze support for the president from different party factions (i.e., liberal Democrats, conservative Democrats, liberal Republicans, and conservative Republicans) and party and committee leaders to determine why the two presidencies phenomenon is limited to Republican administrations. We find that Republican presidents tend to receive greater support on foreign policy issues from liberal Democrats and from Democratic party and committee leaders. Analysis of a subset of important votes shows less difference between the two policy areas. The two presidencies phenomenon for Republican presidents does not appear on important votes because liberal Democrats are less supportive on foreign policy.

Economic Benefit, Ideology, and Senate Voting On the B-1 Bomber:

Most previous studies of congressional voting on national defense have found that the level of economic benefit that a members district receives is not related to his vote on national defense. Rather, many of these studies argue that voting on national defense is largely ideological. This article developed and tested an interactive model that predicts that (1) conservatives from both high and low benefit states would support higher defense budgets and (2) only liberals from high benefit states would support increased defense spending. Using data on the B-1 bomber, the results provide support for the first hypothesis but little support for the second proposition. Furthermore, it was found that ideology was strongly related to voting behavior even after controlling for level of economic benefit. Finally, the data indicate that ideology was less strongly related to vote choice after President Carter announced his opposition to the B-1 than was the case for the three votes that occurred prior to Carters announcement. These results are discussed in the context of constituency influence and ideological models of roll call voting.

Presidential Popularity and Congressional Voting: a Reexamination of Public Opinion as a Source of Influence in Congress:

IN ORDER to achieve his policy goals, the President must persuade Congress to support his preferences. Richard Neustadt (1960) suggests that the Presidents task is eased considerably if he is popular with the public. More recent quantitative studies tend to supports Neustadts conclusions (Edwards 1976, 1977, 1980; Bond and Fleisher 1980). Although the findings of these studies have gained wide acceptance, major conceptual and methodological flaws in the analyses raise doubts about the importance of public opinion as a source of presidential influence in Congress. The purpose of this paper is to reexamine the link between the Presidents popularity with the public and the success of his policy preferences in Congress using a research design that corrects some of the major problems in previous studies. The paper is divided into four sections. The first section reviews and critiques past research on the relationship between public opinion and presidential success in Congress. The second section describes the data and measures used in our analysis. The third section presents results indicating that the effect of public opinion on presidential success in Congress is more limited than previous work would suggest, while the final section offers conclusions and possible explanations of the limited influence of public opinion on presidential-congressional relations.

Partisan Differences in Candidate Quality in Open Seat House Races, 1976-1994

This article builds on previous research with an analysis of partisan differ ences in the emergence of politically experienced candidates in open seat House races from 1976 to 1994. Consistent with previous research, we find that local partisan forces-the normal vote in the district and the party hold ing the seat-are the most important determinants of whether experienced candidates emerge in open seat races. But we find that Republicans are more sensitive to local partisan forces than Democrats, indicating that experienced Republicans run mainly in districts favorable to Republicans, whereas Demo crats run for open seats in a wider range of districts. And contrary to previous research, we discover that a national condition-presidential popularity-is significantly related to the emergence of experienced Republicans in open seats. These results reveal that we need to look for different relationships across the parties. Because we suspected that the relationships might have changed in recent elections, we compared relationships in 1976-90 and 1992- 94. This analysis indicates that the relationships found in previous elections may have changed. In 1992-94, the emergence of experienced Democrats was significantly affected only by the party holding the seat, whereas the emergence of experienced Republicans was not significantly influenced by either local partisan condition.

The Limits of Presidential Popularity as a Source of Influence in the U. S. House

This note tests hypotheses which predict that the presidents popularity with the public has a different impact on support from House members of his own party than it has on members of the opposition. With ideological conflict held constant, we find that, as presidential popularity increases, the president tends to receive more support from House members of his party and less support from members of the opposition. We also find that the positive impact that presidential popularity has on the presidents partisans is greater than the negative impact it has on members of the opposition. Thus, favorable public opinion may not influence Congress to approve more of the presidents proposals in all situations. If the presidents party controls Congress, then favorable public opinion may improve his rate of success because he gains support from members of his party at a faster rate than he loses support from members of the opposition. However, if the opposition party controls Congress, then favorable public opinion may not improve the presidents success.