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DAVID DOHERTY
Loyola University Chicago
How Policy and Procedure Shape
Citizens’ Evaluations of Senators
I report findings from survey experiments that improve our understanding of how
people want individual Senators to approach their role as representatives. The findings
show that people are committed to the idea that Senators should prioritize their states’
preferences over those of the national public. This preference persists in situations where
a Senator’s advocacy for her state plays a key role in defeating nationally supported
legislation. This finding contradicts popular claims that voters are hungry for Senators
who prioritize national preferences over those of their constituents. I also find that people who support a piece of legislation—but not those who oppose it—evaluate a Senator
who helps to defeat the legislation by filibustering substantially less favorably than one
who accomplishes the same ends through majoritarian means. This suggests that how
people respond to some procedural characteristics of politicians’ behavior depends on
how they feel about the outcomes it yields.
Research on citizen evaluations of a representative’s legislative
behavior typically focuses on their agreement with the substantive policy positions the legislator adopts. However, people may also care
about how legislators decide which policies to support, the procedures
they use in advocating for those positions, and how their actions relate
to the broader democratic process. Some scholars even argue that people “are more affected by the processes of government than by the policies government enacts” (Hibbing and Theiss-Morse 2002, 34).
Although substantial work has assessed how characteristics of political
processes affect how people evaluate political institutions and the political system in general, little work has examined how procedural characteristics of individual legislators’ behavior affect how they are
evaluated as individuals. This is an important lacuna because disliked
characteristics of how Congress operates as an institution are unlikely
to change unless voters punish legislators for their individual contributions to these aggregate outcomes.
In this article, I report findings from experiments that examine
how two characteristics of a Senator’s legislative behavior affect how
she is evaluated. First, the experiment varies whether the Senator’s
LEGISLATIVE STUDIES QUARTERLY, 40, 2, May 2015
241
DOI: 10.1002/lsq.12074
C 2015 The Comparative Legislative Research Center of The University of Iowa
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position suggests that she is responding to constituent preferences or to
the national public—a trade-off that is central to many normative models of political representation. Second, I manipulate information about
whether the individual Senator’s behavior proves decisive in defeating
a bill through majoritarian means, helps to defeat a bill through the use
of the filibuster, or does not directly affect the final disposition of the
bill. The design allows me to shed light on what types of behavior people are inclined to reward Senators for and, more broadly, on the role
people think individual Senators should play in the process of democratic representation.
This research makes three contributions. First, the findings suggest
that people are committed to the idea that Senators are, first and foremost, charged with advocating for their states. People evaluate a Senator
who prioritizes the preferences of the majority of her constituents more
favorably than one who takes a position that is congruent with the will of
the national public. This preference extends to situations where a Senator’s advocacy for state preferences plays a pivotal role in defeating a
bill supported by the national public.
Second, little is known about how the role an individual legislator
plays in determining the disposition of a particular piece of legislation
affects how she is evaluated. Of particular interest is how people respond
to situations where a Senator’s efforts to defeat legislation opposed by
those in her state lead her to employ the filibuster to achieve these ends.
The findings indicate that, on average, people evaluate a Senator who
proves pivotal in defeating a bill through simple majoritarian means
more favorably than a Senator who participates in a filibuster to defeat a
bill. Notably, I find that people reward a Senator for advocating for state
preferences—even to the point of using the filibuster to defeat legislation
opposed by their state but supported by the national public. Additionally,
I find that people are no more averse to a Senator’s use of the filibuster
when it is employed to prevent the passage of legislation supported by
the national public, but opposed by those in the Senator’s state, than
when it is used to defeat legislation opposed by the national public.
Finally, the findings improve our understanding of whether arguments about how political processes should work, in some situations,
serve as proxies for debates about substantive outcomes. I leverage the
fact that I manipulate the direction of the policy being considered by the
Senator, and thus how the respondents feel about the substance of
the Senator’s position, to assess whether the effects described above are
moderated by individuals’ policy preferences. I find suggestive, but
inconsistent, evidence that people’s commitment to the idea that Senators should prioritize state-level public opinion over national preferences
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is mitigated in situations where an individual’s own preferences are congruent with those of the national public. I also find evidence that those
who oppose a bill are indifferent between a Senator casting the pivotal
“51st vote” to defeat the bill and a Senator defeating the bill by filibustering. In contrast, among those who support a bill, a filibustering Senator
is evaluated significantly less favorably than a Senator who adopts the
same position and accomplishes the same ends through simple majoritarian means.
The remainder of the article proceeds as follows. In the next section, I discuss characteristics of Senators’ behavior with an eye toward
highlighting the competing considerations that may affect how people
respond to them. I also address how people may rely on their substantive preferences to adjudicate between these competing considerations
when responding to a Senator’s behavior. Then I preview the structure
of the experiments used in my analysis and present my expectations
regarding how people respond to characteristics of a Senator’s behavior.
Next, I describe my experimental design in more detail and present my
findings. In the final section of the article, I discuss the implications of
my findings and the limitations of the analysis presented here.
Individual Senators and the Legislative Process
Researchers find that the characteristics of decision-making processes can affect how people evaluate those processes and the institutions
within which they are carried out (Birch 2010; Durr, Gilmour, and Wolbrecht 1997; Gangl 2003; Gibson 2002; Hibbing and Theiss-Morse
1995, 2002; Leventhal 1980; Thibaut and Walker 1975; Tyler 2006).
Some work has also explored how people say they want the legislative
process to work and how they think legislators should make decisions
(e.g., Barker and Carman 2012; Cantril 1967; Carman 2007; Davidson
1970; Fenno 1975; Griffin and Flavin 2011; Hibbing and Theiss-Morse
2002; Kimball and Patterson 1997; Neblo et al. 2010; Sigelman, Sigelman, and Walkosz 1992; Smith and Park 2013). Other work has
directly examined how the characteristics of elites’ decisions (Sigelman,
Sigelman, and Walkosz 1992), citizen preferences regarding where
legislators should focus their efforts (Grant and Rudolph 2004), and the
decision rules they claim guided their behavior (McGraw, Best, and
Timpone 1995; McGraw, Lodge, and Jones 2002) can affect how people evaluate legislators and other political elites. These dynamics are
important to examine directly because the standards people advocate for
in response to survey questions do not always neatly translate into evaluations of legislators who adhere (or fail to adhere) to these standards
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(Doherty 2013; Harbridge and Malhotra 2011). An additional advantage
of this approach is that it offers insight into elected officials’ incentives.
Are representatives who adopt a particular approach to decision making
likely to be rewarded on Election Day? Here I build on this prior work
by examining how the role orientation a Senator adopts affects how
people evaluate that Senator.
The Locus of Representation
Empirical scholars have typically assessed the quality of political
representation in the United States in one of two ways. The first
approach assesses dyadic representation—whether representatives’ legislative behavior reflects the preferences of their constituents (Bafumi
and Herron 2010; Clinton 2006; Kuklinski and Elling 1977; McCrone
and Kuklinski 1979; Miller and Stokes 1963; Thomas 1985). An alternative approach assesses collective representation—whether national policies reflect the preferences of the public as a whole (Grimmer 2013;
Monroe 1998; Page and Shapiro 1983; Stimson, Mackuen, and Erikson
1995; Weissberg 1978; Wlezien 2004).
Other scholars have raised a similar question about representation
from the perspective of an individual legislator: should a representative
prioritize her particular constituents’ preferences and interests over those
of the national public (e.g., Rehfeld 2009)? This can be thought of as a
question about the “focus” (or “locus”) of representation a given representative provides, where “nationally focused” representation refers to
responsiveness to the national public and “locally focused” representation refers to responsiveness to one’s particular constituents—e.g., a
Senator’s responsiveness to people in her state (Eulau et al. 1959; Fairlie
1940; Miller and Stokes 1963; Pitkin 1967; Stone 1982). Locally
focused representation is closely tied to the concept of dyadic representation, and nationally focused representation is conceptually related to collective representation. Locally focused representation may also be
compatible with both dyadic and collective representation: aggregating
the positions of representatives who are each advocating for their particular constituents may yield policies that are consistent with the preferences of the national public. However, this is not always the case.
Situations where committed dyadic representation interferes with collective representation can arise in the House.1 These conflicts are perhaps
even more likely to arise in the Senate where the size of constituencies
represented by each Senator vary substantially, and Senators can employ
tools like the filibuster to affect legislative outcomes.
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The Role of an Individual in Determining the Fate of a Bill
Because advocacy for state preferences may or may not result in
nationally supported policy outcomes being realized, it is important to
consider not only who people think a given Senator should respond to
when faced with conflicting state and national opinion, but also how that
aspect of a Senator’s decision affects legislative outcomes. In cases
where a bill enjoys overwhelming support or opposition within the
chamber, the position taken by any given individual Senator is arguably
inconsequential. However, on issues where the chamber is closely
divided, a Senator may find herself in a position where her behavior
proves pivotal in determining whether the bill passes or fails by casting a
pivotal “51st vote.” In addition, the rules of the Senate include tools that
a minority of Senators can use to block the passage of a bill—most notably the filibuster. In some situations, a Senator may have the opportunity
to effectively kill a bill that is supported by the majority of Senators by
refusing to cast a “60th vote” in favor of cloture, thereby sustaining a
filibuster.
Unlike a decision about whether to respond to state public opinion,
this aspect of a Senator’s behavior depends on the behavior of others in
the chamber. Nonetheless, how an individual Senator’s behavior related
to that of other Senators may affect how she is evaluated. Two questions
about the consequences of this aspect of a Senator’s behavior are of particular interest.
The first is whether people evaluate Senators who play a pivotal
role in defeating a bill by filibustering less favorably than those who
accomplish the same ends through majoritarian means—i.e., by casting
a decisive “51st vote” against a bill. Although some recent work has
examined public support for the filibuster rule (Park and Smith 2013;
Smith and Park 2013), no work has examined how people evaluate an
individual Senator who uses this tool. One possibility is that a filibustering Senator will be evaluated less favorably because her behavior is seen
as violating the norm of majority rule. Alternately, people may see the
filibuster as a desirable way to protect the rights of the minority or may
simply accept the filibuster as an established part of the legislative process. If so, they may be indifferent between Senators who prove pivotal
in defeating a bill by filibustering and those whose efforts prove pivotal
in defeating a bill through majoritarian means.
The second question pertains to the interaction between the role a
Senator’s behavior plays in determining the fate of a bill and whether a
Senator prioritizes locally or nationally focused representation—i.e.,
whether they prioritize the preferences of those in their state or those of
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the national public. Senators who prove pivotal in defeating a bill may
do so in a way that serves national or state preferences. Importantly,
when national preferences conflict with the preferences of those in a
pivotal Senator’s state, the Senator’s choice between adopting a position
that reflects state or national preferences also determines whether dyadic
or collective representation is realized: a decision to prioritize state preferences leads to a national policy outcome that is at odds with the preferences of the national public.
These situations raise thorny questions about how political representation should work. However, little is known about what people want
Senators to do when faced with a situation where vigorously pursuing
policies supported by their states directly interferes with the realization
of collective representation. Do people think it is more important for representatives to be faithful to their constituents’ preferences than to ensure
that their behavior does not interfere with the passage of policies supported by the national public? If so, should Senators be willing to filibuster to defeat legislation opposed by their state but supported by the
national public? Similarly, people’s responses to a Senator using the filibuster, rather than majoritarian means, to defeat a piece of legislation
may depend on whose preferences are being served by these efforts. People may see filibustering legislation that is opposed by the majority of
the country as less problematic than using it to frustrate the will of the
national majority.
The Consequences of Policy Preferences
Thus far I have described two dimensions of a Senator’s behavior.
One possibility is that these procedural aspects of a legislator’s behavior
do not affect how people respond to a particular instance of a Senator’s
behavior. When presented with a situation where a concrete policy is
being considered, people’s agreement with the substance of the Senator’s position may drown out any effects associated with other facets of
her behavior. However, as noted above, existing work suggests that
these aspects of a decision maker’s behavior may be consequential
above and beyond the effects associated with an individual’s substantive
policy preferences.
An additional possibility is that people’s substantive policy
preference colors their responses to other characteristics of an individual decision maker’s behavior (Doherty and Wolak 2012). This
may be particularly true when people are conflicted about what the
right decision rules should be. Just as conflicting considerations
often underlie people’s attitudes about particular policies and
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candidates (Alvarez and Brehm 1995; Zaller 1992)—and even people’s support for core democratic values (Chong 1993; Grant and
Rudolph 2003; Kuklinski et al. 1991; Marcus et al. 1995; Sniderman et al. 1996)—many people may feel torn about the aspects of
a Senator’s behavior examined here. The idea that a Senator should
prioritize serving the people who elected her may be widely supported. However, people are also likely to be attracted to the notion
that—because Congress is charged with making policies for the
country as a whole—Senators should make decisions that yield policy outcomes that are supported by the national public. Similarly,
people may harbor misgivings about the countermajoritarian nature
of the filibuster but also value the filibuster as a way to protect the
rights of the minority (Park and Smith 2013).
In these circumstances, people may rely on their substantive preferences to adjudicate between competing considerations (Grant and
Rudolph 2003; Kunda 1990; Lodge and Taber 2000, 2013). People may
respond favorably to a Senator’s prioritization of state preferences when
they agree with the preferences of the public in the state rather than those
of the national public but respond unfavorably when they agree with
national opinion. This dynamic may be particularly pronounced in situations where responding to state preferences would impede collective policy representation. Similarly, those who support a bill that a Senator
defeats through a filibuster may see the filibuster as more problematic
than someone who is satisfied with the defeat of the bill. Support for this
expectation is found in each of the two existing systematic studies of
American attitudes about the filibuster (Park and Smith 2013; Smith and
Park 2013). In each case, the authors find evidence that support for the
filibuster depends on whether one’s preferred party is in a position to
benefit from the use of this tool.
Responses to Two Dimensions of a Senator’s Behavior
T1
In the experimental studies I discuss below, I examine how two
characteristics of a Senator’s behavior affect how people evaluate that
Senator. The characteristics I examine are summarized in typology presented in Table 1.
The columns in Table 1 represent whether a Senator’s position is
congruent with the preferences of the national majority and at odds with
the preferences of the majority of individuals within her state, or vice
versa. The rows represent variation in the role the Senator’s behavior
plays in determining the fate of the bill. The first row (Symbolic) corresponds to situations where the Senator votes against a bill that is defeated
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TABLE 1
Characteristics of a Senator’s Legislative Behavior
Symbolic Opposition
Decisive in Majoritarian Vote
Decisive Participation in Filibuster
Respond to
National Public Opinion
Respond to
State Public Opinion
SN
MN
FN
SS
MS
FS
Notes: I refer to letter codes in the text when discussing levels of support for a Senator
whose legislative behavior conforms to each pairing of characteristics (i.e., to each cell).
National and state opinion conflict in all cases.
by a wide margin; the second (Majoritarian) to situations where the Senator casts the “51st vote” in a majoritarian situation; the third (Filibuster)
corresponds to situations where the Senator plays a decisive role in sustaining a filibuster. This typology is mirrored in the structure of the
experimental design discussed below. I use the letters in each cell of
Table 1 as shorthand to refer to how favorably an individual evaluates a
Senator described as engaging in each type of behavior.
In a series of experiments, Doherty (2013) finds that SN < SS. That
is, when faced with a concrete trade-off between taking a position that is
congruent with either state or national preferences, people prefer Senators who provide state-focused representation—at least in situations
where the Senator’s vote does not clearly play an important role in
determining the disposition of the bill. This suggests that people view
responding to constituent demands as desirable. However, it is less clear
whether people prefer positions of type MS to those of type MN. If
MN < MS, this would suggest that people are, on average, committed to
the idea that Senators are bound to respond to their particular
constituents, even when this advocacy leads to outcomes that are at odds
with the preferences of the national public. In contrast, if MN > MS, this
would suggest that in situations where state-focused representation interferes with achieving legislative outcomes supported by the national public, the public sees the benefits of this approach to representation as
being outweighed by the cost of national legislation not responding to
aggregate national preferences.
Comparisons of FS and FN will further test the robustness of public
support for state-focused representation. Evidence that FN < FS would
provide further support for the claim that people are strongly committed
to the idea that Senators are primarily accountable to the constituents in
their state and evaluate Senators who provide this type of representation
more favorably—even when it leads them to use countermajoritarian
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tools to block a bill that is supported by the national public. Within the
Symbolic Opposition, Influential in Majoritarian Vote, and Influential
Participation in Filibuster conditions, I will test the following hypothesis:
H1: On average, people evaluate Senators who side with public
opinion within their state rather than national public opinion more favorably than those who side with national opinion over the preferences of
their state.
Comparisons across the rows of Table 1 will answer additional
questions. I do not have strong expectations regarding comparisons
between the first two rows. The Symbolic condition is included primarily
to serve as a baseline of comparison to assess whether people respond
more favorably to state-focused representation when it does not affect
legislative outcomes (H3A, discussed below). However, an additional
possibility is that people are inclined to see Senators who play a pivotal
role in determining legislative outcomes as more important or
prestigious and, thus, evaluate them more favorably. Higher reelection
rates among legislators who hold prestigious committee assignments
may be explained, in part, by perceptions that they are more important to
the legislative process (e.g., Bullock 1972). If this is the case, we would
expect to find that SN < MN and SS < MS.
The comparison between the second and third rows of Table 1 will
provide a way to test whether people evaluate Senators who filibuster
less favorably than those who play a similarly important role in determining the fate of a bill through majoritarian means. A finding that
MN > FN and MS > FS would suggest that people are averse to the use of
the filibuster. In contrast, if there is little difference between MN (MS)
and FN (FS), this would suggest that people are indifferent between Senators casting crucial “51st votes” and relying on countermajoritarian, but
established, procedures to achieve the same ends. I test the hypothesis
that people evaluate a Senator who defeats a bill through majoritarian
means more favorably than one who accomplishes the same ends
through the filibuster.
H2: People prefer Senators who defeat bills through majoritarian
means to those who engage in a filibuster to accomplish the same ends.
An additional pair of expectations pertains to the interaction
between the two dimensions examined here. People’s support for
state-focused representation may depend on whether a Senator’s
adoption of this approach to representation directly leads to policy
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outcomes that are at odds with the wishes of the national public.
6 (MN – MS) and/or (SN – SS) ¼
6
This would imply that (SN – SS) ¼
(FN – FS). Similarly, how people feel about a Senator’s use of the
filibuster may depend on whether she is using it to shield the
national public from policies it opposes or if it is, instead, being
used to block legislation supported by the national public. If this is
the case, we would expect to find that (MN – FN) ¼
6 (MS – FS).
H3A: The effect of a Senator prioritizing state preferences over
national preferences depends on whether the Senator’s position proves
pivotal in determining the outcome of the bill.
H3B: The effect of a Senator defeating a bill through majoritarian
means rather than by filibustering depends on whether the bill is opposed
by the majority of the national public or by the majority of the public in
the Senator’s state.
All else equal, I expect people to evaluate Senators who they agree
with on substantive grounds more favorably. Referring back to Table 1,
I expect all values to be higher (more favorable) when people agree with
the substance of a Senator’s position. However, I also expect that people’s feelings about the substance of the position a Senator takes on a bill
will affect how they respond to the other characteristics of the Senator’s
behavior I examine here—i.e., they will affect the magnitude of the differences between the cells in Table 1.
First, I expect the tension between the appeal of a Senator’s role as
an advocate for his state and his role as a national legislator to lead people to rely on their feelings about the substantive outcome the Senator’s
behavior yields when deciding which consideration is more important.
When presented with a Senator whose opposition to a piece of legislation is congruent with majority preferences in his state, I anticipate that
those who are personally opposed to the bill will evaluate this type of
state-focused representation as particularly laudable, whereas those who
support the (defeated) bill will see the Senator’s decision to prioritize
state preferences as less desirable. I expect this effect to be particularly
pronounced when the Senator’s behavior proves pivotal in thwarting the
will of the national public. This can be stated as an expectation that
(SS – SN), but particularly (MS – MN) and (FS – FN) will be greater (more
positive) among individuals who agree with the Senator’s position.
H4: The positive effect of a Senator prioritizing state preferences
over national preferences will be smaller among those who disagree with
the substance of the Senator’s position—particularly when the Senator’s
behavior proves pivotal in determining the fate of a bill.
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My second expectation is similar to the first and stems from my
expectation that people are likely to harbor competing considerations
about the desirability of the filibuster. I expect individuals who support a
piece of legislation to evaluate a Senator who defeats the bill through a
filibuster less favorably than a Senator who defeats the bill through
majoritarian means. In contrast, I expect those who dislike the bill to be
less concerned about whether the bill is defeated through majoritarian
means or through the use of the filibuster. Referring back to Table 1, I
expect (FN 2 MN) and (FS 2 MS) to be more negative among respondents who support the substance of the bill the Senator opposes.
H5: The negative effect of a Senator defeating a bill by filibustering, rather than through majoritarian means, will be larger among those
who supported the bill his behavior served to defeat.
Assessing Responses to the Characteristics
of a Senator’s Behavior
The data for my analysis come from two sources. The first experiment was fielded as part of the 2011 Cooperative Congressional Election
Study (CCES). The CCES is an Internet-based survey that was fielded
by YouGov/Polimetrix. They use a combination of stratified sampling
and matching techniques to identify a final sample that is representative
of the general population on a variety of characteristics including gender,
age, race, income, education, state of residence, party identification, and
political interest.2
The CCES is a cooperative project composed of a “common content” section (which includes an array of basic demographic and political
questions) and several modules designed by individual research teams.
All respondents complete the common content section of the survey and
one additional module. Each portion of the survey takes respondents
approximately 10 minutes to complete. The data I use are from a team
module with a sample of 1,600 respondents. Of these, 85 respondents
are excluded from the analysis presented here because they did not provide responses for all of the items used in the analysis.
The second source of data is a follow-up study conducted online
from March 17 to 20, 2014 using participants recruited through
Amazon’s Mechanical Turk interface. This sample cannot be treated as
representative of the American public; however, participants’ demographic characteristics are more similar to those of the national public
than undergraduate student subject pools often used in experimental
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research (Berinsky, Huber, and Lenz 2012; Buhrmester, Kwang, and
Gosling 2007; Paolacci, Chandler, and Ipeirotis 2010). Participants were
paid $0.50 to complete the survey. Summary statistics reporting the characteristics of each of the samples used in the analysis below are presented in Table S1 of the online supporting information.
In each case, the experimental treatments were designed to test the
hypotheses discussed above and consisted of a vignette that described a
Senator who opposed an bill that would either increase or decrease
spending in a particular policy area. In the CCES experiment, the policy
was spending on unemployment benefits; the policy area was randomly
assigned in the Mechanical Turk experiment. In each case the bill was
defeated. The decision to hold both the Senator’s position on the bill and
the fate of the bill constant is tied to the fact that one of the questions to
be addressed here is whether people prefer Senators who advocate for
their state’s preferences over national preferences even when this advocacy involves using the filibuster to thwart the will of the national public.
Because the filibuster cannot be used in support of a bill, I present the
Senator as opposing the bill across all conditions. Similarly, because a
Senator’s decision to filibuster can only prove pivotal in defeating a bill,
I hold this aspect of the vignette constant across all conditions. The full
text of the vignettes and question wording for all items used are presented in the supporting information.
Prior to reading the vignette, respondents were told that the Senator’s name had been deleted so they could provide responses to what
they read based only on what they read, rather than on anything else they
might know about the Senator. The basic design of each experiment followed a 2 3 3 3 2 design. The first dimension manipulated whether the
bill was supported by people in the Senator’s state and opposed by the
national public or vice versa. This manipulation allows me to assess
whether people evaluate a Senator who opposes a bill that is opposed by
the majority of his specific constituents (State Opposes) more or less
favorably than a Senator who opposes a bill that is opposed by the
majority of the national public (Nation Opposes).
The second dimension manipulated the role the Senator’s efforts
played in determining the fate of the bill. The first condition described
the Senators vote as Symbolic and essentially irrelevant to the final outcome of the vote. Specifically it said: “The final vote on the bill was not
close. The bill was voted down with 78 Senators—including Senator
{DELETED}—voting against it and 22 voting for it.” In contrast, in the
second condition, the Senator was presented as casting a vote that proved
to be crucial. In this Majoritarian condition, the vote was described as
follows: “The final vote on the bill was extremely close. The bill was
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voted down with 51 Senators—including Senator {DELETED}—voting
against it and 49 voting for it.” Finally, in the Filibuster condition, the
Senator was described as joining in a filibuster to prevent the bill from
passing: “Although 59 Senators supported the bill, Senator
{DELETED} joined with 40 other Senators to use the filibuster—a
procedure that allows 41 Senators who oppose a bill to prevent a final
vote—and prevented the bill from passing.”
The third dimension manipulated the direction of the policy in
question. The bill was described as either increasing or decreasing federal spending on the policy area in question. This manipulation removes
systematic relationships between individual-level characteristics (e.g.,
policy preferences, ideology, party identification, etc.) and feelings about
the Senator’s opposition to the bill. In effect respondents were randomly
assigned to read about a Senator who opposed a policy that they were
either predisposed to support or predisposed to oppose.
Manipulating the direction of the policy, in concert with a pretreatment measure of respondents’ policy preferences, allows me to construct
a measure of randomly assigned policy (dis)agreement (Respondent
Supports Bill) that is set to 1 for respondents whose policy preferences
indicate support for the bill as described—and opposition to the Senator’s substantive position—and 0 for respondents who disagreed with
the substance of the bill and, thus, agreed with the Senator’s position.3
This measure provides a way to benchmark the magnitude of the effects
of the characteristics of the Senator’s vote that are of primary interest
here to those associated with substantive policy agreement. It will also
allow me to examine whether experimentally manipulated agreement
with the substance of the Senator’s position conditions responses to the
other experimentally manipulated characteristics of the Senator’s decision.4
The Mechanical Turk experiment also randomly assigned the policy area the bill described would address. The bill was described as altering funding in one of three areas: assistance to the unemployed,
enforcing environmental regulations, or national defense. The primary
reason for including this manipulation is to assess the robustness of the
findings from the CCES experiment. An additional advantage of this
manipulation pertains to the fact that these policy areas vary in their
complexity, salience, and whether they provide benefits to particular
groups or to the population as a whole. Thus, this manipulation may provide preliminary insight into whether people’s preferences regarding if
and when Senators should be willing to eschew the demands of their
state vary across policy types. I do not have strong expectations regarding how people’s preferences regarding Senators’ behavior might vary
across issues. One possibility is that people prefer Senators who
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prioritize state preferences over national preferences in policy areas
where benefits target specific subpopulations (e.g., unemployment benefits) but prefer Senators who prioritize national preferences in areas like
national defense that more clearly affect the country as a whole. Another
is that people view policy areas like national defense as more suitable for
consensus-oriented decision making and, thus, are more accepting of the
use of countermajoritarian tools in these domains.
After excluding 56 respondents whose IP addresses indicated they
were completing the survey from outside of the United States, 1,836
respondents remained in the Mechanical Turk sample. An additional
183 respondents who did not complete the full survey or who failed to
provide usable responses to all items used in the analysis below were
also excluded from the sample, leaving 1,627 cases.5
In each experiment, after reading the vignette, respondents were
asked to rate the job the Senator was doing (“Poor” to “Excellent”) as
well as how likely they would be to vote for the Senator if they lived in
his state (“Not very likely” to “Very likely”). On the CCES, each rating
was measured using a horizontal slider that captured responses on a scale
from 0 to 100; the Mechanical Turk survey used identical questions but
measured responses on a scale ranging from 0 to 10. In each case, the
two measures were highly correlated (CCES: r 5 .853; Mechanical
Turk: r 5 .771) and were combined into a mean index of Evaluations of
Senator and scaled to range from 0 to 10 with higher values corresponding to more favorable ratings.
In Table 2, I present mean Evaluations of Senator by treatment
condition for each experiment, focusing on the first two treatment
dimensions. The two experiments suggest similar conclusions.
Comparing the values in the Nation Opposes and State Opposes
columns, I find that respondents consistently evaluated a Senator who
responded to the preferences of the majority of constituents in his state
more favorably than a Senator who prioritized the preferences of the
majority of the national public. In the CCES experiment, among those in
the Symbolic vote condition respondents evaluated a Senator who sided
with his state .60 units more favorably than those presented with a
Senator who sided with the nation. Among those in the Majoritarian
and Filibuster conditions, the comparable effects were .83 and .70 units,
respectively. The comparable differences across columns for the
Mechanical Turk experiment were 1.83, 1.67, and 1.46.
Comparing ratings across rows, in the CCES experiment I find
that, on average, Senators who cast crucial Majoritarian votes were evaluated most favorably (M 5 4.57),6 followed by those who cast Symbolic
votes (M 5 4.19), and those who engaged in a Filibuster to defeat the
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TABLE 2
Means by Treatment Condition
Panel A: Cooperative Congressional Election Study (CCES) Sample
Symbolic: The final vote on the bill was not close.
The bill was voted down with 78 Senators—including
Senator {DELETED}—voting against it and 22 voting
for it.
Majoritarian: The final vote on the bill was extremely
close. The bill was voted down with 51 Senators—
including Senator {DELETED}—voting against it and
49 voting for it.
Filibuster: Although 59 Senators supported the bill,
Senator {DELETED} joined with 40 other Senators to
use the filibuster—a procedure that allows 41 Senators
who oppose a bill to prevent a final vote—and prevented the bill from passing.
Nation Opposes
3.89
(244)
State Opposes
4.49
(242)
4.16
(260)
4.99
(258)
3.71
(261)
4.42
(250)
Nation Opposes
3.99
(255)
State Opposes
5.82
(287)
4.19
(265)
5.85
(279)
3.86
(247)
5.32
(294)
Panel B: Mechanical Turk Sample
Symbolic: The final vote on the bill was not close.
The bill was voted down with 78 Senators—including
Senator {DELETED}—voting against it and 22 voting
for it.
Majoritarian: The final vote on the bill was extremely
close. The bill was voted down with 51 Senators—
including Senator {DELETED}—voting against it and
49 voting for it.
Filibuster: Although 59 Senators supported the bill,
Senator {DELETED} joined with 40 other Senators to
use the filibuster—a procedure that allows 41 Senators
who oppose a bill to prevent a final vote—and prevented the bill from passing.
Notes: Cell entries are mean ratings of the Senator with higher values corresponding to more
favorable evaluations (0-10). Number of cases in each condition reported in parentheses.
T3
bill (M 5 4.06). I find a similar pattern in the Mechanical Turk experiment: respondents in the Majoritarian condition evaluated the Senator
most favorably (M 5 5.04), followed by those presented with a Senator
who cast a Symbolic vote (M 5 4.96), and respondents in the Filibuster
condition evaluating the Senator least favorably (M 5 4.65).
Next, in Table 3, I assess the statistical significance of these effects
in a regression framework. In column (1), using data from the CCES
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4.288
[0.152]***
1515
0.051
0.458
0.008
4.404
[0.173]***
1627
0.134
0.492
0.002
20.990
[0.128]***
1.671
[0.128]***
0.155
[0.153]
20.337
[0.157]**
20.005
[0.156]
0.535
[0.160]***
(4)
4.631
[0.275]***
521
0.115
0.696
0.015
21.168
[0.231]***
1.411
[0.230]***
0.271
[0.271]
20.425
[0.287]
Unemployment
4.213
[0.228]***
594
0.140
0.634
0.017
20.887
[0.217]***
1.830
[0.213]***
0.301
[0.261]
20.333
[0.262]
Environmental
Enforcement
Mechanical Turk
Evaluation of Senator (0-10)
(3)
4.946
[0.244]***
512
0.130
0.095
0.736
(6)
20.950
[0.094]***
1.206
[0.094]***
0.259
[0.114]**
20.206
[0.115]*
20.020
[0.157]
0.533
[0.160]***
20.416
[0.134]***
4.558
[0.149]***
3142
0.097
0.465
0.000
All
Pooled
20.910
[0.224]***
1.755
[0.225]***
20.190
[0.265]
20.285
[0.271]
National
Defense
(5)
Notes: Cell entries are OLS coefficients. Robust standard errors in brackets. The omitted category for State Opposes is the condition where public opinion in the state supported the bill and national public opinion opposed. The omitted category for the Majoritarian and Filibuster indicators is the Symbolic treatment condition. In column (2) the omitted policy type is Unemployment benefits.
* significant at 10%; ** significant at 5%; *** significant at 1% (two-tailed tests).
Observations
R-squared
Difference between Majoritarian and Filibuster
Difference between Majoritarian and Filibuster
(p-value)
Constant
CCES Data (15yes)
Policy: National Defense
Policy: Environ. Enforcement
Filibuster
20.924
[0.138]***
0.710
[0.138]***
0.383
[0.167]**
20.075
[0.168]
(2)
256
Majoritarian
State Opposes (15yes)
Resp. Supports Bill (15yes)
All
CCES
Unemployment
(1)
TABLE 3
Responses to Characteristics of a Senator’s Behavior
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David Doherty
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experiment, I regress Evaluations of Senator on indicators for the State
Opposes, Majoritarian, and Filibuster treatments. The model also
includes an indicator for Respondent Supports Bill to benchmark the
other treatment effects to those associated with policy agreement. The
coefficient on Respondent Supports Bill indicates that respondents who
supported the bill (that the Senator opposed) evaluated the Senator .92
units less favorably than those who opposed the bill (p < .01).7 The
results also indicate that respondents evaluated a Senator who was presented as siding with the majority of his constituents significantly more
favorably than a Senator who sided with the majority of the national
public (.71 units; p < .01). Notably, the magnitude of this effect is statistically indistinguishable from the effect associated with policy agreement
(test of equality of coefficients: p 5 .270). Finally, the findings indicate
that Senators presented as casting a crucial vote through Majoritarian
means were evaluated significantly more favorably than those who
joined a Filibuster (.48 units; test of equality of coefficients: p < .01).
Senators casting Symbolic votes were evaluated less favorably than those
who cast Majoritarian votes (p < .05) but similarly to those who joined
a Filibuster (p 5 .657).
In column (2), I run identical analysis using data from the Mechanical Turk experiment pooling across the policy area conditions and
including indicators for the policy area treatments. The key findings are
similar to those found in the CCES experiment. The coefficient on
Respondent Supports Bill indicates that people who agreed with the substance of the Senator’s position evaluated him approximately 1 unit
more favorably than those who disagreed (p < .01). Senators who prioritized state preferences over national preferences were evaluated 1.67
units more favorably (p < .01)—a significantly larger treatment effect
than that associated with policy agreement (p < .01). Respondents in the
Majoritarian condition evaluated the Senator significantly more favorably than those in the Filibuster condition (.49 units; test of equality of
coefficients: p < .01). The magnitude of this effect is smaller than that
associated with policy agreement (p < .05). Finally, in this experiment,
respondents in the Filibuster condition evaluated the Senator significantly less favorably than those in the Symbolic condition (.34 units;
p < .05), and those in the Symbolic and Majoritarian conditions evaluated the Senator similarly (p 5 .311).8
Columns (3)–(5) of Table 3 run the Mechanical Turk analysis separately by policy area. The effects associated with the Respondent Supports Bill and the State Opposes treatment are similar across the three
policy areas. In the cases of unemployment and enforcement of environmental regulations, respondents evaluated the Senator significantly more
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David Doherty
favorably when he was presented as proving pivotal in defeating the bill
through Majoritarian means than when he was presented as helping to
defeat the bill through the use of the Filibuster (p < .05 in each model).
This effect is not found in the national defense model (column [5]).
However, a model extending the column (2) specification to include
interactions between policy area indicators and the other treatments indicates that the effect sizes estimated across columns (3)–(5) of Table 3 are
not statistically distinguishable from one another (see Table S2 in the
supporting information).
Finally, in column (6) of Table 3, I pool cases from both experiments and include an indicator for the CCES data. The findings demonstrate a clear preference for Senators who prioritize state preferences
over national preferences. The magnitude of the State Opposes effect is
slightly larger than the effect of policy agreement (p < .10). The findings
also indicate statistically significant differences in evaluations across the
Symbolic, Majoritarian, and Filibuster conditions. Respondents presented with a Senator who proved pivotal in defeating the bill through
majoritarian means evaluated the Senator most favorably, followed by
those presented with a Senator whose vote was symbolic (p < .05).
Respondents evaluated a filibustering Senator significantly less favorably than respondents in the Symbolic or Majoritarian conditions
(p < .10 and p < .01, respectively). The magnitude of this later difference is approximately half the size of the effect of policy agreement.
Above, I discussed how the two treatment dimensions may interact. I posited that the positive effects of a Senator responding to his state
(rather than the nation) may be mitigated or reversed in situations where
this behavior is important in defeating legislation supported by the nation
(H3A). I also noted that people may be more willing to support a Senator
who filibusters (as opposed to using majoritarian means) if the filibuster
is used to prevent policies that are opposed by the national public from
being enacted (H3B). Although the means reported in Table 2 do not
appear to support either of these dynamics, I test these possibilities more
rigorously in models similar to those presented in Table 3 that include
interactions between the State Opposes and the Majoritarian and
Filibuster treatments. These models are presented in Table 4.
The models show little evidence of interactions between the treatments. Neither of the coefficients on the interaction terms reaches conventional levels of statistical significance in any of the models, and the
two terms do not jointly improve the fit of any of the models (p-values
range from .457 to .990). Thus, on average people’s preference for Senators who prioritize the preferences of their constituents over those of the
nation as a whole does not appear to be significantly diminished in
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Policy: National Defense
Policy: Environ. Enforcement
State Oppose 3 Filibuster
State Oppose 3 Majoritarian
Filibuster
Majoritarian
State Opposes (15yes)
Resp. Supports Bill (15yes)
20.922
[0.139]***
0.645
[0.233]***
0.307
[0.233]
20.093
[0.233]
0.153
[0.336]
0.037
[0.336]
(2)
20.990
[0.128]***
1.865
[0.212]***
0.255
[0.220]
20.126
[0.235]
20.189
[0.306]
20.395
[0.315]
20.002
[0.156]
0.538
[0.160]***
All
CCES
Unemployment
(1)
(4)
21.171
[0.232]***
1.668
[0.389]***
0.342
[0.412]
20.052
[0.429]
20.113
[0.548]
20.673
[0.577]
Unemployment
20.895
[0.217]***
2.112
[0.358]***
0.467
[0.356]
20.069
[0.369]
20.330
[0.515]
20.513
[0.521]
Environmental
Enforcement
Mechanical Turk
Evaluation of Senator (0-10)
(3)
TABLE 4
Representation Focus 3 Context Treatment Interactions
(6)
Citizen Evaluations of Senators
(continued on next page)
20.952
[0.094]***
1.292
[0.158]***
0.283
[0.161]*
20.096
[0.166]
20.046
[0.227]
20.212
[0.230]
20.019
[0.157]
0.534
[0.160]***
All
Pooled
20.912
[0.226]***
1.780
[0.363]***
20.152
[0.385]
20.282
[0.436]
20.071
[0.533]
20.007
[0.551]
National
Defense
(5)
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4.300
[0.198]***
1627
0.135
0.457
0.520
Notes: Cell entries are OLS coefficients. Robust standard errors in brackets.
* significant at 10%; ** significant at 5%; *** significant at 1% (two-tailed tests).
Observations
R-squared
Test of Joint Significance of Interactions (p-value)
Test of Equality of Interactions (p-value)
4.319
[0.174]***
1515
0.051
0.894
0.733
(2)
(4)
4.488
[0.339]***
521
0.118
0.467
0.329
Unemployment
4.075
[0.265]***
594
0.142
0.604
0.730
Environmental
Enforcement
Mechanical Turk
Evaluation of Senator (0-10)
(3)
(6)
20.416
[0.134]***
4.513
[0.163]***
3142
0.098
0.632
0.479
All
Pooled
4.934
[0.289]***
512
0.130
0.990
0.911
National
Defense
(5)
260
Constant
CCES Data (15yes)
All
CCES
Unemployment
(1)
TABLE 4
(continued)
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situations where this type of representation is the proximate cause of the
legislative defeat of a nationally supported bill.
Similarly, I do not find support for the idea that people are more
willing to accept a Senator’s use of the filibuster in situations where it is
used to serve the preferences of the national public. Tests of the equality
of the coefficients on the Respondent Supports Bill 3 Majoritarian and
Respondent Supports Bill 3 Filibuster interactions fall well short of conventional levels of statistical significance (see bottom row of Table 4).9
In summary, my findings thus far support Hypothesis 1 and Hypothesis
2, but do not support Hypothesis 3A or 3B.
Conditioning Effects of Substantive Policy Preferences
T5
Finally, I test Hypotheses 4 and 5. Hypothesis 4 posited that individuals who disagree with the substance of the Senator’s position—i.e.,
were inclined to support the bill the Senator opposed—would be less
inclined to reward his fidelity to the preferences of those in his state.
Similarly, Hypothesis 5 proposed that people would be less inclined to
punish a Senator who proved pivotal in defeating a bill through filibustering (rather than through majoritarian means) when they opposed the
bill along with the Senator. I test these expectations in Table 5 by extending the models reported in Table 3 to include interactions between the
Respondent Supports Bill indicator and each of the other treatments.
The estimates in column (1) are consistent with Hypothesis 4—the
coefficient on the Resp. Supports Bill 3 State Opposes interaction is
negative and statistically significant. The estimated effect of the Senator
prioritizing state preferences over national preferences is 1.02 units
among those who, along with the Senator, opposed the bill on substantive grounds; this effect remains positive and statistically significant
(p < .05) but is .62 units weaker among those who disagreed with the
Senator’s position. In additional analysis, I find suggestive support for
the expectation that these moderating effects would be particularly
strong among those in the Majoritarian and Filibuster conditions where
the Senator’s advocacy for his state proved pivotal in defeating nationally supported legislation (see Table S3 in the supporting information).
These findings are not replicated in the Mechanical Turk sample. The
coefficient on this interaction term is negative in columns (2), (4), and
(5), but in each case the estimates fall well short of conventional levels
of statistical significance. In addition, I find only weak evidence of this
moderating effect in the pooled analysis (column [6]; p < .10).
I find more consistent support for my expectation that the effect of
the Senator defeating the legislation through majoritarian means, rather
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Policy: Environ. Enforcement
Resp. Supports Bill 3 State Opposes
State Opposes (15yes)
Resp. Supports Bill 3 Filibuster
Resp. Supports Bill 3 Majoritarian
Filibuster
20.450
[0.267]*
0.183
[0.241]
0.393
[0.249]
0.386
[0.334]
20.898
[0.336]***
1.019
[0.202]***
20.615
[0.275]**
20.617
[0.252]**
0.319
[0.230]
20.027
[0.227]
20.329
[0.308]
20.621
[0.314]**
1.724
[0.190]***
20.106
[0.257]
0.007
[0.157]
(2)
(4)
20.563
[0.480]
0.780
[0.418]*
0.191
[0.447]
20.932
[0.548]*
21.113
[0.580]*
1.351
[0.355]***
0.128
[0.466]
Unemployment
20.883
[0.411]**
0.205
[0.396]
20.364
[0.387]
0.188
[0.526]
0.065
[0.525]
1.921
[0.327]***
20.180
[0.429]
Environmental
Enforcement
Mechanical Turk
Evaluation of Senator (0-10)
(3)
(6)
(continued on next page)
20.537
[0.184]***
0.235
[0.167]
0.168
[0.169]
0.030
[0.228]
20.736
[0.230]***
1.379
[0.138]***
20.346
[0.188]*
20.021
[0.157]
All
Pooled
20.380
[0.438]
-0.071
[0.388]
0.099
[0.360]
20.259
[0.534]
20.808
[0.547]
1.924
[0.306]***
20.313
[0.454]
National
Defense
(5)
262
Majoritarian
Resp. Supports Bill (15yes)
All
CCES
Unemployment
(1)
TABLE 5
Conditioning Effects of Respondents’ Policy Preferences
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4.059
[0.190]***
1515
0.064
20.210
0.402
1.074
0.000
0.000
4.215
[0.212]***
1627
0.136
0.346
0.150
0.638
0.003
0.365
0.532
[0.160]***
(2)
(4)
4.283
[0.382]***
521
0.123
0.590
0.173
0.771
0.044
0.753
Unemployment
4.205
[0.290]***
594
0.141
0.569
0.189
0.693
0.035
0.820
Environmental
Enforcement
Mechanical Turk
Evaluation of Senator (0-10)
(3)
(6)
0.521
[0.160]***
20.409
[0.134]***
4.355
[0.172]***
3142
0.102
0.067
0.699
0.833
0.000
0.001
All
Pooled
4.679
[0.299]***
512
0.135
20.170
0.374
0.379
0.657
0.338
National
Defense
(5)
Notes: Cell entries are OLS coefficients. Robust standard errors in brackets. * significant at 10%; ** significant at 5%; *** significant at 1% (two-tailed tests).
Observations
R-squared
Maj.-Filibuster (Opponents)
p-value
Maj.-Filibuster (Supporters)
p-value
Test of Equality of Majoritarian and Filibuster
Interactions (p-value)
Constant
CCES Data (15yes)
Policy: National Defense
All
CCES
Unemployment
(1)
TABLE 5
(continued)
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than by filibustering, would be larger among bill supporters (those who
disagreed with the substance of the Senator’s position). The rows at the
bottom of Table 5 report these estimated effects among bill supporters
and bill opponents as well as a test of the equality of the coefficients on
the Respondent Supports Bill 3 Majoritarian and Respondent Supports
Bill 3 Filibuster interactions. This latter test assesses whether the effect
of being assigned to the Majoritarian rather than Filibuster condition
depended on the respondent’s policy preferences.
The estimates in each column indicate that among bill opponents
the effect of the Senator defeating the bill through majoritarian means
rather than by filibustering was statistically indistinguishable from zero.
In contrast, among bill supporters, a Senator presented as helping to
defeat the bill by casting a pivotal “51st vote” was evaluated significantly more favorably than a Senator who contributed to the defeat of
the bill through filibustering. This difference is found in each of the columns except for column (5), where the effect was indistinguishable from
zero.10 The pooled analysis presented in column (6) again supports the
conclusion that respondents who were satisfied with the demise of the
bill were indifferent between a Senator who proved pivotal in defeating
the bill by filibustering and one who was similarly pivotal in defeating
the bill through majoritarian means. In contrast, among bill supporters
this difference in evaluations is comparable to the effects of policy agreement (estimated in column [6] of Table 3). This estimated difference in
effect size between bill supporters and opponents is statistically
significant (p < .01).
How Do People Want Individual Senators to Behave?
Critics have proposed a variety of institutional changes that might
foster more effective representation in the United States (e.g., Rehfeld
2005). However, even modest changes to institutional structures can be
difficult to enact (e.g., Adler 2002). Thus, it is important to examine
what behaviors citizens are inclined to reward individual legislators for
within institutions as they are. The findings reported here help us understand how people adjudicate between competing ideas about the role an
individual Senator should play in the legislative process and what types
of behavior they are inclined to reward. Examining these preferences
directly is crucial because the dimensions of a Senator’s behavior examined here are complex and cannot be easily understood as the product of
broad support for concepts like majority rule or protection of minority
rights. For example, although I posited that the public may be averse to a
Senator’s use of the filibuster because they are committed to the norm of
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majority rule, the connection between support for majority rule and
responses to the use of the filibuster is complicated by the fact that people must decide which majority should guide legislative behavior and
outcomes: the majority of Senators within the chamber, the majority of
the national public, or the majority of constituents in the Senator’s
state.11
The findings indicate that, on average, people strongly prefer Senators who put their states’ preferences above those of the nation, even
when this advocacy frustrates national preferences and even when the
Senator participates in a filibuster to achieve this end. Although a Senator’s decision to prioritize state preferences over those of the national
public does not entirely determine whether she is evaluated favorably or
unfavorably, the magnitude of the effects associated with this facet of
the Senator’s behavior are comparable to, and in the case of the followup experiment greater than, those associated with substantive policy
agreement. This suggests that public demands that congressional representatives put aside constituent demands and focus on enacting nationally supported policies are better understood as expressions of broad
frustration with gridlock and other features of the legislative process
than as expressions of what kind of behavior voters are likely to reward
or punish on Election Day. Perhaps perversely, the findings reported
here suggest that people are inclined to reward individual legislators for
behavior that leads to disliked aggregate outcomes like failures to enact
nationally supported legislation.
I also find that people, on average, prefer Senator’s who play a pivotal role in defeating a bill through majoritarian means, rather than
through the use of a filibuster. This effect did not depend on whether the
filibuster was being used to block legislation that was opposed by the
national public or by the people in the Senator’s home state. However,
these effects were conditioned by how participants felt about the substance of the Senator’s position. Those who opposed the bill were indifferent between the Senator contributing to the defeat of the legislation
through majoritarian means or filibustering. In sharp contrast, among
those who supported the bill, being presented with a Senator who proved
pivotal in defeating the bill by joining a filibuster—rather than by casting
a pivotal “51st vote”—essentially doubled the negative effect of disagreeing with the substance of his position. Two implications stem from
this finding.
First, this suggests that people’s preferences regarding the appropriate role of an individual legislator in the legislative process are not
strictly exogenous to substantive preferences. Second, they suggest that,
overall, Senators have electoral incentives to employ the filibuster on
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behalf of their constituents. A Senator who filibusters on behalf of the
majority of people in her state—even if this advocacy serves to defeat
nationally supported legislation—reaps benefits stemming from most
constituents agreeing with the substance of her policy position and benefits associated with adopting voters’ preferred representation orientation.
In addition, any negative effects associated with the use of the filibuster
are likely to be confined to the minority of constituents who disagree
with the substance of the Senator’s position. Thus, challengers who
attack a sitting Senator for employing “obstructionist” tactics may gain
little ground if the incumbent can defend her efforts as a product of
responsiveness to state preferences.
Like all research designs, the present study has limitations. One
possibility is that information about the procedural aspects of the Senator’s decision constituted a signal about the quality of the bill or
characteristics of the legislative environment distinct from the behavior of the individual Senator described in the vignette. For example,
learning that the national public opposed the legislation or that a bill
was defeated by a wide margin may be viewed as indicative of a low
quality bill. Similarly, the version of the vignette where the Senator
casts a symbolic vote may have signaled lower levels of conflict in
Congress, making respondents more favorably disposed to the actors
within the institution. These dynamics could confound the effects that
I attribute to the role the Senator played in determining the fate of
the bill, however, each would tend to mitigate the finding reported
here—e.g., people should have evaluated a Senator in the Symbolic
condition or who responded to national preferences particularly
favorably.
An additional limitation of these studies is that I focus on a subset of potential characteristics of a Senator’s behavior. The bill was
defeated and the target Senator opposed the bill across all experimental
conditions. These design choices were intended to provide the experiments with sufficient statistical power while keeping as many characteristics of the Senator’s behavior as possible consistent across
conditions. However, future work could examine how people respond
to a Senator who plays a key role in the passage, rather than defeat of
a bill, or who ends up on the losing side of a legislative vote. Another
interesting unanswered question pertains to whether people are
inclined to reward Senators who play a key role in breaking, rather
than sustaining, a filibuster.
A broader concern has to do with the external validity of the findings reported here. Respondents were asked to evaluate the Senator
described in the vignette based on limited information. Thus, the pattern
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of effects reported here may not neatly reflect how people use information about the procedural characteristics of a Senator’s behavior in the
richer information environment that exists outside of this experimental
context. For example, learning other details about the Senator’s background or other policy positions may mitigate or condition the effects
identified here. Senators may also use rhetoric to frame their behavior in
a way that either depresses or enhances their effects (e.g., McGraw,
Best, and Timpone 1995). Future research could build on the findings
presented here either by identifying natural settings where these dynamics can be further examined or through the use of experimental designs
that provide respondents with more detailed information about the Senator in question or manipulate other characteristics of the decisionmaking environment.
These limitations aside, the findings presented here clearly support
the claim that people care about more than substantive policy positions
when evaluating legislators’ behavior. In some cases people appear to
have fairly stable preferences regarding the role individual decision makers should play in the process of governing. However, my findings also
show that people’s substantive preferences can affect how they respond
to other characteristics of a Senator’s behavior. It will be important for
future work to continue to directly and systematically evaluate how people respond to characteristics of elites’ behavior beyond the substantive
policy positions they adopt, as well as the extent to which these preferences are conditional.
David Doherty <[email protected]> is Assistant Professor of Political
Science at Loyola University Chicago, 1032 W. Sheridan Road,
Chicago, IL 60660-1537.
NOTES
This research was supported, in part, by the Center for the Study of American Politics and the Institution for Social and Policy Studies at Yale University. A previous version of this article was presented in 2012 at the Midwest Political Science Association
Annual Meeting under the title “How Do People Evaluate Senators Whose Votes are
Decisive? Experimental Evidence.”
1. An extreme case in the House would involve 100% of the public in 217 districts supporting a bill and 51% of the public in each of the remaining 218 districts opposing. The hypothetical 218th representative who chooses to side with her constituents in
this case would be the proximate cause of a legislative outcome where the preferences of
almost three-fourths of the public are trumped by those of one-fourth of the national
public.
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2. Specifically the final sample is representative of the characteristics of the general population identified in the 2005–2007 American Community Study, November
2008 Current Population Survey Supplement, and the 2007 Pew Religious Life Survey.
YouGov/Polimetrix uses stratified sampling to recruit respondents from their panel of
over one million individuals. After administering the survey to more respondents than is
required, YouGov/Polimetrix uses matching techniques to select cases that most closely
match cases in the target sample (drawn from the large scale probability samples mentioned above). For more detailed information on this type of survey and sampling technique, see Vavreck and Rivers (2008). For critiques, see Chang and Krosnick (2009) and
Malhotra and Krosnick (2007).
3. Policy preferences were measured approximately eight minutes before the
vignette in the CCES and four minutes before the vignette in the Mechanical Turk
experiment. Preferences were solicited on a 4 point scale: “increased a lot,” “increased a
little,” “decreased a little,”“decreased a lot.” I collapse the “a lot” and “a little” responses
before creating the measure of Respondent Supports Bill.
4. Results of a multinomial logit model predicting assignment to the 12 treatment CCES conditions with pretreatment measures of race, gender, income, education,
age, party identification, ideology, and political interest did not reveal any evidence of
imbalances across conditions (Likelihood ratio of v2 5 119.70; p 5 0.523).
5. Results of a multinomial logit model predicting assignment to the 36 treatment conditions with pretreatment measures of race, gender, income, education, age,
party identification, ideology, and political interest did not reveal any evidence of imbalances across conditions (Likelihood ratio of v2 5 398.03; p 5 0.313).
6. This is the mean in each of the two Majoritarian conditions weighted by
number of cases in each (i.e., ðð4:163260Þ1ð4:993258ÞÞ=518).
7. Recall that because the direction of the policy (increase or decrease spending)
was randomly assigned, this measure of policy agreement is orthogonal to the other treatments and to any other characteristics of the respondent.
8. The results also indicate that people evaluated a Senator participating in the
defeat of a national defense spending bill more favorably than those in the other policy
area conditions. Explaining this effect is beyond the scope of the current project.
9. Note that these are effectively difference-in-difference tests. They assess
whether the effect of being assigned to the Majoritarian rather than Filibuster condition
depends on whether the Senator’s position is congruent with state or national preferences. Referring back to Table 1, they are tests of whether the difference between MN and
FN is equal to the difference between MS and FS.
10. Note that in the Mechanical Turk models the differences in these effect sizes
are not statistically distinguishable from one another.
11. I find empirical support for the claim that the relationships between support
for broad principles and responses to characteristics of a Senator’s behavior are murky
in additional analysis from the follow-up study. The pretest of that study included items
designed to measure respondent support for majority rule and support for minority
rights, but I find no evidence that the treatment effects reported here are moderated by
respondents’ stated support for either of these principles (see Table S4 of the supporting
information).
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Supporting Information
Additional Supporting Information may be found in the online version
of this article at the publisher’s website:
Appendix.
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