Does conventional wisdom explain policymaking during a domestic crisis on a novel issue? We consider executive-legislative interactions in the American states during the COVID-19 pandemic to address problems in the study of unilateral executive action. Empirical analyses of crisis policymaking often examine wartime presidents or localized natural disasters but confront difficulties in identifying the status quo policy. COVID-19 created a large-scale domestic crisis and a status quo that was known with relative certainty. We develop a canonical theoretical account of executive-legislative interaction and test it using COVID-19 executive orders issued and legislation introduced and passed during 2020 to 2022. Results show that governors' proposals met expectations, but legislatures' responses did not. Instead, partisanship and ideological factors, which crystallized over time, largely determined legislative policy choices. We conclude that standard theory does not adequately account for preference dynamics that might emerge due to delays between the executive's proposal and the legislature's response.

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An important, but poorly understood issue in modern American politics is the conservative wing of the Republican party's interest in repealing legislation. Although existing work shows that conservative Republican elites focus more on repeals than in past decades, it remains unclear what the public thinks about this governance approach. We examine this issue with a survey experiment asking respondents to evaluate four policy proposals in Congress, holding the "ends" constant but randomizing whether they are achieved by enacting a new law or repealing an existing law. Our results show that conservatives favor repeals as a legislative tool more so than liberals and moderates. We also show that this is the result of ideological, rather than partisan considerations. Our findings shed light on both the modern Republican party's approach to governance and a key issue at the nexus of mass attitudes, ideology, and legislative procedure.

"Kornberg, Maya L. Inside Congressional Committees: Function and Dysfunction in the Legislative Process." Congress & the Presidency, ahead-of-print(ahead-of-print), pp. 1–2

An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. As you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. As you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Abstract Chapter six, the concluding chapter, summarizes the book’s arguments that (a) repeals are a distinct type of legislative activity and (b) that repeals are uniquely partisan. Chapter six then applies the main themes of the book to an extended discussion of the Affordable Care Act. The important conclusion from this application is that repeals are difficult under all circumstances but even moreso given the policy area—social policy is more resistant to change than post other domains—and when a party has internal cleavages—like the contemporary GOP. The chapter then offers implications for other areas of scholarship, including how repeals influence the “responsible party government model,” how it increases political conflict and may decrease public approval, and may also be associated with decreased legislative capacity. Last, the chapter extends the arguments to other forms of reversal, including the 18th Amendment (prohibition) and its repeal by the 21st Amendment, as well as the Convention of the States. It ends while making a modest step toward a unified theory of statutory revision.

This paper is the result of a nationwide study of polling place dynamics in the 2016 presidential election. Research teams, recruited from local colleges and universities and located in twenty-eight election jurisdictions across the United States, observed and timed voters as they entered the queue at their respective polling places and then voted. We report results about four specific polling place operations and practices: the length of the check-in line, the number of voters leaving the check-in line once they have joined it, the time for a voter to check in to vote (i.e., verify voter's identification and obtain a ballot), and the time to complete a ballot. Long lines, waiting times, and times to vote are closely related to time of day (mornings are busiest for polling places). We found the recent adoption of photographic voter identification (ID) requirements to have a disparate effect on the time to check in among white and nonwhite polling places. In majority-white polling places, scanning a voter's driver's license speeds up the check-in process. In majority nonwhite polling locations, the effect of strict voter ID requirements increases time to check in, albeit modestly.

In this article, we investigate whether it is appropriate to generalize about the ideological and demographic characteristics of American party activists. Many studies on party polarization emphasize the role of activists in encouraging the divisions within the parties, and in so doing, commonly treat activists as a homogeneous group. Here, we show that different forms of political activity attract systematically different types of individuals. Similarly, we show that ideological extremism is more strongly associated with some forms of activism than others. Importantly, we find that extremism is most strongly associated with the forms of activity that are most likely to influence elected officials through the provision of resources, information or support in a nomination. Thus, while our findings broadly support the notion that extremists are more engaged than moderates, we challenge the consensus that the various forms of activism are interchangeable.

ABSTRACTGood education requires student experiences that deliver lessons about practice as well as theory and that encourage students to work for the public good—especially in the operation of democratic institutions (Dewey 1923; Dewy 1938). We report on an evaluation of the pedagogical value of a research project involving 23 colleges and universities across the country. Faculty trained and supervised students who observed polling places in the 2016 General Election. Our findings indicate that this was a valuable learning experience in both the short and long terms. Students found their experiences to be valuable and reported learning generally and specifically related to course material. Postelection, they also felt more knowledgeable about election science topics, voting behavior, and research methods. Students reported interest in participating in similar research in the future, would recommend other students to do so, and expressed interest in more learning and research about the topics central to their experience. Our results suggest that participants appreciated the importance of elections and their study. Collectively, the participating students are engaged and efficacious—essential qualities of citizens in a democracy.

What if everyone voted? There is consensus that increased turnout generally, but not always, benefits Democrats, but recent evidence suggests that it is unlikely to change election outcomes considering the paucity of close races. For the first time, we examine this question using gubernatorial races along with Senate races from 2008 and 2010, estimating the behavior of nonvoters based on individual‐level data from known voters. We find that the substantive effect of full turnout is understated, particularly in close gubernatorial races. As these races determine partisan control of executive branches, we demonstrate that full turnout would result in more politically meaningful changes than suggested in previous research focusing only on Senate or presidential elections. While the empirical consequences of increased turnout are well understood, our findings suggest that the substantive effects continue to be understated.Related Articles Stockemer, Daniel, and Stephanie Parent. 2014. “.” Politics & Policy 42 (): 221‐245. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/polp.12067/abstract Southwell, Priscilla. 2011. “.” Politics & Policy 39 (): 979‐996. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1747-1346.2011.00330.x/abstract Stockemer, Daniel. 2013. “.” Politics & Policy 41 (): 189‐212. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/polp.12012/abstract

This article examines the relationship between state budgetary delays and party polarization. Although others have evaluated the influence of divided government on a state’s likelihood of passing a budget on time, the influence of party polarization has not been explored. Given the growing rate of party polarization in the American states, it is important to understand the implications that this trend has for the budgetary process. The first analysis in this article predicts if a budgetary delay will occur, and the second evaluates the factors that explain how long the stalemate continues when a delay occurs.

When does Congress repeal laws enacted by prior generations? Although the substantial body of work on policy creation provides tentative explanations, we believe repeals represent an alternative way of examining the effects of congressional organization on legislative behavior. In this paper, we develop hypotheses based on both the conditional nature of party power and the location of pivot points, and test these hypotheses with a new data set of repeals from 1877 to 2012. We find that the largest effects on Congress’s capacity to repeal legislation are variation in the majority’s positive agenda control and shifts in the gridlock interval. We also find that when the majority claims control of both chambers after a long stretch in the minority, there is an increased likelihood of repeal beyond what is predicted by conditional party government alone. Because the partisan factors in our model have the largest substantive effects, and because repeals do not occur automatically in productive Congresses, we characterize repeals as long-term contests between two great “teams” over the location of the status quo.

In this article, I examine the effect of incumbent ideology on elections in 45 state legislatures, showing that ideological extremists are more likely to be opposed in the general election than are moderates and that extremists tend to do worse in challenged elections than moderates do. I also explore the intervening role of legislative professionalism, finding that in the majority of state legislatures moderation is rewarded, though in the most professionalized legislatures, incumbents are actually rewarded for extremism. These results show that despite the informational disadvantage of the electorate, the ideology of state legislators is an important factor in elections.

Individual-level studies of partisan and ideological change find that individuals generally adjust their ideological preferences to match their partisan affiliation. In examining this process among the state electorates, we find that contrary to these studies, states have adjusted their partisanship to match their ideology. In addition, we use a measure of state elite ideology to show that state parties have a role in the character of the partisan sort of the states. These results are consistent with political explanations of party strategy and rational mass responses for the character of macro-political change in the states over the last half century.