Day 7 – Legislative Recruitment

July 8, 2013

In the News Congress Lets Student Loan Rates Double

http://video.msnbc.msn.com/up/52406830#52406830

Gerrymandering “Not Gerrymandering, but Districting: More

Evidence on How Democrats Won the Popular Vote but Lost the Congress http://themonkeycage.org/2012/11/15/not-gerrym

andering-but-districting-more-evidence-on-how-democrats-won-the-popular-vote-but-lost-the-congress/

“Unintentional Gerrymandering” Political Geography and the U.S. House Vote Democrats are inefficiently concentrated in large

cities and small industrial agglomerations. http://themonkeycage.org/2012/11/10/political-ge

ography-and-2012-u-s-house-vote/

http://elections.nytimes.com/2012/results/house/big-board

Where Have We Been? Constitutional Foundations & Design of

Congress Constitution Federalist 51

The Two Congresses and the Representative-Constituent Linkage Two Congresses: Miller and Stokes (1963)

Institutionalization of Congress Elections and the Rules of the Game

Districting Process

Where Are We Going? Who enters? Who wins? Who votes for them? What effect do elections have on governance?

Readings DOL (58-67) Maestas et al. (2006) “When to Risk It?

Institutions, Ambitions, and the Decision to Run for the U.S. House” American Political Science Review 100(2): 195-208.

Constitution

District Features

Nominating Procedures

and Primaries

General Election

Barriers to entering Constitution

What does the Constitution require of Congressional candidates?

District features What must candidates consider about their

districts? Nominating procedures and primaries

How can this process change who decides to run? General election prospects

Maestas et al. (2006) Why are the authors concerned about analyzing

the decision model through a two-stage process? What method do they use to determine the

ambition of state legislators? Why might members of a professional legislature

be more likely to run for Congress? Conversely, why might they be more likely to stay in their current office?

Finally, what do they find? What factors make legislators more or less ambitious? What factors make ambitious legislators more or less likely to run?

PA National Congressional Districts

Source: http://www.redistricting.state.pa.us/Maps/House.cfm

Pennsylvania State House Map

Source: http://aws.redistricting.state.pa.us/Redistricting/Resources/GISData/Districts/Legislative/House/2011-Revised-Final/PDF/2011-Revised-Final-Plan-Map-House.pdf

Pennsylvania State Senate Map

Source: http://aws.redistricting.state.pa.us/Redistricting/Resources/GISData/Districts/Legislative/Senate/2011-Revised-Final/PDF/2011-Revised-Final-Plan-Map-Senate.pdf

Running for Higher Office – Previous Assumptions Expected utility of winning a higher office - E(Uh)

E(Uh) = phBh – Ch

Expected utility of retaining the current, lower office -E(Ul) E(Ul) = plBl – Cl

Under this assumption, an ambitious politician will attempt to move to higher office when: E(Uh) = phBh – Ch > E(Ul) = plBl – Cl

What is problematic about this assumption?

Running for Higher Office – A Two-Stage Decision Process Maestas and colleagues argue that there is a

stable disposition, or function, that each legislator holds. Stage 1 Progressive Ambition = f(E(UA)

= pgenBmarg – Cmarg + M)

Where pgen is the long-run probability of winning office

Bmarg is the expected gain from the target office

Cmarg is the expected costs from running for the target office

M = personal motivations outside of the cost-benefit analysis

Those who enter Stage 2 have already crossed a threshold level of ambition.

Stage 2 Pr(Run | Progressive Ambition > 0 = f(Pt, pgen,Ct,)

f(E(UA)

= pgenBmarg – Cmarg + M)pgen Bmarg Cmarg M

Estimation of winning the party nomination.

Assessment of prestige and effectiveness in U.S. House career.

Family-cost index Desire to make social or business contacts

Estimation of chances of winning the general election.

Assessment relative to current position in state government.

Campaign-cost index

Perception of district partisan balance.

Signals from party.

Results

What is this model predicting?

Moving to the Second Stage f(E(UA) = pgenBmarg – Cmarg + M)

If f(E(UA)) > 0, then they are scored as ‘1’ (i.e. ambitious)

If f(E(UA)) ≤ 0, then then they are scored as ‘0’ (i.e. not ambitious)

Interviews

N = 597

F(E(UA))1

0

N = 263

N = 334

Discussion How do the authors connect their findings to

political responsiveness? What are the implications for their findings? What can they not determine from this study? How might this study be extended?