tofias dot net

log | a bucket full of thoughts

Posts tagged with congress

Eric Ostermeier has a nice post about the profile of the Tea Party Caucus. I thought I would look quickly at the roll call voting behavior of the caucus members relative to the rest of the House and the GOP. For the 111th House, the mean of the Tea Party Caucus members on the first dimension of DW-NOMINATE is .7 and for Republican non-caucus members the mean is .61. On the second dimension, the Tea Party Caucus mean is .15 and for non-caucus members it is -.06. Both these differences are statistically significant. Update. Ari wants me to tell him what this means. I think it just means that the Tea Party Caucus members are among the more conservative members of the GOP. To the extent that we might think that there are two dimensions structuring US political debate (one dividing the parties on economic issues, the second on social and cultural issues), Tea Party Caucus members tend to be those that exhibit what we’d cautiously interpret as more conservative behavior on both dimensions. I don’t think this is surprising, those members of Congress who are choosing to identify as Tea Partiers are those who choose to vote a little bit more conservatively than their peers in the Republican Party. If there is anything interesting here, it’s a suggestion (through the differences on the second dimension) that those members of the House choosing to affiliate with the Tea Party aren’t likely to vote like Republican libertarians in the Ron Paul mold. They’re more like Tea Party Caucus founder Michele Bachmann. Sources: [1] Members of the Tea Party Caucus [2] DW-NOMINATE Scores from Royce Carroll, Jeff Lewis, James Lo, Nolan McCarty, Keith Poole, and Howard Rosenthal.

Eric Ostermeier has a nice post about the profile of the Tea Party Caucus. I thought I would look quickly at the roll call voting behavior of the caucus members relative to the rest of the House and the GOP.

For the 111th House, the mean of the Tea Party Caucus members on the first dimension of DW-NOMINATE is .7 and for Republican non-caucus members the mean is .61. On the second dimension, the Tea Party Caucus mean is .15 and for non-caucus members it is -.06. Both these differences are statistically significant.

Update. Ari wants me to tell him what this means. I think it just means that the Tea Party Caucus members are among the more conservative members of the GOP. To the extent that we might think that there are two dimensions structuring US political debate (one dividing the parties on economic issues, the second on social and cultural issues), Tea Party Caucus members tend to be those that exhibit what we’d cautiously interpret as more conservative behavior on both dimensions. I don’t think this is surprising, those members of Congress who are choosing to identify as Tea Partiers are those who choose to vote a little bit more conservatively than their peers in the Republican Party.

If there is anything interesting here, it’s a suggestion (through the differences on the second dimension) that those members of the House choosing to affiliate with the Tea Party aren’t likely to vote like Republican libertarians in the Ron Paul mold. They’re more like Tea Party Caucus founder Michele Bachmann.

Sources:

[1] Members of the Tea Party Caucus

[2] DW-NOMINATE Scores from Royce Carroll, Jeff Lewis, James Lo, Nolan McCarty, Keith Poole, and Howard Rosenthal.

“  The Tea Party Caucus is strictly issue based in nature, promoting policies of fiscal responsibility and limited government with a strict adherence to our Constitution at the forefront.” — Michele Bachmann starts the congressional Tea Party Caucus

“  [O]n the much, much more interesting questions—how much of the rise in partisanship do those changing mores explain, and what else might explain them? — [Trent] Lott really isn’t an authority at all. Treating him as one is sort of like treating a pitcher as an expert on the physics behind a curveball — you might get something interesting out of the conversation, but if you really want an informed perspective, you’re better off asking someone who’s actually studied the issue at hand.” — Greg Marx

“  We all know when to get into this business, or you wouldn’t be here if you didn’t. I think very few know when to get out.” — Retiring Senator Christopher Dodd (D-CT) as quoted by Political Wire from an interview in The Hill

Real Work is Hard

Sen. John Thune (R-SD) on Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) who apparently has the audacity consider the issues before casting a vote:

I think he’s a guy who’s willing to get down into the weeds. Because he immerses himself in that and understands it so well — the positions he adopts may not always be the ones that everyone else in our conference comes to.

It pus the whole roll call scaling thing into perspective a bit (on which also see John Sides on Ben Lauderdale). Link via Political Wire.

The quote also makes me think of an aside made by Joe Biden when he visited UWM with Tim Geithner. Biden said, “complicated issues lend themselves to demagoguery.” He might as well said that complicated issues encourage decision makers to avoid detailed rational calculations and use ideology.


Suggested titles: Historical Civility in US Politics – OR – The Assault in the U.S. Senate Chamber on Senator Sumner.

Suggested titles: Historical Civility in US Politics – OR – The Assault in the U.S. Senate Chamber on Senator Sumner.


“  Whoever takes my seat, and hopefully it’s going to be a Democrat, will be much like me because it’s reflective of this district. This is a hard-working blue collar district and it’s the middle of America… Whoever takes my position I’m sure will be reflective of that position. It won’t be anyone from the left or extreme right.” — Bart Stupak on his retirement (CNN 4/9/2010)

Costs of the Supermajority Senate

Among other things, Ezra Klein argues that the filibuster contributes to legicide: “It encourages Congress to outsource its responsibilities to independent commissions, the executive branch and its associated agencies, and the courts…”


On Finding an Alternative that Beats the Status Quo

It’s a search problem:

As House Speaker Nancy Pelosi searches for votes and the WH hunts for compromises on health care reform, party strategists on both sides remain convinced that a legislative overhaul will pass.

The Popularity of Healthcare Reform

Ezra Klein asks if healthcare reform is popular – and it is if you ask people about their support for many of the components of the reform, but not so much if you ask people to stick their thumb up or down to the whole thing.

I think it’s easy to chalk up these sorts of survey results to the common variability and stupid human tricks we often see with polling. However, I think a good portion of the blame has to go to Obama and the Democrats for failing to market this bill with morality and as a series of regulatory changes (see Canes-Wrone and de Marchi 2002) and allowing the GOP to frame the discussion as a question over the size of government. It’s much too easy to maintain a status quo policy by maligning leviathan and the Democrats let their opponents do just that.

Link via Seth Masket who is quickly becoming one of my favorite bloggers.

More and better said on Ezra K. from frequent co-author and good friend of the log, Michael Ensley:

A big bill leaves too much room for doubt, attack. They took the wrong lesson away from 1993-94. The problem for Clinton was not getting Congress involved early. The problem was setting a modest, focused, and clear bill. We are going to make it better by doing X. Instead they were all over the map. By trying to do a comprehensive overhaul you open up to many avenues. Maybe he had to keep to campaign promises. But why not start by delivering something simple. A health insurance reform bill based on mandates and eliminating discrimination based on pre-existing health conditions.

I’ve frequently espoused the Congress-wasn’t-involved-early-enough story while explaining 1994. But I think Ensley is right, the tack taken in both instances was too sprawling to appeal to an inattentive electorate.