Congressional Cohorts: The House Republican Class of 2010
-
C. Lawrence Evans
C. Lawrence Evans is Newton Family Professor of Government at the College of William and Mary. A former chair of the Legislative Studies Section of APSA, he has written extensively about the US Congress.
Abstract
As a result of its size and close ties to the Tea Party movement, the freshman cohort of House Republicans elected in 2010 had a significant impact on the chamber. Compared to other Republicans, the districts the freshmen represented did not tilt more toward the GOP or the Tea Party, nor was their roll call ideology during 2011–2012 statistically distinguishable from that of their more senior colleagues. For votes that were Tea Party priorities, however, the effects of freshman status were often large. And the most consequential impact of the class was over party strategy and agenda. The role played by the 2010 House freshmen has implications for how we should think about party influence in Congress.
About the author
C. Lawrence Evans is Newton Family Professor of Government at the College of William and Mary. A former chair of the Legislative Studies Section of APSA, he has written extensively about the US Congress.
References
Aldrich, John H., and David W. Rohde. 2000. “The Consequences of Party Organization in the House: The Role of the Majority and Minority Parties in Conditional Party Government.” In Polarized Politics: Congress and the President in a Partisan Era, edited by J.R. Bond and R. Fleisher, Washington, DC: CQ Press.Suche in Google Scholar
Asher, Herbert B., and Herbert F. Weisberg. 1978. “Voting Change in Congress: Some Dynamic Perspectives on an Evolutionary Process.” American Journal of Political Science 22: 391–425.10.2307/2110622Suche in Google Scholar
Bailey, Michael A., Jonathan Mummolo, and Hans Noel. 2012. “Tea Party Influence: A Story of Activists and Elites.” American Politics Research 40: 769–804.10.1177/1532673X11435150Suche in Google Scholar
Burghart, D., and L. Zeskind. 2010. “Tea Party Nationalism: A Critical Examination of the Tea Party Movement and the Size, Scope and Focus of its National Factions.” Presented at the Berkeley Tea Party Conference.Suche in Google Scholar
Cox, Gary W., and Mathew D. McCubbins. 1993. Legislative Leviathan: Party Government in the House. Berkeley: University of California Press.Suche in Google Scholar
Cox, Gary W., and Mathew D. McCubbins. 2005. Setting the Agenda: Responsible Party Government in the U.S. House of Representatives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511791123Suche in Google Scholar
Draper, Robert. 2012. Do Not Ask What Good We Do. New York: Free Press.Suche in Google Scholar
Evans, C. Lawrence, and Walter J. Oleszek. 1997. Congress Under Fire: Reform Politics and the Republican Majority. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.Suche in Google Scholar
Fenno, Richard F., Jr. 1978. Home Style: House Members in Their Districts. Boston: Little, Brown.Suche in Google Scholar
Fenno, Richard F., Jr. 1997. Learning to Govern: An Institutional View of the 104thCongress. Washington, D.C.: Brookings.Suche in Google Scholar
Hacker, Jacob S., and Paul Pierson. 2005. Off Center: The Republican Revolution and the Erosion of American Democracy. New Haven: Yale University Press.Suche in Google Scholar
Hood, M. V. III, and Irwin L. Morris. 1998. “Boll Weevils and Roll-Call Voting: A Study in Time and Space.” Legislative Studies Quarterly XXIII: 245–268.10.2307/440282Suche in Google Scholar
Jacobson, Gary C. 2011. “The Republican Resurgence in 2010.” Political Science Quarterly 126: 27–52.10.1002/j.1538-165X.2011.tb00693.xSuche in Google Scholar
Kingdon, John. 1973. Congressmen’s Voting Decisions. New York: Harper.Suche in Google Scholar
Mann, Thomas E., and Norman J. Ornstein. 2012. It’s Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided with the New Politics of Extremism. New York: Basic Books.Suche in Google Scholar
Nye, Mary Alice. 1993. “Changing Support for Civil Rights: House and Senate Voting, 1963-88.” Political Research Quarterly 46: 799–822.10.1177/106591299304600407Suche in Google Scholar
Poole, Keith T. 2007. “Changing Minds? Not in Congress!” Public Choice 31: 435–451.10.1007/s11127-006-9124-ySuche in Google Scholar
Sinclair, Barbara. 2013. “House Leadership and the Speakership of John Boehner.” Presented at the conference on Leadership and American Politics, University of Virginia.Suche in Google Scholar
Stimson, James A. 1999. Public Opinion in America: Moods, Cycles, and Swings. 2nd ed. Boulder: Westview Press.Suche in Google Scholar
Article note
My thanks to Mike Bailey and his coauthors for providing portions of the data used in this article. For details, see their excellent study (Bailey, Mummolo, and Noel 2012).
©2014 by De Gruyter
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- Reflections on the Study of Generations in Politics
- The Long Shadow of Parental Political Socialization on the Development of Political Orientations
- Baby Boomers
- Political Generations in American Politics: Insights from Research in International Relations
- More Than a Trace: Political Periods, Presidential Losers, and the Goldwater and McGovern Experiences
- How Impressionable Were the Younger Reagan Cohorts?
- Thinking about my Generation: The Impact of Large Congressional Cohorts
- Class Connections: Congressional Classes and the Republicans of 1994
- Congressional Cohorts: The House Republican Class of 2010
- Foreign Junkets or Learning to Legislate? Generational Changes in the International Travel Patterns of House Members, 1977–2012
- Book reviews
- Artists of the Possible: Governing Networks and American Policy Change Since 1945
- Social Democratic America
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- Reflections on the Study of Generations in Politics
- The Long Shadow of Parental Political Socialization on the Development of Political Orientations
- Baby Boomers
- Political Generations in American Politics: Insights from Research in International Relations
- More Than a Trace: Political Periods, Presidential Losers, and the Goldwater and McGovern Experiences
- How Impressionable Were the Younger Reagan Cohorts?
- Thinking about my Generation: The Impact of Large Congressional Cohorts
- Class Connections: Congressional Classes and the Republicans of 1994
- Congressional Cohorts: The House Republican Class of 2010
- Foreign Junkets or Learning to Legislate? Generational Changes in the International Travel Patterns of House Members, 1977–2012
- Book reviews
- Artists of the Possible: Governing Networks and American Policy Change Since 1945
- Social Democratic America
