Abstract
How does the influence of party factions change over time? This article only begins to tackle this question by looking at which party caucuses newly elected members join. I focus on joining patterns in the current 115th Congress to shed light on which factions are more or less influential in Congress today. I show, first, that almost all incoming members joined an ideological faction when they entered office. Furthermore, the Republican Study Committee attracted the most incoming Republicans; the New Democratic Coalition and the Congressional Progressive Caucus attracted the most incoming Democrats. The moderate factions lagged behind the more conservative and liberal factions in the Republican and Democratic parties, respectively. These joining patterns of newly elected members have important implications for the current and future influence that factions can expect to have in the party and chamber.
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©2017 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Introduction: The Forum
- Party Leaders and Electoral Realignment: Democratic and Republican Southern Strategies, 1948–1968
- Groups Agendas as the Root of Party Position Change
- Realigning Politics: Electoral Coalitions, Political Change, and the Republican Party from Richard Nixon to George W. Bush
- Prophets of Party in American Political History
- The Meaning, Causes, and Possible Results of the 2016 Presidential Election
- Joining Patterns Across Party Factions in the US Congress
- David Mayhew and the Study of Congress
- Book reviews
- The American Political Pattern: Stability and Change, 1932–2016
- The New Minority: White Working Class Politics in an Age of Immigration and Inequality
- The Imprint of Congress
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Introduction: The Forum
- Party Leaders and Electoral Realignment: Democratic and Republican Southern Strategies, 1948–1968
- Groups Agendas as the Root of Party Position Change
- Realigning Politics: Electoral Coalitions, Political Change, and the Republican Party from Richard Nixon to George W. Bush
- Prophets of Party in American Political History
- The Meaning, Causes, and Possible Results of the 2016 Presidential Election
- Joining Patterns Across Party Factions in the US Congress
- David Mayhew and the Study of Congress
- Book reviews
- The American Political Pattern: Stability and Change, 1932–2016
- The New Minority: White Working Class Politics in an Age of Immigration and Inequality
- The Imprint of Congress