Books
Congress in Reverse: Repeals from Reconstruction to the Present (w/ Nate Birkhead, 2020 University of Chicago Press)
Our book is the first to examine repeals enacted by Congress. Many academic studies focus on Congress’s efforts to pass new legislation, yet few have explored efforts to undo existing statutes. In this book we address two primary questions. First, we examine whether law creation and law repeal are governed by the same dynamics. Strictly speaking, the requirements are the same, so perhaps a repeal is “just another law.” Despite this, we show that repeals face a unique set of constraints and are therefore harder to pass than any other type of legislation. Further, our data reveal that productive congresses do not automatically repeal a significant volume of statutes and that the usual determinants of law creation only modestly explain repeal occurrence. Second, we consider three dominant theories of lawmaking—problem solving, parties, or preferences—and explore which, if any, best explain repeals. Although all three help us understand when and why repeals occur, our book develops an explicit theory that focuses on the majority party’s cohesiveness its recent experience out of power. Our data show that repeals are most likely to succeed when the majority is ideologically cohesive and recently won power after a long time in the minority. In this respect, while most lawmaking follows exogenous policy problems and takes place on a bipartisan basis, when Congress undoes landmark legislation it tends to do so for partisan reasons.
First in the South: Why South Carolina’s Presidential Primary Matters (w/ Gibbs Knotts, 2020 University of South Carolina Press)
Every four years presidential hopefuls travel the primary election circuit through Iowa and New Hampshire. Once the dust settles, the nation's focus turns to South Carolina, the first primary in the delegate-rich South. Historically, Iowa and New Hampshire have dominated the news because they are first, not because of their predictive ability or demographic representativeness. In this book we make the case for shifting the national focus to South Carolina because of its demographically clarifying and often-predictive role in selecting presidential nominees for both the Republican and Democratic Parties. Our book begins with an introduction to the fundamentals of South Carolina's primary and a discussion of how the state achieved its coveted "First in the South" status. In the second half of the book, we examine election results, census data, and exit polls from recent contests to reveal the basic dynamics of the South Carolina primary. We argue that a key factor that makes the South Carolina primary so important is the unique demographic makeup of the state's Democratic and Republican electorates. We also identify major factors that have bolstered candidates' campaigns and propelled them to victory in South Carolina. While the evidence confirms the conventional wisdom about endorsements, race, and being from a southern state, the analysis offers hope to political newcomers and candidates who raise less money than their competitors.
Selected Articles
Adversaries or Allies? Donald Trump's Republican Support in Congress (with Amira, Lauren, and McCray, 2019 Perspectives on Politics)
Donald Trump’s first year in office received unprecedented media coverage, with many wondering whether congressional Republicans were “adversaries” or “allies” of the president’s legislative positions. We explore this issue from two vantage points. First, we place Trump’s presidency in historical context by forecasting his Republican support with data from 1969 to 2016 (see figure to the right, which contains the House forecast). We find that Republicans supported Trump’s legislative positions in 2017 at levels consistent with expectations, contrary to the views of some. Second, we explore the factors that explain why Republican lawmakers supported or opposed their party’s president. We find that conservative and establishment Republicans were more likely to support Trump, contrary to some claims, while female Republicans and those representing affluent, non-white districts were more likely to oppose Trump. We conclude by discussing the broader implications of these results, including the role of identity in contemporary American politics and the possible realignment of the GOP.
The Constrained Governor: Gubernatorial Decision Making and Senate Appointments (with Cooper and Knotts, 2016, Political Research Quarterly)
In the vast majority of American states, governors have authority to fill Senate vacancies, and in an average decade, one-third of all Americans have been represented by an appointed senator. Despite this, no published study has investigated the dynamics of gubernatorial selection. In this paper, we compile an original data set of Senate appointees as well as the list of the candidates the governor considered but did not select. We model the governor's selection and discover that despite having no formal constraints on their appointment power, governors behave as constrained actors. In particular, we find that governors eschew the potential appointees who are closest to their own policy views and instead appoint the candidate who is closest to the ideological position of the voters in their state. This effect is particularly pronounced when the governor is eligible for reelection within two years. We think these findings have both theoretical and normative implications for understanding Senate appointments, gubernatorial decision making, and the implicit power of the electorate.
The Nationalization of Special Elections for the U.S. House of Representatives (with Knotts, 2016 Journal of Elections, Public Opinion, and Parties)
Special elections serve and important purpose, generate considerable media attention, and take place relatively often. Political commentators have argued that special elections are national contests, serving as a referendum on the president’s party and a predictor of future election outcomes. But the evidence is mixed, with one study demonstrating that candidate and district characteristics alone explain special election outcomes (Gaddie, Bullock, and Buchanan 1999). We investigate this disagreement by comparing special election and open seat results using new data from 1995 to 2014. We find that presidential approval is indeed predictive of special election outcomes. Furthermore, we find that the effect of presidential approval on special election outcomes has increased in magnitude from 1995 to 2014, with the 2002 midterm representing an important juncture in the nationalization of special elections (see figure to the right). We conclude that special elections have developed into national contests since the 1970s and situate this development within broader electoral trends.
The Initiative to Shirk? Statewide Ballot Measures and Congressional Roll-Call Behavior (with Huder and Smith, 2011, American Politics Research)
Do statewide ballot measures affect the behavior of members of Congress? In this paper we examine this question with data on ballot measures in three issue domains: gay marriage, campaign finance, and minimum wage. Using roll call votes that lie in the same issue space, we hypothesize that the signal provided by the passage or failure of ballot measures induce lawmakers to vote in line with their constituents. In other words, the information provided by a ballot measure reduces instances of policy "shirking" by members of Congress (where public opinion polls and a lawmaker's intuition are less precise measures of public sentiment). We find evidence that this hypothesis holds, but only for members of the House. We find no evidence in the Senate, as senators are insulated from public opinion to a greater degree than their counterparts in the House. One of the additional findings we report in this paper is that representatives respond to the signal provided by their median constituent. In other words, the results reveal that it matters little if the ballot measure passed with 70% of the vote or 51% of the vote.
A full list of my publications can be found on my CV: