Timing and sequence in congressional elections: Interstate contagion and America's nineteenth-century scheduling regime

Studies in American Political Development

Volumn 21, Issue 2, 2007, Pages 181-202

  James, Scott C ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 36049017059     PISSN: 0898588X     EISSN: 14698692     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0898588X07000193     Document Type: Review

References (65)

1. New York Times, 3 Nov. 1878, 6.
2. The Mississippi elections lasted two days. Actually, California went last: in this congressional, cycle, holding its elections on 13 Nov. 1849. However, this late date had more to do with the timing of its recent admission to statehood than it did anything else.
3. Michael Holt, The American Whig Party (New York; Oxford University Press, 1999).
4. John H. Aldrich, "A Dynamic Model of Presidential Nomination Campaigns," American Political, Science Review 74 (1980): 651-69;
5. Larry M. Bartels, Presidential Primaries and the Dynamics of Public Choice (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988);
6. Samuel L. Popkin, The Reasoning Voter: Communication, and Persuasion in Presidential Campaigns (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991);
7. Rebecca Morton and Kenneth C. Williams, Learning by Voting: Sequential Choices in Presidential Primaries and Other Elections (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2001).
8. Peter H. Argersinger, Structure, Process, and Party: Essays in American Political History (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharp Incorporated, 1992).
9. Robert Anderson Horn, "National Control of Congressional Elections," Ph.D. diss., Princeton University, 1942.
10. Repeating would, be acknowledged as one of the motive problems behind the passage of the 1872 law synchronizing congressional election dates on 1T/1M.
11. Rapid southern acceptance of 1T/1M. was due mostly to its imposition upon the defeated states of the Confederacy lay Reconstruction Era Republican governors.
12. In the cases of both New York and Michigan, the application of the 1T/1M rule to their 1848 congressional, contests was a continuation of standing law, each state having had scheduled its 1844 and 1846 House elections in accordance with the same rule.
13. "The General Election Day," New York Times, 3 Nov. 1878, 6.
14. Remarks of Benjamin Butler (R-MA), Congressional Globe, 14 Dec. 1871, 141.
15. "The General. Election Day."
16. Rogan Kersh, Dreams of a More Perfect Union. (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001).
17. A provision in the federal law provided an out to states seeking to avoid compliance. It stated that state constitutions mandating alternative scheduling dates were exempt from the new law.
18. Lany Bartels, Presidential Primaries and the Dynamics of Public Choice (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988).
19. "October Elections," Huron Reflector (Norwalk, Ohio), 24 Oct. 1848, 2.
20. Bruce Cain, John Ferejohn, and Morris Fiorina, The Personal Vote: Constituency Service and Electoral Independence (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987).
21. Richard L. McCormick, The Party Period and Public Policy: American Politics from the Age of Jackson to the Progressive Era (New York: Oxford. University Press, 1986).
22. A. second plausible effect of early trends on later-voting states targets voter enthusiasm and party cadre work effort-turnout effects - in the later states. Voters and party workers, convinced that partisan tides favorable to their organization were sweeping the states, may have been buoyed to work harder and get to the polls in the face such prognostications. Conversely, party workers and voters on the other side of such trends may have been demoralized by early trends. While it is best not to accept uncritically the utterances of party elites, this is precisely hew one high-ranking New York Democrat assessed the effects of Democratic gains in the Sept.-voting states of Maine and Vermont upon the upcoming Oct. contests in Ohio and Indiana. "What," said the writer, "do you suppose will be the effect [of the Sept. races] on the Oct. States?" "It must be very great.... Our people will plunge into the campaign, in Ohio and Indiana with, that confidence which belongs to victory. Every man now will be sure that the tide is with them, while the office holders [i.e., Republicans] will be correspondingly depressed. Indiana is, of course, sure to the Democrats, and I think that Ohio will now, in Oct, be counted upon the side of good government: and Democracy. The skies are very bright." (The Brooklyn Eagle, 14 Sept. 1880, 4).
23. rd Sess., S. Rpt 916, 177.
24. "The State Elections," Galveston News, 20 Oct. 1872, 2.
25. See, for example, remarks found in Iowa's Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye," 29 Oct. 1874, 3: And however desirable it might be to have an. eminent civilian-statesman for President, these same practical politicians know very well that such a man nominated by either party could not carry more than a party vote. . . . They know there is a large floating vote that belongs permanently to neither this nor that party, that is attracted by the personal popularity of the candidate.
26. "Omens of Republican Success," New York Times, 27 Sept. 1868, 4.
27. Ibid.
28. "The Week," The Nation, 24 Sept. 1868, 241.
29. "The State Elections," New York Times, 19 Aug. 1872, 4.
30. "The Presidency," The Round Table, A. Saturday Review of Politics, Finance, Literature, Society, 29 Aug. 1868, 3.
31. "Importance of the October Election," Gettysburg Compiler, 3 Oct. 1864, 2.
32. Philip Quilibet, "State Election Days," The Galaxy, A Magazine of Entertaining Reading 21 (1876): 128.
33. "Indiana 'Floaters,'" The Nation, 22 Nov. 1888, 412.
34. (No title), National Era, 10 Jun. 1858, 91.
35. "Letter Fourth," The Knickerbocker; or New York Monthly Magazine 29 (1847): 327.
36. "Monarchy and Democracy," The American Monthly Knickerbocker 64 (1864): 338.
37. "State Election Days," The Galaxy, 128.
38. "The Tactics of the Enemy," The New Bedford, Mercury, 2 Nov. 1838, 2.
39. "Singular Propensity," The New-Hampshire Patriot, and Stale Gazette, 20 May 1847, 2.
40. "Look out for False Returns!" The Pittsfield Sun, 26 Oct. 1848, 1. Emphasis in orig.
41. Racine Argus, 17 Oct. 1876, 4.
42. Jerrold G. Rusk, A Statistical History of the American Electorate (Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly Press, 2001).
43. th Congresses (Jefferson, NC: McFarland Se Company, 1998).
44. I have run the analysis that follows on 1828 though. 1884 with few alterations in my principal conclusions.
45. David S. Brown and Wendy Hunter, "Democracy and Social Spending in Latin America, 1980-1992," American Politicai Science, Review 93 (1999): 779-90;
46. David R. Morgan and Kenneth Kickham, "Work and Welfare in the American States: Analyzing the Effects of the JOBS Program," Political Research Quarterly 52 (1999): 867-83;
47. Kathleen Bawn and Frances Rosenbluth, "Coalition Parties versus Coalitions of Parties: How Electoral. Agency Shapes the Political Logic of Costs and Benefits," mss. in author's possession (2003).
48. Nathaniel Beck and Jonathan Katz, "What to Do (and Not to Do) with Time-Series Cross-Section Data," American Political Science Review 89 (1995): 634-47.
49. Where multiple states simultaneously held elections in the previous period (time t-1) I use the mean change in the Democratic vote in states i . . . i′ to predict Democratic vote change in state k at time t.
50. 2 values ranging from .14 to .27 for the national contagion model and .12 to .23 for the sectional contagion model.
51. Measures of nominal gross domestic product for the United States were obtained from http://www.eh.net/hmit/gdp/ (last accessed. 1 Jul. 2007).
52. Each alternative imposes its own specific sequential ordering on the data. In the national model, unexpected changes in prior party performances in the North are assumed to have a similar impact on upcoming southern states in. the unfolding election, cycle as they do in upcoming northern, contests. The sectional contagion model, by contrast, assumes that contagion is regionally contained, with the impact on later elections of unexpected outcomes in northern or southern state elections remaining confined to their respective sections.
53. I would like to acknowledge the reviewers for this journal, two of whom independently suggested this test.
54. Jerrold G. Rusk, "The Effect of the Australian. Ballot Reform on Split-Ticket Voting: 1876-1908," American Political Science Review 64 (1970): 1220-38.
55. State presidential, election dates for 1828 through 1844 were graciously provided by Philip Lampi of the American Antiquarian Society.
56. Peter H. Argersinger, Populism and Politics: William Alfred Peffer and the People's Party (Lexington, KY: The University Press of Kentucky, 1974), 96, My thanks to Professor Argersinger for bringing this example to my attention.
57. Michael J. Dubin, United Stales Gubernatorial Returns, 1776-1860: The Official.Results by State and County (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2003).
58. Richard W Boyd, "Election Calendars and Voter Turnout," American Politics Quarterly 14 (1986): 89-104;
59. Richard W Boyd, "The Effect of Primaries and Statewide Races on Voter Turnout," Journal of Politics 51 (1989): 730-39.
60. Rusk, "Effect of the Australian Ballot Reform."
61. Erik J. Engstrom and Samuel Kernell, "Manufactured Responsiveness: The Impact of State Elector Laws on Unified Party Control of The President and House of Representatives," American Journal of Political Science 49 (2005): 547-65.
62. Jonathan N. Katz and Brian R. Sala, "Careerism, Committee Assignments, and the Electoral Connection," American Political Science Review 90 (1996): 21-33.
63. rd Congress (1833-1835). Those elections, which were held in Louisiana, resulted in a victory for pro-Bank forces. Subsequently, on 10 July 1832, with Illinois, Missouri, and Mississippi scheduled to hold their congressional elections early the following month, Andrew Jackson vetoed the congressional Bank recharter bill. Perhaps hoping to reverse the partisan momentum expected to come out of Louisiana, Jackson's veto message explicitly addressed the upcoming elections, asking voters to repudiate the sitting Congress by sending new representatives to Washington to sustain the president's course of action: A general, discussion will now take place, eliciting new light and settling important questions; and a new Congress, elected in the midst of such discussion ... will, bear to the Capitol the verdict: of public opinion, and I doubt not, bring this important question to a satisfactory result, (William. MacDonald, ed., Selected Documents Illustrative of the History of the United States, 1776-1861 [New York: Macmillan Company, 1907], 266). Needless to say, much more research, would be required to sustain this interpretation. The only point to make here is that this particular episode of partisan political, struggle coincided squarely with the opening of the congressional election season, unfolding in such a manner as to suggest elite recognition of the inter-temporal dynamics of this sequential electoral system.
64. Stephen Skowronek, Building a New American State: The Expansion of National Administrative Capacities, 1877-1920 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982);
65. Scott C. James, "Building a New American Party: Patronage Discipline and the Emergence of Strong Party Government in the Nineteenth Century Congress," mss. in author's possession (2003); Scott C. James, "Patronage Regimes and American Party Development from the Age of Jackson to the Progressive Era," British Journal of Political Science 35 (2006).