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Legislative Partisanship, Constituency and Malapportionment: The Case of California

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

Bruce W. Robeck
Bruce W. Robeck*
Affiliation:
Texas A&M University
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Abstract

Two principal problems were analyzed in the study: (1) the impact of malapportionment on party voting, and (2) the influence of constituency on legislative partisanship. The California Senate was used as a test case because it was generally considered to deviate from the pattern of party voting found in other two-party states, and because it was the most poorly apportioned upper chamber in the nation. It was found that the proportion of party votes in the Senate increased significantly after reapportionment, and gross malapportionment may have inhibited a trend toward more party voting. It was also found that there was a much stronger association between political and socioeconomic constituency variables and an index of partisan voting following elections in reapportioned districts.

Type
Articles
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 66 , Issue 4 , December 1972 , pp. 1246 - 1255
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1972

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References

1 A sample from the literature on both Congress and state legislatures includes: Turner, Julius, Party and Constituency: Pressures on Congress (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1951)Google Scholar; MacRae, Duncan, “The Relationship Between Roll Call Votes and Constituencies in the Massachusetts House of Representatives,” American Political Science Review, 46 (12, 1952), 1046–1055CrossRefGoogle Scholar: Froman, Lewis A. Jr., Congressmen and Their Constituencies (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1963)Google Scholar; Flinn, Thomas A., “Party Responsibility in the States: Some Causal Factors,” American Political Science Review, 58 (03, 1964), 60–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Shannon, W. Wayne, Party, Constituency and Congressional Voting (Baton Rouge: The Louisiana University Press, 1968)Google Scholar; LeBlanc, Hugh L., “Voting in State Senates; Party and Constituency Influences,” Midwest Journal of Political Science, 13 (02, 1969), 33–57CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Much of the research on the impact of malapportionment on political parties in legislative voting has been indirect, focusing on electoral competitiveness, and presuming an impact on party voting. Three of the better studies using this approach are: Dye, Thomas R., “Malapportionment and Public Policy in the States,” Journal of Politics, 27 (08, 1965), 586–601CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hofferbert, Richard I., “The Relation Between Public Policy and Some Structural and Environmental Variables in the American States,” American Political Science Review, 60 (03, 1966), 73–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Pulsipher, Allan G. and Weatherby, James L. Jr. “Malapportionment, Party Competition, and the Functional Distribution of Governmental Expenditures;” American Political Science Review, 62 (12, 1968), 1207–1219CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 These generalizations are drawn primarily from two discussions of state legislatures, but the summaries obviously are not unique to these sources. See Jewell, Malcolm E., The State Legislature: Politics and Practice, 2nded. (New York: Random House, 1969)Google Scholar; and Crane, Wilder Jr., and Watts, Meredith W. Jr., State Legislative Systems (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1968)Google Scholar.

4 Froman, , Congressmen and Their Constituencies, p. 89Google Scholar.

5 See Jewell, , State Legislature, p. 89Google Scholar; Jewell, Malcolm E., “The Political Setting,” in State Legislatures in American Politics, edited by Heard, Alexander (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1966), p. 90Google Scholar.

6 Flinn argues that constituency differences help explain intraparty conflict but not interparty differences.

7 Party mavericks were found to be from marginal districts in Patterson, Samuel C., “The Role of the Deviant in State Legislative System: The Wisconsin Assembly,” Western Political Quarterly, 14 (06, 1961), 460–472CrossRefGoogle Scholar. A note of caution, however, is advanced by Wayne Shannon when summarizing research on Congress: “… although it would serve the purpose of neatness and theoretical nicety to be able to argue that constituency differences account for intra-party voting differences, evidence from the studies by Turner, MacRae, Truman, Froman, and the present author indicate only some relationship at some times between constituency characteristics and intra-party differences,” (p. 155).

8 See Turner, Julius and Schneier, Edward V. Jr., Party and Constituency: Pressures on Congress, rev. ed. (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1970), 220–221Google Scholar.

9 Jewell, , “The Political Setting,” p. 75Google Scholar. For other discussion on the impact of malapportionment, see Baker, Gordon E., The Reapportionment Revolution (New York: Random House, 1966)Google Scholar; Jewell, Malcolm E., ed., The Politics of Reapportionment (New York: Atherton, 1962)Google Scholar.

10 We recognize that malapportionment could also increase party conflict in different circumstances.

11 Flinn, , “Party Responsibility in the States,” p. 71Google Scholar.

12 LeBlanc, , “Voting in State Senates,” pp. 38–39Google Scholar.

13 Buchanan, William, Legislative Partisanship: The Deviant Case of California (Berkeley: The University of California Press, 1963)Google Scholar.

14 Wahlke, John, Eulau, Heinz, Buchanan, William, and Ferguson, LeRoy, The Legislative System: Explorations in Legislative Behavior (New York: John Wiley, 1962)Google Scholar. Freshmen Assemblymen in 1967 ranked political parties eleventh out of 21 “input” factors to the legislative process. See Bell, Charles G. and Price, Charles, “Legislative Socialization of Freshman Assemblymen,” (unpublished paper presented at the Western Political Science Association meeting, 1968), p. 6Google Scholar. But, in a questionnaire completed by more than 50 per cent of all legislators in January, 1967, 83 per cent of the respondents rated parties as “very important” or “important” as a source of legislative conflict. See Robeck, Bruce W., “The Impact of Reapportionment on the California Senate,” (unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, University of California, Santa Barbara, 1968), pp. 44–49Google Scholar.

15 Binford, Robert Keith, “Party Cohesion in the California State Assembly, 1953–1963” (Unpublished M.A. Thesis, Stanford University, 1964), p. 35Google Scholar.

16 Buchanan reported that the Assembly achieved a “moderate” level of partisanship on a substantial number of issues but the “Senate's partisan level did not increase much above that of 1957,” p. 127. Also see, Owens, John R., Constantini, Edmond, and Weschler, Louis F., California Politics and Parties (London: Macmillan, 1970), 316Google Scholar.

17 Dye, Thomas R., “A Comparison of Constituency Influences in the Upper and Lower Chambers of a State Legislature,” Western Political Quarterly, 24 (06, 1961), 473–480Google Scholar.

18 Schubert, Glendon and Press, Charles, “Measuring Malapportionment,” American Political Science Review, 58 (06, 1964), 302–327CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and data corrections, same Review, 58 (December, 1964), 966–970.

19 LeBlanc, , “Voting in The State Senate,” pp. 55–57Google Scholar.

20 Jewell, , “The Political Setting,” p. 80Google Scholar.

21 Flinn, , “Party Responsibility in the States,” p. 71Google Scholar.

22 Divided roll calls were defined to include any distribution which had at least 10 per cent of the total membership (Senate, 40 and Assembly, 80) in the minority position, and votes on the same bill (Unamended) were included when there was a deviation of at least five per cent of the total house membership by legislators recorded on both votes. Assembly votes for 1957–1963 are from Binford, , “Party Cohesion.” p. 35Google Scholar.

23 These computer programs were adapted from Anderson, Lee F., Watts, Meredith W. Jr., and Wilcox, Allen R., Legislative Roll-Call Analysis (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1966.)Google Scholar

24 The program was written by Jerry L. Oglesby, Institute of Statistics, Texas A&M University.

25 Data for whole county units were drawn from U.S. Bureau of the Census, U.S. Census of Population: 1960 General Social and Economic Characteristics, California, Final Report PC (1)-bc (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1962)Google Scholar. Other data were gathered from U.S. Bureau of the Census, U.S. Census of Population and Housing: 1960 Census Tracts, Final Report PHC (1)-(Different numbers for each SMSA), (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1962)Google Scholar.

Two districts had split county lines which were not covered by census tracts. A small sliver of Fresno County (containing the residence of Assemblyman Charles B. Garrigus, who retired in 1966) was taken from the 16th and added to the 15th district. The 2nd district included a small corner of Solano County, but the bulk of the county population was in the 5th district. These small differences affected only four districts and were ignored in the analysis.

District boundaries crossed census tracts in 10 to 20 per cent of the cases. Split tracts were taken to be wholly within the district and became part of the totals. In some instances, therefore, the tract data were added to more than one district.

26 Owens, , Constantini, , and Weschler, , California Politics and Parties, p. 302Google Scholar.

27 Party votes in earlier Assembly sessions were: 31% (1949), 36% (1951), 25% (1953), and 22% (1955). See, Cresap, Dean, Party Politics in the Golden State (Los Angeles: The Haynes Foundation, 1954), 51–52Google Scholar; Buchanan, , Legislative Partisanship, p. 111Google Scholar, and Binford, , “Party Cohesion” p. 35Google Scholar.

28 Votes in state senate contests could not be used for the 1957 session because about half of the members did not have general election opposition in 1954 or 1956.

29 The intercorrelations and partial coefficients are not reported. Political variables were highly intercorrelated, especially in the 1967–1969 Sessions; socioeconomic variables were only moderately intercorrelated in all sessions. When there are strong relationships between the independent variables, it is not very useful to examine the partial coefficients. See Palumbo, Dennis J., Statistics in Political and Behavioral Science (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1969), pp. 214–216Google Scholar.

30 Combining sessions can be justified when any particular session is treated as a sample of all posible sessions, and if the behavior of members is assumed to be a sample of all possible behavior of members regardless of the session in which it occurred. Only three members, out of a possible 120, did not participate fully in all three sessions.

The districts were classified into urban-rural categories by several factors, the most important of which was relationship to a central city of at least 190,000 population. For a more detailed explanation of the classification standards, see, Robeck, Bruce W., “Urban-Rural and Regional Voting Patterns in the California Senate Before and After Reapportionment,” Western Political Quarterly, 23 (12, 1970), 785–794CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

31 This is consistent with the finding that Republicans in Congress have a higher proportion of delegate role types, and therefore may be more directly attentive to Constituent demands. See Davidson, Roger H., The Role of the Congressman (New York: Pegasus, 1969), pp. 130–131Google Scholar.

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