Wednesday, June 20, 2012

On the Institutional Consequences of Partisan Polarization


This blog is devoted to the relationship between political ideas and political institutions. Nowhere in Texas government is the relationship more evident than in the Texas House of Representatives. Created as the “people’s branch,” the Texas House is supposed to represent the people who inhabit the legislative district. With the polarization of the parties, the consequences for representation are great. This is especially true when there is a shift in partisan representation in the House (e.g., a Democrat is replaced by a Republican). Notice what happened between 2009 and 2011 in the Texas House when several Democrats were replaced by Republicans.

HD
Name
Party
Lib-Con 2009
Name
Party
Lib-Con 2011
Difference
21
Allan Ritter
Dem
0.15
Allan Ritter
Rep
0.32
0.17
11
Charles Hopson
Dem
0.05
Charles Hopson
Rep
0.34
0.29
69
David Farabee
Dem
0.06
Lanham Lyne
Rep
0.45
0.39
45
Patrick Rose
Dem
-0.02
Jason Issac
Rep
0.54
0.56
12
Jim McReynolds
Dem
-0.01
James White
Rep
0.67
0.68
78
Joe Moody
Dem
-0.31
Dee Margo
Rep
0.38
0.69
52
Diana Maldonado
Dem
-0.31
Larry Gonzales
Rep
0.43
0.74
106
Kirk England
Dem
-0.15
Rodney Anderson
Rep
0.60
0.75
3
Mark Homer
Dem
0.00
Irwin Cain
Rep
0.77
0.77
1
Stephen Frost
Dem
-0.17
George Lavender
Rep
0.63
0.80
33
Solomon Ortiz
Dem
-0.42
Raul Torres
Rep
0.39
0.81
35
Yvonne Gonzalez-Toureilles
Dem
-0.37
Jose Aliseda
Rep
0.47
0.84
134
Ellen Cohen
Dem
-0.37
Sarah Davis
Rep
0.48
0.85
133
Kristi Thibaut
Dem
-0.36
Jim Murphy
Rep
0.52
0.88
93
Paula Pierson
Dem
-0.41
Barbara Nash
Rep
0.48
0.89
85
Joe Heflin
Dem
-0.12
Jim Landtroop
Rep
0.78
0.90
107
Allen Vaught
Dem
-0.36
Kenneth Sheets
Rep
0.59
0.95
101
Robert Miklos
Dem
-0.42
Cindy Burkett
Rep
0.57
0.99
102
Carol Kent
Dem
-0.40
Stefanie Carter
Rep
0.61
1.01
47
Volinda Bolton
Dem
-0.53
Paul Workman
Rep
0.53
1.06
34
Abel Herrero
Dem
-0.70
Connie Scott
Rep
0.38
1.08
96
Chris Turner
Dem
-0.31
William "Bill" Zedler
Rep
0.82
1.13
57
Jim Dunnam
Dem
-0.59
Marva Beck
Rep
0.62
1.21
117
David Leibowitz
Dem
-0.70
John Garza
Rep
0.54
1.24
Italics=Tea Party Endorsed Candidates

Now, let’s consider what happened to the ideology of the representative as the shift from a Democratic House member to a Republican House member occurred. The least change occurred in the two representatives who switched parties (Allan Ritter and Charles Hopson), but their scores were more conservative in 2011 than in 2009. The most dramatic shift occurred in HD- 117, where David Leibowitz was replaced by John Garza. Leibowitz was quite liberal in his voting record, and Garza was quite conservative in his voting record. HD-117, which is located in western Bexar County, is barely Republican in its voting record. One indication of the district’s ideology is the Texas Weekly Index (TWI), which is the difference between the average vote for statewide Republicans and the average for statewide Democrats in each district in contested statewide general elections in 2008 and 2010. The Texas Weekly Index (TWI) for HD-117 was
-4.94 percent. The average HD is more Republican with an index of -17.1 percent.

Another measure is a calculation by Professor Mark Jones that indicates how well matched the ideology of a member of the Texas House is to the voting population in his or her district. According to Jones:

The graph plots the 150 members of the Texas House during the 2009 legislative session on two dimensions. The first dimension (Y-axis) is the representative’s Liberal-Conservative Score based on their voting record in the House, ranging in theoretical value from -1.0 (extreme liberal) to 1.0 (extreme conservative).

The second dimension (X-axis) accounts for the ideological partisanship of the district and is calculated using the average Republican share of the two-party vote in the election for railroad commissioner in 2004, 2006 and 2008. Given the limited information voters possess regarding the railroad commissioner candidates, this vote tends to be based principally on voters’ partisan-ideological preferences. For each district, the percentage of the two-party vote won by the Republican railroad commissioner candidate in the district is subtracted from the percentage of the two-party vote won by this same candidate state-wide. These values are then summed and divided by three to create the District Partisan Voting Index (PVI). The higher the value for the District PVI, the more Republican/Conservative the district is; while the lower the value, the more Democrat/Liberal the district is. Here, the actual values for the District PVI range from -41 to 22.

Finally, in the figure a dashed line (a Lowess curve) represents where we would expect a representative’s Liberal-Conservative Score to be, relative to their district’s partisan voting profile based on a statistical analysis of all 150 representatives. Representatives located above the dashed line have a voting record in the House that is more conservative than we would expect based on the partisan-ideological profile of their district, while representatives located below the line have a voting record that is more liberal than we would expect. Democratic representatives are identified by a blue dot and Republicans a red dot.

And here is the graph plotting each representative and his or her district’s PVI:

Among the Democratic representatives in the 81st Texas legislature, the outliers are Herrero, Leibowitz, Hochberg, and Kent. Among the Republicans are Aycock, Christian, Harper-Brown, and Kleinschmidt. Professor Jones notes:

In the figure, the eight representatives whose respective Liberal-Conservative Score is most at odds with the partisan-ideological profile of their district are identified by name. The highest degree of ideological disconnect between a representative and their district is found in the case of Linda Harper-Brown (HR-105, Irving), who is substantially more conservative than her district’s level of ideological partisanship would suggest she would be. She is followed in this ranking of representative-district partisan-ideological discontinuity by David Leibowitz (HR-117, San Antonio), Scott Hochberg (HR-137, Houston), Wayne Christian (HR-9, Center), Abel Herrero (HR-34, Corpus Christi), Tim Kleinschmidt (HR-17, Austin), Carol Kent (HR-102, Dallas) and Jimmie Aycock (HR-54, Killeen). All four Republicans and all four Democrats are respectively more conservative and more liberal than their legislative district’s partisan-ideological profile would indicate. It is very important, however, to keep in mind that the replacement of these representatives by either a co-partisan or a rival-party member would not automatically lead to the presence of a representative whose Liberal-Conservative Score would be more in concert with the partisan-ideological profile of the district.
In contrast to the above-mentioned representatives, half a dozen House members possess a Liberal-Conservative Score located right along the dashed line, indicating a near-perfect match between their legislative floor voting behavior and their district’s partisan-ideological preferences. They are Democrats Armando Martinez (HR-39, Weslaco), Marisa Marquez (HR-77, El Paso) and Richard Peña Raymond (HR-42, Laredo), and Republicans Frank Corte Jr. (HR-122, San Antonio), Joe Straus (HR-121, San Antonio) and Rob Eissler (HR-15, The Woodlands).

He concludes that:
A significant disconnect between a representative’s floor voting record and their district’s partisan-ideological orientation does not necessarily indicate a crisis of representation. However, the presence of this type of incongruity does suggest a potential gap between a representative’s behavior on the House floor and the preferences of a majority of his/her constituents that may be worthy of greater scrutiny by these constituents.

So, with the replacements for the Democrats noted in the table above, are the current occupants of the office more in line with the partisan-ideological orientation of their districts? Or, has the polarization of the parties led to a liberal Democrat being replaced by a conservative Republican, resulting in an even greater discrepancy between the elected representative and his or her district?

Let’s just consider HD-117 as an example. According to the TWI, the district is slightly conservative. According to Jones’ partisan-ideological orientation (PVI), it’s slightly liberal (about -.6 by my calculations from the graph). So the question becomes are voters in HD-117 represented more accurately by Jose Garza than by David Leibowitz? I would have to say that they are not if the distance between the district’s voting/ideological preference and the representative’s ideology is an accurate reflection of representation. What do you think?

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