Ambition, Competition, and Electoral Reform: The Politics of Congressional Elections Across Time

Notes

Notes Chapter 1 1. Since the conclusion of the Civil War, there have only been four elections in which the president’s party gained seats at the midterm: 1866, 1934, 1998, and 2002. 2. Two seats were vacant at the outset of both congresses. There were 3 seats held by third parties in the 44th Congress (Ornstein, Malbin, and Mann 2002). 3. The Australian ballot introduced the notion of privacy of candidate selection at the ballot box. Prior to its adoption in the states in the early 1890s, voting was not a private act, but was conducted publicly . As the name implies, the secret ballot was originally developed in Australia earlier in the nineteenth century. 4. One notable exception to this trend is Kolodny (1998), who documents the emergence of congressional campaign committees after the Civil War. Chapter 2 1. For a definitive account of the politics of congressional elections in the post–World War II era, see Jacobson (2009). 2. As Kernell (1977) suggests, “Not until the adoption of the Australian ballot throughout the country in the late 1890s did many congressmen have much prospect of ‘controlling’ their district.” 3. Recent empirical work by Ansolabehere, Hansen, Hirano, and Snyder (2010) suggests that the direct primary significantly enhanced intra-party competition in U.S. House races, but had a very limited effect on general election competitiveness. 149 150 Notes Chapter 3 1. See Chapter 4 for a more detailed discussion of coding candidate quality. 2. Unlike modern day congressional elections where candidates often gain valuable benefits such as increased name recognition from running more than once, running and losing during the late nineteenth century most likely did not yield the same electoral benefits. For one thing, the party organizations played a much more active role in determining which candidates would run in one election to the next. This major difference in candidate selection would seem to downplay the levels of name recognition or experience that might otherwise be gained. With the parties orchestrating electoral candidacies, these individual-level factors were probably less relevant to the candidates themselves prior to the adoption of ballot reform and the emergence of the direct primary system where voters become more directly involved in the selection of individual candidates. 3. While electoral fraud was not nearly as widespread as the antiparty reformers claimed, it was an issue that resonated with the public, so “agitators” had a relatively easy time convincing state legislatures to enact reform (Fredman 1968). 4. The history of why the direct primary was adopted is fascinating, but is beyond the scope of this analysis. See Merriam and Overacker (1928) and Ware (2002) for more details. 5. For an alternative view of political amateurs’ motivation for running for Congress in the modern era, see Canon (1993). 6. Kernell (2003) reconsiders the role of institutional changes at the end of the nineteenth century on the growing degree of careerism among incumbent legislators and concludes that these factors offer only a partial explanation for the emerging trends of this era. 7. Mayhew (1974) focuses primarily on the post–World War II era and is silent on the subject of whether his argument about the electoral connection applies outside of the modern era. Nevertheless, many of the institutions that Mayhew points to as facilitating legislators’ reelection bids such as the committee system and the seniority norm have been around since well before World War II. This is an important factor in that it provides some basis for arguing that an electoral connection may be present across time. For a more general treatment of this subject, see Carson and Jenkins (2007). Notes 151 Chapter 4 1. We chose not to focus on Senate elections during our analysis of this era since senators did not become directly elected until after 1913 when the 17th Amendment was adopted. For a general discussion of Senate elections before popular election, see Schiller and Stewart (2004); for Senate elections after direct election, see Highton (2000). 2. We recognize, of course, that these numbers are inflated given that they reflect only those incumbents that sought reelection. If all incumbents were included, the percentages would be somewhat lower given that there is variation in the proportion of incumbents who seek reelection. 3. Both 1910 and 1922 also stand out as low points for Republicans, with only about 66 percent of Republican incumbents returning to office in each of these midterm elections. 4...