One of
the biggest questions which researchers such as Gerald C. Wright and Brian F.
Schaffner try to answer, is that of position-taking and voting: what influences
members of congress (MCs) to vote cohesively? Is it because they feel united
fundamentally and ideologically, or is it because the party is forcing them to?
To
explain this theory, Wright and Schaffner compare the Nebraska state legislature
and the Kansas state senate. Nebraska provides a good case to look at what
happens in the absence of party influence, because their legislature is
unicameral (there is only one chamber, no house and senate) and it is
nonpartisan. This means that candidates for office cannot run on a party
ticket. They cannot explicitly say that they are a Democrat, Republican, or
otherwise. This eliminates party influence. They use the Kansas senate because
it is close enough in numbers to the Nebraska legislature, and it is a partisan
legislature. Also, demographically, the states are similar. So Wright and
Schaffner want to examine what happens when they take party out of the
picture-how much cohesion is coming from unity or party discipline?
First,
they looked at ideological positions of individual candidates in both Nebraska and
Kansas. They discovered that both are pretty cohesive, or grouped together on
the conservative and liberal spectrum. Most Democrats were grouped together on
the left, and most Republicans on the right-with some overlap in both Kansas
and Nebraska. However, the results were different when looking at voting behavior
in relation to the ideological spectrum. In Kansas, there was no overlap and
the two political parties were tightly grouped together: Democrats all on the
left, Republicans all on the right. In Nebraska, however, Republicans and
Democrats were scattered all throughout the spectrum. There was virtually no
grouping, suggesting that they voted however they felt they needed to vote
because they weren’t responsible to their party, because political parties are
irrelevant in the Nebraska legislature. This suggests that at least some, if
not a lot, of cohesion comes from party discipline. If a party takes a side on
a political issue, it is largely expected that members of that party will vote in
favor of the party’s stance.
In the
2015 Utah legislative session, the legislature faced a controversial issue:
they had to choose whether to pass Medicaid expansion in Utah under Obamacare,
or draft their own plan to provide coverage to those who cannot afford it. It
was largely expected that Medicaid expansion would not pass, and it did not.
The legislature opted to create a different plan, which would require funding
through taxpayer money. If they had opted to expand Medicaid, the first two
years would have been subsidized by the Federal Government and then would
gradually be weaned off of government aid until Utah could support funding on
its own.
Based
upon Wright and Schaffner’s findings, they would not find this result
surprising: Utah’s legislature is dominantly Republican, and the Republican Party
as a whole has taken the position to be vehemently opposed to Obamacare. In
fact, plans to repeal Obamacare are already underway in the United States
Congress:
“House Republicans on Tuesday
will unveil a proposed budget for 2016 that partly privatizes Medicare, turns Medicaid into block grants to the states, repeals the
Affordable Care Act and reaches balance in 10 years, challenging Republicans in
Congress to make good on their promises to deeply cut federal spending.”,
according to Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times. Even conservative groups
are asserting that Republicans must stay true to their position on repealing
Obamacare: “Republicans owe their majorities to their unwavering opposition to
Obamacare, a reality that must be reflected in the budget,” Heritage Action stated.
That puts more pressure on the party to enforce party discipline by providing
incentives to vote in favor of repealing the health care plan. The GOP has even
gone so far as to sue President Obama and his administration over Obamacare.
It is not surprising, then, that the Utah State
Legislature, comprised of staunch Republicans, would rather vote against
Federal Aid in regards to expanding Medicaid coverage-part of Obama’s health
care plan. The House even refused to listen to Governor Herbert’s Healthy Utah
plan which would enable Medicaid expansion. The Republican’s are exhibiting
behavior that researcher Jeffery A. Jenkins would refer to as “dying in their
ideological boots”: once conservative, always conservative.
So what does this mean for political parties? What
does this “party discipline”, which forces legislators to vote along party
lines, mean for politics? Wright and Schaffner contend that when parties adopt
sides on these ideological issues, they are providing important information
shortcuts for voters. They contend that partisanship in government is good for
society. Without partisanship, it popular control of government (democracy) is
undermined, according to Wright and Schaffner. It creates low voter turnout and
disenfranchises the poor and uneducated by effectively removing those
information shortcuts.
Sources:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jan/26/obama-lawyers-seek-dismissal-house-republicans-oba/
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/17/us/politics/house-republican-budget-overhauls-medicare-and-repeals-the-health-law.html?_r=0
http://www.sltrib.com/home/2284287-155/utah-legislature-wont-reach-deal-on
http://www.standard.net/Government/2015/02/25/Utah-Senate-passes-governor-s-Medicaid-expansion-plan-1
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