Table Of ContentLegislative Style
Chicago Studies in American Politics
A series edited by Benjamin I. Page, Susan Herbst, Lawrence R. Jacobs, and
Adam J. Berinsky
Also in the series:
Why Parties Matter: Political Why Washington Won’t Work:
Competition and Democracy in the Polarization, Political Trust, and
American South by John H. Aldrich the Governing Crisis by Marc J.
and John D. Griffi n Hetherington and Thomas J. Rudolph
Neither Liberal nor Conservative: Who Governs? Presidents, Public
Ideological Innocence in the Opinion, and Manipulation by James N.
American Public by Donald R. Kinder Druckman and Lawrence R. Jacobs
and Nathan P. Kalmoe
Trapped in America’s Safety Net:
Strategic Party Government: Why One Family’s Struggle by Andrea Louise
Winning Trumps Ideology by Gregory Campbell
Koger and Matthew J. Lebo
Arresting Citizenship: The Democratic
The Politics of Resentment: Rural Consequences of American Crime
Consciousness in Wisconsin and the Rise Control by Amy E. Lerman and Vesla M.
of Scott Walker by Katherine J. Cramer Weaver
Post- Racial or Most- Racial? Race and How the States Shaped the Nation:
Politics in the Obama Era by Michael American Electoral Institutions and
Tesler Voter Turnout, 1920– 2000 by Melanie
Jean Springer
Legislating in the Dark: Information
and Power in the House of Additional series titles follow index
Representatives by James M. Curry
Legislative Style
william bernhard
tr acy sulkin
the university of chicago press chicago and london
The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637
The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London
© 2018 by The University of Chicago
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner
whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations in critical
articles and reviews. For more information, contact the University of Chicago Press,
1427 East 60th Street, Chicago, IL 60637.
Published 2018
Printed in the United States of America
27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 1 2 3 4 5
isbn- 13: 978- 0- 226- 51014- 9 (cloth)
isbn- 13: 978- 0- 226- 51028- 6 (paper)
isbn- 13: 978- 0- 226- 51031- 6 (e- book)
doi: 10.7208/chicago/9780226510316.001.0001
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Bernhard, William, 1966– author. | Sulkin, Tracy, author.
Title: Legislative style / William Bernhard, Tracy Sulkin.
Other titles: Chicago studies in American politics.
Description: Chicago : The University of Chicago Press, 2018. | Series: Chicago studies
in American politics | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifi ers: lccn 2017028654 | isbn 9780226510149 (cloth : alk. paper) |
isbn 9780226510286 (pbk. : alk. paper) | isbn 9780226510316 (e-book)
Subjects: lcsh: Legislators—Professional relationships—United States. | United States.
Congress—Offi cials and employees. | Legislation—United States—Decision making. |
Political planning—United States.
Classifi cation: lcc jk1083 .b47 2018 | ddc 331.7/6132873—dc23
lc record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017028654
This paper meets the requirements of ansi/niso z39.48- 1992 (Permanence of Paper).
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
chapter 1. Legislative Style and Congressional Careers 1
chapter 2. Measuring Legislative Style 16
with Daniel Sewell
chapter 3. The Styles 42
chapter 4. Explaining Freshman Styles 61
chapter 5. Transitions in Style 91
chapter 6. The Electoral Consequences of Legislative Style 124
chapter 7. Styles, Lawmaking, and Legislative Success 153
chapter 8. Career Advancement and Legislative Styles 175
chapter 9. Legislative Styles and Evaluations of Congress 205
Notes 223
Works Cited 241
Index 255
Acknowledgments
The idea to write a book together on legislators’ styles developed
about fi ve years ago, and, in the intervening time, we have amassed
a debt of gratitude to a long list of colleagues and collaborators. It is a
pleasure to have this opportunity to thank them.
For helpful conversations and feedback along the way, we thank
Bill Bianco, Jim Curry, Justin Grimmer, Christian Grose, Greg Koger,
Bryan Jones, David Leblang, Frances Lee, Kris Miler, Jeff Mondak,
Chris Mooney, Collin Paschall, Kathryn Pearson, Molly Ritchie, Jen
Selin, Gisela Sin, Sean Theriault, Jen Victor, Craig Volden, John Wil-
kerson, Alan Wiseman, and Laurel Harbridge Yong. Special thanks to
Jim Kuklin ski, who read the manuscript in its entirety and offered en-
couragement as we prepared to send it out the door.
We are also grateful to Dan Pemstein, who indulged our early ques-
tions about cluster analysis and convinced us that a clustering approach
to legislative styles was worth pursuing. That exploration led us to a fruit-
ful collaboration with Dan Sewell and Yuguo Chen of the Department
of Statistics at the University of Illinois. Dan, our coauthor for chapter 2
of this book, worked with us for over two years to develop and test a clus-
tering model that adequately captured the reality of long- term congres-
sional careers. After fi nishing his PhD, he moved on to bigger and better
things as an assistant professor of biostatistics at the University of Iowa,
and we appreciate his continuing engagement with the project.
We were fortunate to have the opportunity to present the project in
its early stages at seminars at the University of Missouri and Ohio State
University, as well as here at the University of Illinois. We thank partic-
ipants in those seminars, as well as at panels at the American Political
viii acknowledgments
Science Association and Midwest Political Science Association for the
many useful suggestions that emerged from our discussions.
Our analyses of legislative style rely on a large and varied collection
of indicators of MCs’ behavior in offi ce, and the project would not have
been possible without the generosity of a number of scholars who shared
their data with us. In particular, we thank Scott Adler, David Canon,
Katie Francis, Brian Gaines, Craig Goodman, Eric Heberlig, Jeff Jen-
kins, Georgia Kernell, Bruce Larson, Tim Nokken, David C. W. Parker,
Michael Rocca, Charles Stewart, Craig Volden, John Wilkerson, Alan
Wiseman, Jonathan Woon, and Laurel Harbridge Yong. Their will-
ingness to make their data available (and their good cheer in answer-
ing our questions) epitomizes the best of the legislative studies research
community.
Kylee Britzman, Victor Hugg, and Collin Paschall all provided expert
research assistance at various stages of the project, and we are grateful
for their contributions. Collin, in particular, was a major help in collect-
ing last- minute data as we completed the analyses for the fi nal chapters.
It has been a pleasure to work with the University of Chicago Press.
We thank John Tryneski for his advice and enthusiasm in the early
stages of the process, and for securing careful and thoughtful reviews
that shaped in important ways how the book developed. We are grate-
ful as well to Chuck Myers, who shepherded the project through the fi nal
steps, and to Holly Smith and the production team for their assistance.
Finally, and most of all, we thank our families.
Chapter One
Legislative Style and
Congressional Careers
There are two kinds of Congressmen—s how horses and work horses. If you want to get
your name in the papers, be a show horse. If you want to gain the respect of your col-
leagues, keep quiet and be a work horse. — Senator Carl Hayden’s recollection of the ad-
vice given to him as a new legislator, as quoted by Matthews (1960, 94)
Upon arriving on Capitol Hill, all new members of Congress (MCs)
face a central choice: What kind of legislator will they be? This is
not a trivial task, as the available opportunities for investment of time,
effort, and resources are numerous. What, for example, is the right bal-
ance between working in the district and on Capitol Hill? Will they be
policy specialists, focusing on a particular issue; policy generalists, active
in a number of areas; or will they avoid investing in policy making alto-
gether? Should they toe the party line or chart their own courses? With
whom should they collaborate and form coalitions? Should they seek to
develop a national reputation by giving speeches and cultivating the me-
dia? What is the “right” amount of time to spend raising money, and
what should they do with those funds once they have collected them?
Together, such decisions defi ne an MC’s “legislative style.” These
styles are fundamental to understanding individual legislators’ behav-
ior and aggregate dynamics within the House of Representatives. Styles
shape the quality of representation constituents receive, the scope and
content of the policy legacies legislators leave, and the trajectories MCs’
careers take in the chamber and beyond.
We contend that legislators adopt styles that align with their ambi-
tions, past experiences, and personal inclinations, as well as the electoral
