Do Lawmakers Respond to Crisis Ideologically or Pragmatically?

Published date01 July 2022
Date01 July 2022
DOI10.1177/1532673X221077940
Subject MatterArticles
Article
American Politics Research
2022, Vol. 50(4) 550563
© The Author(s) 2022
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DOI: 10.1177/1532673X221077940
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Do Lawmakers Respond to Crisis Ideologically
or Pragmatically?
Adam Cayton
1
Abstract
How do members of Congress respond to economic shocks in their districts? This study uses constituency-level unemployment
data from 20062011 and data on the policy instruments included in individual bills to estimate the district-level effects of the
Great Recession on the kinds of policies individual lawmakers introduce. Few previous studies have examined lawmaker
responsiveness to rapid changes in district conditions and fewer still examine policy instruments instead of issue priorities.
Measuring instruments matters because they capture what the policy actually does (as opposed to what it is about) which is both
consequential and ideologically loaded. The results show that Democrats and Republicans respond differently. Republicans are
more responsive, particularly with policy instruments that conform to their ideology, while Democrats are as li kely (in the case
of tax cuts), or more likely (in the case of spending) to support economic stimulus without an economic crisis. Differences in the
macropolitical situation cannot be ruled out as an explanation of the differences between parties.
Keywords
congress, representation, legislative content, ideology
Between 2007 and 2009, the United States unemployment
rate jumped from 4.6% to 9.3% and remained above 8% for
the next 3 years. In response, Congress passed several
landmark bills including the Emergency Economic Stabili-
zation Act of 2008, The American Recovery and Reinvest-
ment Act, and the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and
Consumer Protection Act. This national-level story masks
tremendous variation in district-level conditions and legisla-
torsresponses to the recession. This study uses geographic
variation in unemployment during the great recession to study
whether and how lawmakers respond to changing conditions
and whether ideology shapes the nature of the response. Do
lawmakersuse their ideology to decidehow to respond to rapid
economicchange, or are ideologicaldifferences a luxuryfor the
well-off?
The Great Recession affected the country unevenly. In
2009, the year with the greatest job losses, the unemployment
rate increased by an average of 3.5 percentage points across
the nations congressional districts, but in Michigans13
th
(Southwest Detroit) and Illinoissecond (Chicagos southern
suburbs) the unemployment rate increased by a staggering 8.1
points that year. Meanwhile in Minnesotasf‌irst district
(which runs along the states southern border) and New
Yorks24
th
(central upstate), unemployment increased by
only 0.6 points. By 2010, the national unemployment rate
was still inching upward, but not everywhere. In Indianas
third congressional district, unemployment fell by 2.8 points
that year. While Indianas third congressional district expe-
rienced an exceptionally fast recovery, unemployment fell in
roughly 10% of the nations congressional districts in 2010.
This variation is only weakly correlated with demographics,
partisanship, and other politically salient variables and
presents an opportunity to study how individual lawmakers
respond to changing conditions in their geographic constit-
uency (Cayton, 2017).
In 2009, Gene Green, a Democrat who represented Texas
29
th
congressional district, included some form of spending
increase in half of the 32 bills he introduced. In 2008, he
introduced four bills, only one of which included a spending
increase. Meanwhile, Mike Michaud, a Democrat repre-
senting Maines second congressional district included
spending increases in 29 percent (or two) of his bills, the same
number, and a lower percentage of the total, than the previous
year. Greens district (TX-29) experienced an unemployment
increase of 4.8 percentage points while in Michauds district
(ME-2), unemployment only increased by one point. Judy
Biggert, a Republican representing Illinois 13
th
congressional
1
University of West Florida, Pensacola, FL, USA
Corresponding Author:
Adam Cayton, University of West Florida, 11000 University Parkway,
Department of Government 50/124, Pensacola, FL 32514, USA.
Email: acayton@uwf.edu

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