Accountability and the Mass Public

Under what conditions, if any, does the mass electorate hold congressional members accountable for their records on specific issues? We examine this question on the issue of crime, for which salience has varied substantially and opinion has favored Republicans, and the environment, for which salience has not varied much and voters have favored Democrats. Because different parametric specifications produce divergent findings, we utilize matching analysis in addition to ordinary least squares. The tests suggest that issue accountability exists even controlling for a member’s overall record. However, such accountability depends crucially on issue salience and a member’s partisan affiliation. * Larry Bartels, Patrick Egan, Sandy Gordon, Greg Huber, Kosuke Imai, Luke Keele, Jon Krosnick and Jee-Kwang Park are gratefully acknowledged for helpful comments and conversations. The authors also thank Gary Jacobson for providing data on challenger quality, and Tim Groseclose and Alan Wiseman for providing the code for the Groseclose, Levitt, and Snyder method of adjusting interest group ratings. i Professor of Politics and Public Affairs, Princeton University. bcwrone@princeton.edu. 214 Robertson Hall; Princeton, NJ 08544. Phone: (609)258-9047. Fax: (609)258-5533. Corresponding author. ii Assistant Professor of Political Science, Ohio State University. minozzi.1@osu.edu. 154 N. Oval Mall Columbus, OH 43210. Phone: (614)247-7017. iii J.D. candidate, William and Mary School of Law. jbonney@alumni.princeton.edu. 221A Woodmere Dr., Williamsburg Virginia 23185. Phone: (908) 433-1532. Can U.S. congressional members ignore mass opinion on particular issues so long as their overall voting record is not too extreme, or does some sort of issue-specific accountability exist? And if it does exist, to what extent does it depend on factors such as a member’s party affiliation and the level of public concern? Surprisingly, these questions have received little attention in the literature on U.S. legislative politics. Various studies indicate that members behave as if they face issue-specific accountability, which we label “issue accountability” (e.g., Kingdon 1977; Arnold 1990). Yet, survey evidence suggests that members’ beliefs may be mistaken. For instance, Wolpert and Gimpel (1997) report that forty-six percent of the public could not correctly recall how their reelection-seeking Senator voted on the Clarence Thomas nomination, either because the respondent guessed incorrectly (27.5%) or would not hazard a guess (18.5%). More generally, survey research does not uncover high levels of citizen knowledge (e.g., Jacobson 1987). These findings indicate that while on occasion an isolated roll call may affect members’ electoral fortunes, more routine voting—even on highly salient issues—may not. This paper develops general expectations about the conditions under which legislators should face issue accountability. Among other things, we argue that partisan affiliation should affect this likelihood. If voters perceive a member’s party to be out of step with public opinion, or relatively incompetent on the issue, then she will be more likely to suffer electoral ramifications from voting against the district. We also argue that issue accountability will be positively correlated with the level of salience or public concern. To test these arguments, we analyze two complementary issues, crime and environmental policy. We focus on crime because the mass salience of this policy has varied substantially over the span of several decades and at the peak was extraordinarily high. Moreover, concern about