Lame-Duck Politics: Impending Departure and the Votes on Impeachment:

One of the peculiarities of the December 1998 votes in the House of Representatives to impeach Bill Clinton was that they took place during a lame-duck session. Roughly 10 percent of the voting population were in their final term and therefore no longer faced any risk of electoral retribution by the citizenry. While most of the relevant empirical literature suggests that the absence of electoral discipline does not matter, in theory, these departing legislators could ignore the preferences of their districts and vote according to their own personal preferences, the wishes of special interests, their new constituencies when relevant, or any other idiosyncratic factor. Because the votes on impeachment are so politically important, and since they offer an exceptional opportunity to examine the so-called last term problem, our analysis explores whether the factors influencing the votes of departing members of Congress were different than those influencing the votes of their continuing colleagues. We find that, contrary to past findings regarding political shirking, those leaving the House exhibited contrasting behavioral patterns relative to those who were continuing in the 106th Congress. In deciding their vote choices on the impeachment articles, reelected incumbents weighted district preferences far more heavily than departing members. Consequently, our results suggest that the severing of electoral ties is relevant for legislator behavior and that it is a matter of some importance whether or not a vote takes place during a lame-duck session. On December 19, 1998, the nation watched as the United States House of Representatives impeached an incumbent President, William Clinton, on two of four counts reported by the House Judiciary Committee. Voters on the House floor were divided on ideological and partisan grounds, with the conservative Republican majority essentially determining which counts passed and which failed. While their historical significance make the impeachment votes a momentous occasion worthy of our attention, one of the intriguing sub-plots of the impeachment drama was the fact that it took place after the November 1998 election, during a "lame-duck" session of Congress. Although such lame-duck sessions are certainly neither unconstitutional nor unheard of (Beth and Sachs 1990), many observers were uneasy about the prospect of Congress deciding the fate of a sitting President under such circumstances-they were suspect of a Congress "full of members who had been repudiated at the polls or were retiring from office" judging whether a sitting President should continue in office (Ackerman 1999: 2). Given this perspective, the choice to vote on impeachment during the waning days of the 105th Congress, rather than to wait until the 106th Congress was sworn into office, may constitute a subversion of the representative process. Of the issues that arise from Congress's actions during a lame-duck session, the one that concerns us here is that for roughly 10 percent of members the electoral connection to their districts had been severed. With complete certainty, these members knew that they were departing the chamber, either voluntarily or through electoral defeat, for retirement, for other elected or appointed political posts, or for positions in the private sector. Whatever their future plans, these legislators were no longer beholden electorally to the constituency that had elected them. From the point of view of representation, it is important to consider whether these departing members made decisions on impeachment in the same fashion as Mayhewesque (Mayhew 1974) seekers of reelection. Of course, the fact that some representatives are in their last term is not unique to lame-duck sessions. From the beginning of any given Congress some members know that they will not be coming back, even if they do not announce their intentions publically This condition creates what public choice scholars often describe as the last term problem-once electoral sanctions are removed, what is to discipline the incumbent member? …