[EL] ELB News and Commentary 4/11/19

Thu Apr 11 20:03:54 PDT 2019

In addition to the Monkey Cage Q&A Rick links below, I encourage everyone to check out the actual book. It is absolutely fantastic and is a must-read for those who cares about polarization.

Andy does a great job showing that the many conventional wisdoms in the reform community about the causes of polarization are just not consistent with empirical evidence:

·         Although many are convinced that “gerrymandering” and growth in “safe seats” are the primary drivers of polarization, Andy summarizes his earlier work with Anthony Fowler showing that we observe almost the same amount of polarization in a closely divided, 50-50 district as in a one-party dominated safe seat.

·         Primaries are also not responsible. As Andy shows in the figure below, even if voters had nominated the most moderate candidate in every primary, polarization would’ve increased as much as it actually has.

[cid:image003.jpg at 01D4F0BC.C54C3210]

·         The most important and provocative argument in the book is that polarization has risen as the costs of holding office have increased, while the benefits have fallen. As a result, only the craziest true believers are willing to do it. A natural antidote is decreasing the costs, but also increasing the benefits — including compensation. Andy shows that states that increased pay for legislators saw more moderate candidates run for office.

[cid:image004.jpg at 01D4F0BC.C54C3210]

As I said, this is a must-read for anyone who cares about polarization.

[The Ohio State University]
Vladimir Kogan, Associate Professor
Department of Political Science
2004 Derby Hall | 154 N. Oval Mall, Columbus, OH 43210-1373
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http://u.osu.edu/kogan.18/
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“Don’t blame our polarized politics on voters. Blame it on who runs for office in the first place.”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104642>
Posted on April 11, 2019 7:12 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104642> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Monkey Cage<https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/04/11/dont-blame-our-polarized-politics-voters-blame-it-who-runs-office-first-place/?utm_term=.798e1484082a>:

In his new book, “Who Wants to Run?<https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/022660957X?ie=UTF8&tag=thewaspos09-20&camp=1789&linkCode=xm2&creativeASIN=022660957X>” Stanford University political scientist Andrew Hall<http://andrewbenjaminhall.com/> investigates a familiar question — why Congress is so polarized<https://www.voteview.com/articles/party_polarization> — but comes to a less familiar answer. He writes, “Most legislative polarization is already baked into the set of people who run for office.” To understand more, I asked him some questions via email. Here is a lightly edited transcript of our exchange.

John Sides: I was struck by this statistic early in the book: Even if voters had picked the most moderate candidate in every U.S. House election between 1980 and 2014, 80 percent of the polarization between Democratic and Republican members would have occurred anyway. Why is that important to know?

Andrew Hall: The point of that 80 percent statistic — which is based on an analysis that Adam Bonica<https://web.stanford.edu/~bonica/> first developed — is that there just aren’t a lot of moderate choices for House voters. If we want to understand where polarization is coming from, we have to understand why so few moderate people run for office.
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Posted in campaigns<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>

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