For the information of researchers (and in the name of
shameless self-promotion), Ken Martis' election results were
incorporated into:
Database of Congressional Historical Statistics, 1789-1988
[Computer file]. Elaine K. Swift, Robert G. Brookshire,
David T. Canon, Evelyn C. Fink, John R. Hibbing, Brian D.
Humes, Michael J. Malbin and Kenneth C. Martis. Ann Arbor,
MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social
Research [producer and distributor], 2000. National Science
Foundation Grant No. SBR-9308686.
In addition to Martis' election data, this database includes
the party information for all Members as they have been
coded by a very large number of different scholars, each in
a separate field. This is useful for researchers
(particularly for the mid-nineteenth century) because
Members often switched party labels between an election and
swearing in, which could occur quite some time later, after
a lame duck session. Even in modern times, some members can
be elected on one label and join another at swearing in
(James Buckley, Conservative->Republican) or shift in
midterm (Wayne Worse, James Jeffords, any number of House
Democrats->Republicans post-1980.)
My contribution (not relevant to this list) was a roster of
all explicit personal (as opposed to "executive branch")
presidential requests of / recommendations to Congress for
legislative action, on all items other than appropriations
and appointments, from George Washington through Bush-41.
These in turn were linked to relevant roll call votes after
a review of the documents to make sure a yes or no vote on
the roll call could still fairly be coded as a yes or no on
what the president wanted in the original request.
The full database also includes biographical data for
Members of Congress, committee assignments, and all roll
call votes (including Poole and Rosenthal's issue coding for
all roll calls.) It is available through ICPSR in a form one
can use with Microsoft Access and as delimited text files.
The database has a number of separate files, with linked
common fields to make it more useful as a relational
database. The programmer was Robert Brookshire of the
Computer Science Department in the Business School at James
Madison University. He has also made CDs available directly
to researchers.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Michael J. Malbin
Executive Director
Campaign Finance Institute
1990 M Street NW (Suite 380)
Washington, D.C. 20036
PH: 202-969-8890
FAX: 202-969-5612
email: mmalbin@CFInst.org
web: http://www.CFInst.org
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-election-law_gl@majordomo.lls.edu
[mailto:owner-election-law_gl@majordomo.lls.edu] On Behalf
Of ban@richardwinger.com
Sent: Thursday, August 03, 2006 1:24 AM
To: richard@shepardlawoffice.com; Michael McDonald;
election-law@majordomo.lls.edu
Subject: Minor party success in US Congress elections
1828-1944
Minor parties elected members of the US House in all
elections 1828 through 1944 (except for 1904 and
1908).
This history is not well known because so few
reference books include data about congressional
elections. Lazy authors find it easier to just
regurgitate presidential election data.
See Kenneth C. Martis' Historical Atlas of US
Congressional Elections, which did meticulous work on
identifying the party affiliation of all members of
congress, starting with 1789.
----------
The presence of geographically compact parties
supports multiparty systems
in other counties that use single-member districts.
These parties are often
organized along cultural, linguistic, religious, and
racial lines. I've
sometimes mused that a viable third party in the
U.S. could come from
minority-majority districts, but for many practical
reasons I doubt that
will happen. So, America does not have
geographically compact minor parties
that can legitimately contest single member,
plurality win districts.
Without overhauling the electoral system, minor
party candidates in the
United States are fated to fare poorly in elections.
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