This past week, Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak released the government's 2021 budget. Included in the package was an announcement of a £1 billion Towns Fund and notification of the 45 communities in England to receive support for infrastructure improvements. This is part of the Government's Levelling Up promise made in the 2019 Conservative Party manifesto, which would shift money to the left behind, post-industrial communities of Britain that have suffered job and population losses over the past four decades.
Soon after the announcement, the Chancellor came under withering assault from the Labour Party, which accused the government of allocating money generously to areas represented by Tory MPs at the expense of communities more deserving of assistance. Labour MP Steve Reed charged "the government of using taxpayers' money to 'shore up' Tory votes with 'cosmetic' projects in hand-picked constituencies" in The Guardian. Labour Leader Keir Starmer said it "looks fishy". The Guardian's own analysis showed that 39 out of 45 areas receiving funds have Tory MPs.
Did Boris Johnson's government dole out cash to communities for political purposes rather than sending aid to communities with the most need? It has long been suggested that distributive politics—derisively called pork barrel spending—is largely absent from the British political system. The Guardian and Labour's claims, however, suggests otherwise.
The problem with these allegations is that alternative hypotheses are not examined. What if, for example, the communities in the most need just happen to be represented by Tory MPs? To unpack what's going on requires a multivariate analysis controlling for both political and social need variables in the dispensation of aid from the Towns Fund.
To test the claim that politics—rather than community need—drove the decisions to give certain communities Levelling Up funds, I collected data on all 533 English constituencies. First, I simply noted which constituencies were represented by Tory MPs (indicated by a 1, 0 otherwise). Next, I downloaded information pertaining to community need. The English government produces several measures on the deprivation of communities, including data on health, education, and employment. Parliamentary constituencies are then ranked from the most deprived ("1") to the least deprived ("533") based upon an aggregation of these several measures of deprivation. Finally, I pulled together information on the marginality of each constituency in the 2019 general election, which is simply the percentage point difference between the first and second place finisher. Smaller values indicate more electorally competitive constituencies.
The dependent variable for the analysis is whether the constituency received funds from the Towns Fund in the budget announced last week—1 if yes, 0 otherwise. I then ran a logistic regression with the aforementioned independent variables: Tory MP, Deprivation Rank, and Marginality. The results appear below.Labour's claims have merit: constituencies with Tory MPs are significantly more likely to have received funds from the Towns fund as compared to constituencies represented by the opposition parties. And, the more marginal the constituency, the greater the chance of getting money from the fund as denoted by the negative sign on the marginality variable and its significance (p <.049).
However, there is also evidence that deprivation matters—so the decision to dispense cash is not only about propping up Conservative party electoral fortunes. The deprivation variable is negative and significant, meaning that better off communities are less likely to receive Levelling Up funds. Money is flowing to communities in need, but poorer communities have an even better shot if they elected a Tory MP in 2019 and did so in a tight election. For those of you interested in how well this simple model operated, 92 percent of cases were correctly predicted.
Now that we know that politics and need matter, how much do they affect the process and which factors are most important? Looking at the marginal effects of the variables, it would seem that marginality and having a Tory MP dwarf deprivation in the decision to give communities infrastructure assistance. Having a Tory MP alone increases a constituency's chance of getting money from the Towns Fund by twelve percentage points while shifting from a completely uncompetitive seat to one that was essentially even electorally accounts for an increase of 14 percentage points in the chances of getting money from the Fund. Similarly, moving from the least deprived constituency to the most deprived constituency increases a constituency's chances by 21 percentage points. In other words, having a Tory MP has the single largest effect on whether a community received a Towns Fund grant.
To illustrate how these factors work in tandem on the probability of a constituency receiving financial assistance from the Towns Fund, I've created a few scenarios.
Let's assume, first, a constituency where the winning party won by only 5 percentage points that is ranked 100th in deprivation. This constituency is represented by a Labour MP. The probability that constituency receives a grant is only 7 percent, which I calculated using Stata's margins command based upon the logit results reported above.
If we simply drop a Conservative MP into that constituency, the probability of getting a grant increases to 33 percent (with the point estimates outside the confidence intervals).
If we take the same scenario above but make the constituency more deprived—moving from 100th in deprivation to 50th—there is scant change in the probabilities: 10 percent if a Labour MP represents the constituency, and 40 percent if a Conservative MP does (again, the confidence intervals do not overlap).
Finally, marginality has important effects as well. Again, looking at a Labour represented constituency that's 100th in deprivation where the MP won by 15 percentage points, the probability of receiving a grant is only 6 percent. With a Tory MP, that increases to 28 percent. Compare that to the first set of probabilities. The probability of receiving a grant hardly moves at all for the Labour represented constituency. It declines for the Conservative represented constituency by 5 percentage points, however.
Taking all of this together and the patterns are clear: The Department of Treasury seems to have made its grant allocation decisions based primarily on political factors and not on the clear social needs of communities. Tory MPs in marginal constituencies were far more likely to benefit from the Towns Fund scheme than Labour MPs representing areas with higher levels of deprivation.
Working with Maritsa Georgiou at NBC Montana, I analyzed the removal of post boxes in the state of Montana and found that Democratic vote at the precinct level is associated with a higher probability that a post box is slated for removal. A discussion of the process by which I came to this disturbing conclusion is outlined below. You can access Maritsa's story about my analysis can be found here. Below is the memo that I wrote for her, walking through the data and analysis.The Data
I was provided with the locations of all post boxes in the state of Montana as of August 2020 and July 2019. As of July 2019, there were 1,438 box locations. As of August 2020, 12 box locations were added since July 2019 and another 47 removed or slated for removal. 302 locations are stand alone boxes not located at post offices. 30 of these were removed or slated to be removed in August of 2020 and 3 had been added after July 2019.
Data Collection
With precinct maps available online and phone calls to county clerks throughout the state, I was able to locate the voting precinct associated with each box address. I then gathered precinct level returns from the 2018 Montana Senate election, specifically the percentage of the vote cast for Democrat Jon Tester, from the Secretary of State's website
Next, I added county-level demographic data to each box location. This data includes the percentage of college graduates in the county, the population change over the past ten years, and the county's population density.
Statistical Models
Unit of Analysis: Each individual box address.
Dependent Variables (What we are predicting): Dichotomous (0/1).
Was a box removed from the location? No (0), Yes (1).
Was a box added to the location? No (0), Yes (1).
Independent variables (Variables that explain box addition or removal).
Demv = Democratic Vote at the Precinct Level (Percentage ranging between 0 and 1)
Postoffice = Indicator variable. Is the address location at a post office? (0 No, 1 Yes) This controls for box clusters around post offices.
Density: Population density at the county level as reported by the Census (People per square mile).
Pop_Change: Population change since 2010 at the county level as reported by the Census (Percentage ranging between 0 and 1).
Box_den: Total boxes in the county divided by the county population. I simply totaled all the mailbox addresses in each county and divided that by the county's population as reported by the Census (Express as a percentage ranging between 0 and 1).
The addition of these variables controls for other factors which might reasonably be associated with the addition or removal of postal boxes. This is to be sure that there isn't a spurious correlation with box removal and Democratic vote.
Some basic numbers:
The average Democratic vote cast where a box was removed: 64%
The average Democratic vote cast where a box was left unchanged: 46%
The average Democratic vote cast where a box was added: 49%
Results
Table 1: Predicting Box Removal in Montana
. logit remove demv postoffice density pop_change box_den, cluster(fips3)
If a variable is significant (p-value of less than .05), then this means there is a relationship between the variable and the dependent variable. The sign on the variable tells the direction of the relationship. Demv (Democratic vote cast in the precinct) is positively associated with box removal, meaning the greater the Democratic vote, the higher the probability a box gets removed. If a box is located at a post office, is it less likely to get removed (denoted by the negative sign on the variable and the fact the p-value is less than .05). Population density, Post box density, and population change are NOT significantly related to box removal. The model correctly classifies 97 percent of box removals (that's really superb, but we also only have few cases that differ from zero).
Predicted Probabilities
To determine the magnitude of effect of Democratic vote share on the probability of a box removal, we need to generate predicted probabilities. Let's consider Gallatin County, which has a population density of 34, a box density of .006816, a population change of 27 percent, and for a box location that is NOT outside of a post office. Now, let's vary the Democratic vote share at the precinct level from .23 (a precinct south of Manhattan) to .84 (a precinct located near the university just south of downtown that includes a lot of students living off campus). How does the probability of a box removal change?
Table 2: Democratic Vote Share and Probability of Post Box Removal
Democratic Vote Share
Probability of a Box Removal
23%
4%
30%
5%
40%
7%
50%
9%
60%
13%
70%
18%
84%
26%
Caption: Other variables held to represent Gallatin County and box locations not located outside a postal facility.
Across the range of precincts in Gallatin County, the probability of postal box removal increases more than 6-fold as we move from the most Republican precincts in the county to the most Democratic.
Statistical Notes
I ran the model using a procedure know as a rare event logit given the low number of cases. The results are substantively no different—the same variables are significant. I also ran models predicting box additions and found no relationship between the predictors listed above and the probability of a box addition.
Today, the Department of Political Science celebrated its graduates at our traditional Friday-Before-Graduation party. Alas, this year--because of COVID-19--we had to celebrate via Web Ex. We laughed, we cried, we shared memories over the past four years we've spent together.
Every year, a faculty member is chosen to give a charge to the graduates. I became the new head this past December after a stint filling in for a semester while Dr. Wilmer was on sabbatical. I decided to give the charge myself this year. What follows is the speech I delivered to these fantastic students who will go out into the world and do wonderful things. I will miss them, but at the same time, our nation needs their energy, their passion, and their brilliance now more than ever.
A Charge to the MSU Class of 2020: The Citizen as Essential Worker
September 11, 2001. I'll wager a bet that none of you graduating today have a clear memory of that moment. I certainly do, and whenever I hear mention of 9-11, my mind snaps instantly back to a particular image: A plume of smoke pouring from the North Tower of the World Trade Center right before—in the background—a plane steers toward the South Tower. That plane is Flight 175, destined to slam into that second tower shortly after 9 a.m. Eastern Time. Why does my mind go there? I think it's because that image encapsulates the realization that—at that exact moment—it was clear what America was facing: A terrorist attack and likely war with those harboring the monsters who killed thousands of innocent men, women, and children. That still frame, to me, is one of those key turning points in a nation's history. We are still wrestling with the consequences of that horrible day nearly twenty years later.
Right now, we are living through another momentous time which will shape our collective futures for a generation or more. What's your picture representing this moment?
For me, it's a photo of a young man with black hair and bronzed skin. He's clad in green medical scrubs, standing astride an intersection in downtown Denver. His arms are crossed, he's wearing a medical mask, and he's—angry? Determined? Outraged? It's hard to see with his mouth covered.
In front of him is a large pickup truck—a brand-spanking new silver Ram 1500. An older, heavy-set woman, wearing a T-shirt with USA emblazoned on the front, is leaning out of the passenger window—(Screaming? Glaring? It's not clear)—at the medical worker blocking her car. She's holding a placard with the words, "Land of the Free" flush against the side of the truck's door. Is she going to or departing from a rally opposing the stay at home order put in place by Colorado's Governor? We don't know—and that's fitting because there is so much uncertainty in the depths of this pandemic.
For me, that's the COVID-19 moment. With whom do you identity, graduates? The defiant healthcare worker or the woman demanding her freedom?
It was a stifling hot summer in Philadelphia when 56 men affixed their signatures to parchment, detailing to the world how King George had violated the social contract—and that the only remedy was to sunder the binds tying the 13 American colonies to England. Freedoms had been withheld and denied, yes. But those freedoms had been trampled upon by a government that was not representative. The colonies had no members of Parliament. We had no say in the decisions made for us. The Declaration is often remembered—and idealized—because it is viewed as an expression of the freedoms that people ought to enjoy by virtue of their humanity—rights that no government should easily deny.
But as much as Jefferson's Declaration is one of independence from Britain, it is also a Declaration of Inter-dependence among those proclaiming the birth of a new nation. Let's not forget the concluding sentence:
"And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor."
Back to that picture in Denver. It's easy to say don't tread on me—like that woman in the ginormous pickup truck. Oh, I bet it felt so damn good to release all that frustration. Haven't we felt some of that? Don't you hunger for companionship—to go to the grocery store sans mask, to hug your friends, to belly up to the bar for a drink with your buddies after a long day of school?
But then there's that man clad in protective gear in front of that car, reminding us that those hugs, those trips to the grocery store without sanitizer, those shared beers, or an in-person graduation celebration—can come at great cost. Perhaps not for us—but maybe for that nurse in the ER, the grocery store clerk checking us out, the bartender pouring that beer, or the elderly relative sitting in the Field House as you walk across the stage.
Freedom without responsibility to each other is just another form of tyranny. The Founding Fathers got it; they knew that a declaration of freedom is worth no more than the paper upon which it is printed without care for each other. The freedoms we now enjoy were collectively earned and are collectively defended. Are the costs we bear now any higher than those born by previous generations charged with protecting this nation? It is a point worth pondering.
Our inter-dependence is essential, so I find it disturbing that the Department of Homeland Security's definition of so-called essential workers neglected perhaps the most important job of all: Citizen. Our allegiance in this liberal democracy of ours is to each other—we are all essential. To be free, we citizens must all hang together— at six feet apart (!)—or surely, we will hang separately.
Graduates of the Class of 2020. I remind you that to establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity required the founders to strive for a more perfect union. To be more perfect: Together. Your charge is to work on that union as citizens, mindful of what we owe each other, while being kind to ourselves and others during these turbulent times.
In political science, there's a well-known phenomenon known as the "Rally Around the Flag Effect". Quite simply, when the nation is under threat, the public turn to and give their support to the president. Two very good examples of this are the Presidents Bush: When Iraq invaded Kuwait and the Twin Towers were attacked on September 11th, Presidents George HW Bush and George W. Bush enjoyed a quick surge in public support in public opinion polls.
It is also the case that other executives experience surges in public support during time of crisis. We've seen Governor Cuomo's numbers surge in New York, and it's surely the case that other governors are suddenly more popular during this unprecedented and difficult global crisis.
Part of the rally effect is likely in part due to the fact that a crisis moment is a focusing event for the media: it drives other stories off the front pages. In the case of 9-11 and the current COVID-19 pandemic, these stories became the only story covered by the media. Nearly every cable channel turned to 9-11 coverage, sporting events were cancelled, and travel halted. In the case of COVID-19, there is almost nothing else to cover: not only are sporting events cancelled as they were during 9-11, but nearly everything else in society has ground to a halt. The only way to avoid COVID-19 is to read a book or binge shows on Netflix.
How does the singular coverage of a crisis by the media potentially generate a rally effect? Executives are the actors who receive the bulk of the coverage during the crisis. Governors and presidents have emergency powers they can draw upon--often enshrined in constitutions and in statutes--which empower them to respond decisively and quickly to coordinate relief efforts. Legislators obviously respond by passing appropriations and emergency legislation to address the crisis, but it is the responsibilities of executives to put those directives and appropriations to work. As a result--with all eyes focused on the crisis--governors simply get more media attention and that attention is very often positive. The sheer act of moving--of doing--to make people feel safe can generate goodwill from the public. Governors also provide information from the many executive agencies they lead and which are responsible for addressing the crisis. Legislators simply get lost in the shuffle: there are too many and while their response can be just as crucial, it can seem by comparison less dramatic and direct.
How does this matter for the U.S. Senate race here in Montana? It could very well matter a lot. Why? Because in a period where electioneering is challenging at best, Governor Bullock is dominating earned media. And that earned media is overwhelmingly, if not exclusively, positive. Steve Daines, on the other hand, is receiving almost no coverage by comparison.
How do I know? I ran the numbers. Here at Montana State University, I have access to Access World News--a database of news coverage spanning the globe. Very simply, I selected media coverage in Montana from April 2019 through the March 30, 2020, searching for "Bullock" and "Daines" respectively. I also did a similar search for former Governor Brian Schweitzer between April 2011 and March 2012 to provide a baseline comparison to Governor Bullock's coverage. The results are reported in Figure 1, which reports the trend in coverage by the total number of articles mentioning Bullock, Daines, and Schweitzer by month. I simply counted all articles--including editorials and letters to the editors.
Figure 1: MT Media Mentions April 2019 (2011) to March 2020 (2012)
Under normal circumstances, one might expect that Governor Bullock to receive minimal coverage after the conclusion of the legislative session when--for all intents and purposes--he's a lame duck. This should also be the case for Schweitzer, who was in a similar position at the end of his second term. If one compares Governor Bullock's coverage to Governor Schweitzer's, that seems to be the pattern for both of them until March. There's a spike in May 2012 and May 2019 for each: Schweitzer responded to a series of terrible floods in the state, while Bullock announced his presidential run. Senator Daines' coverage is a bit lower than Governor Bullock's during this period, but not appreciably so--in fact, he even receives more mentions in January and February of 2020.
And then, the Corona virus hits the US, and Governor Bullock goes from 184 articles mentioning him in February to 809 in March--while Senator Daines stays essentially the same.
A closer look at March in Figure 2 maps this even more precisely. At the beginning of the month, Daines and Bullock had a near-parity in media coverage up to and including the day Bullock declared his intention to contest Daines' Senate seat. But, as the COVID crisis hit America, Bullock's coverage began to take off while Daines remained steady: 36 stories on March 12, 28 on the day Governor Bullock announced the state's first COVID cases, 51 on March 16, 36 on the day Bullock extended school closures (March 24), and 69 (the series high) when the Governor announced his shelter in place order.
Figure 2: MT Media Mentions in March 2019
By comparison, Daines' best day was 16 articles on March 17 when the Senate came back into session to discuss the House COVID-19 relief package.
The nature of the global pandemic has upended daily life. It certainly has turned electioneering upside down; how does one campaign when you can't hold rallies, hang out with voters, pop in to TV studios for interviews, or raise money? It may also have changed some of the dynamics in the Montana Senate race, giving Governor Bullock a crucial early advantage in the spring that under normal circumstances he would not have.
NOTE: I re-titled the blog after watching Senator Daines' recent comments on impeachment on the Senate floor. The ignorance extends to him as well, apparently.
Senator Lamar Alexander's explanation for who should decide what to do about the president's actions in Ukraine is absurd, and represents fundamental ignorance about the Founders.
In an interview with Chuck Todd, Senator Alexander suggests that while he found the actions by President Trump concerning the withholding of aid to Ukraine inappropriate, the were not impeachable and—furthermore—that whether they merit removal is a judgment best left to the people. Here the link to the clip: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/lamar-alexander-says-senate-should-not-substitute-its-judgment-voters-n1128286
Let's address the final point first: the people, and not the Senate, should decide in the forthcoming election whether the Ukraine allegations merit removal. Hogwash.
First, the Founders were not democrats (small d) but republicans (small r). All kinds of checks and balances are put in place to insulate government institutions from the voice of the people because the Founders feared mob rule—particularly mob rule swayed by a demagogue. The Founders created the Electoral College, with voters casting votes for electors who—according to the scheme laid out in the Constitution—were supposed to exercise independent judgment when selecting the president. Furthermore, the founders expected (wrongly, it turns out) that it would be challenging for any candidate to achieve a majority of votes in the electoral college; thus, the House of Representatives would often decide who would serve as president. All of these factors point quite clearly to the notion that will of the people is really to be refined by several institutional checks and filters.
So, to Alexander's point: No. It's up to the Senators to decide whether the act is impeachable or not. Not the people in elections. That represents a profound ignorance of the Constitution and the situation facing the Founders.
To the second point about to what constitutes a high crime and misdemeanor, it is absolutely clear that the Founders were petrified about foreign influence in elections and the conduct of national affairs. This is why the citizenship and residency requirements exist for the presidency: To prevent a European puppet from taking the throne. I have to assume at some point Senator Alexander read President Washington's Farewell address, which cautions the nation about entangling foreign alliances. Seeking foreign involvement in an election is precisely what President Trump did (and Alexander does not contest this point), which is precisely what the Founders thought was dangerous. And, to be plain, it is exactly the Senate that should decide these issues because they are supposed to be removed from the passions of the people given their longer terms and (at least at the Founding) their indirect election. I read the Federalist papers in college. Did they?
Then, there's the stubborn fact (as John Adams would write) that the president broke the law: His withholding the aid in the first place was an illegal impounding (I cover this in my presidency and Congress class; Congress appropriates, and the Supreme Court has upheld this repeatedly) and he was accepting aid to assist in his reelection (breaking those silly campaign finance laws put into place after massive abuses by the Nixon campaign forces that had little to do with Watergate).
Finally, the issue of removal from office and the ability to run for president in the future. Yes, a grave action indeed—but again, given the fear of Kings and demagogues, again, this is precisely why the Senate must have this ability. The danger is a president who is supported by the majority of the people—that pesky majority tyranny that Madison warned against—who must be removed from the ballot because they can manipulate the popular will to retain office and work their will to oppress the minority. The Senate is a check on this! As Hamilton himself wrote (and Congressman Schiff quoted during the Senate trial):
When a man unprincipled in private life desperate in his fortune, bold in his temper, possessed of considerable talents, having the advantage of military habits — despotic in his ordinary demeanour — known to have scoffed in private at the principles of liberty — when such a man is seen to mount the hobby horse of popularity — to join in the cry of danger to liberty — to take every opportunity of embarrassing the General Government & bringing it under suspicion — to flatter and fall in with all the non sense of the zealots of the day — It may justly be suspected that his object is to throw things into confusion that he may 'ride the storm and direct the whirlwind.'
Here's the link:https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-12-02-0184-0002
On a personal note, I worked as a field staffer for Senator Alexander fresh out of college more than twenty years ago—on his presidential campaign. To say that I am disappointed in his position and behavior is a gross understatement. America deserved better from him—and the rest of the Republican caucus in the U.S. Senate. If you are upset, you know what to do. Vote like your life depends on it--because it does.
This is a special guest post by Kal Munis, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Virginia. Kal is a lifelong Montanan, and is an alum of both Montana State and the University of Montana. I expect to feature his work often here.
With the 2018 midterm elections just a little over seven months away, candidates have begun to ramp up efforts to distinguish themselves from one another. In addition to the various typical dimensions on which we might expect those aspiring to represent us to stress their unique qualifications—such as prior political experience, policy positions and past accomplishments—there is another conspicuous characteristic upon which political candidates in Montana attempt to out-maneuver one another: successfully conveying that they possess an authentic Montanan identity.
Typically, candidates try to signal to voters that they share with them various attachments to the customs, values, and lived experiences particular to their geographical constituency. They do so in numerous ways including in video advertisements, mailers, press releases, emails, social media postings and other campaign media. It should be noted that these activities don't stop at election day—indeed, many politicians will continue to cultivate their image of place-based authenticity as a component of what political scientists refer to as their "home-style."
Candidates in Montana and elsewhere clearly engage in this behavior cycle after cycle due a belief in the campaign community that it is an effective practice. In a content analysis of all video based advertisements that were paid for by campaigns during the 2012 and 2014 U.S. Senate elections, I found that these types of ads are widespread throughout the country, with the highest level of usage being clustered in Western states such as Montana. Despite their seeming ubiquitousness, it remains unknown whether campaigns' decisions to deploy these appeals are evidence based or the product of folk-wisdom based inertia.
Irrespective of their effectiveness, however, some pundits (and voters—see the comments on this ad) have remarked that excessive hand-wringing over which candidate is the most Montanan borders on xenophobic, particularly when such concerns are tied to place of birth. At the same time, however, it seems widely accepted that the success of many candidates in Montana, particularly Democrats Senator Jon Tester and Governor Steve Bullock (as well as former Governor Brian Schweitzer), has been largely predicated on their ability to connect with voters on the basis of place.
In large part, the mechanism through which this connection has been fostered in Montana, as well as that upon which many campaign appeals based on place identity are made, is the candidate's birthplace. For successful Democratic candidates in Montana, it seems that part of the litmus test has been whether they're a native of the state. For a recent example, look no further than Governor Bullock's successful 2016 reelection bid against then Republican gubernatorial candidate and current U.S. Representative Greg Gianforte. In that race, the Bullock campaign was able to successfully paint Gianforte as an outsider with deep connections to California and New Jersey. So out of touch with Montana was Gianforte, according to Bullock's campaign, that he was willing to try to run roughshod over that which many Montanans hold to be most sacred: public lands. The narrative was simple: Bullock, a native Montanan, respects and maintains Montana values, whereas Gianforte—a Californian multi-millionaire by way of New Jersey—does not. The result, meanwhile, was shocking, as returns revealed that Bullock defeated Gianforte by 4 points, all while Gianforte's co-partisan in the presidential race, Donald Trump, crushed his Democratic foe by a staggering 22 points.
As part of the 2018 midterm elections, Tester will defend his Senate seat and multiple Republicans are competing in their party's primary to challenge him. Currently, most observers regard Matt Rosendale as being the front runner among these challengers. And, if recent advertisements are any indication, it would seem that several left-aligned groups, including the Montana Democratic Party, consider him to be the front-runner as well.
In a recent advertisement, the MTDP makes an overtly place identity charged indictment of "Maryland Matt" Rosendale, namely that he is an outsider who "doesn't share our Montana values." In the ad, the MTDP takes a 'don't just take our word for it' strategy by relying mostly upon statements made by (or on behalf of) prominent Montana Republicans, as well as upon a compilation of footage of Rosendale himself butchering the pronunciation of the state he is running to represent in Washington. The statements (which are attributed variously to current U.S. Senate primary opponent Russ Fagg, former U.S. House primary opponent and current Secretary of State Cory Stapleton, and to a PAC that supported Ryan Zinke in the 2014 Republican primary for the U.S. House of Representatives) all suggest that Rosendale's non-native born status should be viewed as a deficiency in the eyes of voters. Of these statements, Stapleton's makes the case against Rosendale's non-native status most powerfully, stating "we don't need that East Coast value here in Montana, we don't need somebody from the East Coast representing us in Montana, we need a Montanan representing us on the East Coast."
This theme, though in decidedly less antagonistic tone, was on display yet again a few weeks ago in Bozeman at the Republican U.S. Senate candidate forum (not a debate!) put on by the College Republicans at Montana State University. The forum, which featured Rosendale and his three opponents, Troy Downing (a fellow non-native from California), Albert Olszewski, and Russel Fagg, saw all candidates take pains to stress their connections to Montana and demonstrate their embrace of Montana values. Rosendale and Downing (the non-native candidates) did so in decidedly apologetic fashion, with the following statement by Downing being emblematic of the tone: "I've always been a Montanan, it just took me 31 years to get here." Fagg and Olszewski (the native candidates), meanwhile made their born and raised Montanan bonafides front and center from the outset, with Fagg, for example, noting that he "has the Montana roots, the Montana endorsements, (and) the Montana donations."
It was a portion of Fagg's closing statement as well as Rosendale's that followed, however, that really drew my attention. In his last appeal to the crowd in Bozeman that night, Fagg made his case that his native Montana roots would be critical to defeating native Jon Tester in 2018. "I'm a fourth generation Montanan…and (my family) has live and loved Montana since before Montana was a state," he said "[…] and the reason that's important, I appreciate everyone that has moved to Montana because they love Montana, but the Democrats are going to unmercifully beat up two of my opponents because they moved here nine years ago (Downing) and fifteen years ago (Rosendale). It may not be fair, but it's the truth. If you put me on that ticket, that takes that argument away from Senator Tester." Fagg then went on to note that he has to date collected the lion's share of endorsements from prominent Montana Republicans from well-known names such as Marc Racicot and Denny Rehberg (Rosendale, meanwhile, has the support of prominent national Republicans such U.S. Senators Rand Paul and Mike Lee) before passing the mic to Rosendale.
Fagg's point was brought into stark relief just moments later when Rosendale mispronounced "Montana" so badly that even I, a social scientist who studies the role of place-based identities in politics, couldn't help but to find it grating. In my defense, it was the contrast of Rosendale's mispronunciation and Fagg's ominous message regarding the importance of Montana roots in eyes of Montana voters that made the moment so powerful. And, apparently I wasn't the only one to notice—the MTDP released the "Maryland Matt" ad just a few days later and appeared to indirectly reference the forum in a short blurb accompanying the ad's posting.
Do voters care about where candidates were born? To begin to investigate this question, I draw upon data from three different surveys that I have fielded (one in Autumn 2015, one in Spring 2017, and another in early fall 2017) utilizing Mechanical Turk samples. All respondents in these surveys reside in the United States. Within each survey, I included a question asking whether and how important respondents thought it was that candidates running for Congress in their state had been born there. In the most recent two surveys, an additional question was asked regarding whether respondents felt that candidates born in their state were more likely to understand the values and needs of people in their state.
Table 1: How important do you think it is for candidates running for Congress
in your state to have been born in your state?
Fall 2015
Spring 2017
Fall 2017
Extremely Important
25
(5%)
200
(11%)
130
(11%)
Very Important
117
(25%)
368
(20%)
255
(22%)
Moderately Important
136
(29%)
496
(28%)
300
(26%)
Slightly Important
87
(18%)
320
(18%)
232
(18%)
Not at all important
111
(23%)
423
(23%)
229
(23%)
N
476
1,807
1,146
Results for the first question are remarkably stable across all three samples, as can be seen in Table 1. In the most recent sample, one third of respondents indicated that they felt candidate place of birth to be highly important (including both the "extremely important" and "highly important" categories). A little over a quarter of respondents indicated candidate place of birth to be moderately important. Meanwhile, a minority of respondents (41%) indicated that candidate place of birth is only slightly important or not important at all to them.
Table 1: In general, do you think that candidates born in your state are better
at understanding the values and needs of people in your state?
Spring 2017
Fall 2017
Yes
853
(47%)
554
(48%)
No
287
(16%)
144
(13%)
Unsure
667
(37%)
450
(39%)
N
1,807
1,146
As for respondents' perceptions regarding whether native born candidates are more likely to better understand the values and needs of their constituency, a large plurality in both samples (an average of 47.5%) indicated that they felt this was the case, with a small minority (an average of 14%) of respondents saying this wasn't likely to be the case. A large number of respondents in both samples indicated that they were unsure regarding this question (38%). These results are presented in Table 2.
To further explore responses to these questions, I use various methods (including ANOVA, OLS, and logistic regression) to model the relationship between responses to these questions and respondents' partisanship.[1] First, I estimate the association between how important respondents rated candidate birthplace and respondents' partisanship while controlling for the influence of other background characteristics. Results show that, on average, the place of birth of political candidates is significantly more important to Republicans (by about 25%) than it is for Democrats even after controlling for the influence of respondents' level of educational attainment, gender, self-reported recent voting history, and whether the respondent lived in a rural area. Moreover, further analysis reveals that Republicans' average importance rating of candidate place of birth is significantly higher than that of independents as well, though Democrats and independents do not differ significantly from one another in this respect. Finally, I model the association between partisanship and perceptions of whether being born in state imparts upon candidates a special constituency related knowledge (all while again controlling for a number of other related factors). Results indicate that Republicans are 4.5 times more likely on average to indicate that candidates born in their state typically better understand the values and problems associated with that state.
Taken together, these results suggest that many Americans see candidate place of birth as being an important attribute of political candidates. More specifically, a majority of people in my sample indicated that it is at least moderately important that candidates be born in the state that they seek to represent in Congress, with a full third indicating that they feel it is highly important. Moreover, a plurality of respondents indicated that they believe that candidates born in the state they are running in are more likely to understand the needs and values of their constituency. Results also indicate a significant association between these considerations and partisanship, with Republicans endorsing both to a greater extent than non-Republicans on average. All of this is especially noteworthy considering that these results are derived from a sample comprising survey respondents from all across the United States. And, in terms of demographic characteristics, the sample skews slightly younger, more liberal, and more educated than the American population as a whole—as well as Montana. So, if anything, I would expect the patterns and statistical associations described above to increase in magnitude if the sample were one perfectly representative of Montana.
Finally, in relating all of this back to Montana politics, the results presented here seem to lend some credence to Republican candidate Russ Fagg's (as well as many others) warning to Republican primary voters that (in)congruence between where candidates are born and the district they hope to represent is important to voters—and, at least in this sample, especially amongst self-identified Republicans. And, since Tester will almost certainly have to win over a considerable percentage of voters who recently voted for our Republican president, these results suggest that one fruitful path for him to do so would be to continue to appeal to voters on the basis of shared Montana values and identity (as Bullock did in his successful 2016 reelection bid). Whether and to what degree he is able to do so could very well be moderated by whether a native-born Republican, such as Fagg or Olszewski, is at the top of the Republican ticket.
B. Kal Munis is, amongst other things, a 6th generation Montana native and alumnus of both Montana State University and the University of Montana. He is currently a PhD candidate in the Woodrow Wilson Department of Politics at the University of Virginia. You can follow him on Twitter @KalMunis.
[1] If you want more specifics on the data and my analyses, please send me an email or leave a comment below.
Yesterday, The Washington Post published an op-ed piece written by Montana Republican Senator Steve Daines about the awful wildfire season we've been experiencing here in Montana and the West. It is good to bring attention to an issue that has gotten lost in the coverage of the widespread devastation hitting Texas, Florida, and now Puerto Rico during an unusually intense start to the hurricane season.
It is troubling, however, how Senator Daines takes a very complicated issue—the causes and consequences of wildfire—and lays blame squarely on the shoulders of "radical environmentalists" and their lawsuits, which he purports prevent efforts to clear and thin trees by forest managers. If these lawsuits would only cease, writes Daines, wildfires would be less intensive, less pervasive, and produce fewer damaging greenhouse gases. And, perhaps as importantly, Montanans would have more jobs as there would be more timber for mills to process into lumber. Stop the lawsuits, and everyone would benefit!
Senator Daines was a champion debater in high school, and like a skilled orator, he does his best to frame the facts to best advance his core thesis. In so doing, he intentionally obscures or downplays the biggest drivers of fire: temperature and climate. At best, that's disingenuous. At worst, it gives us false hope for the power of forest management in stemming the effects of wildfire in the West.
Let's unpack just one point Senator Daines makes in his article: the association between acres burned and declining timber harvests. Daines tells us that "If you look at the decline in timber harvests on National Forest land since 1990, you can't miss the correlation between harvesting and wildfire. Harvests drastically declined and, combined with the legal obstacles preventing the removal of fire fuel, wildfires grew larger and more severe. We have effectively increased the risk of wildfire by allowing cluttered forest floors to build up with more material that can burn."
The logic seems crystal clear: Declining timber harvests have increased fuel loads, which lead to more and more intensive forest fires. The reason? Lawsuits from the aforementioned radical environmentalists. And Senator Daines links to a study conducted by The Nature Conservancy and the U.S. Forest Service in support of his claim that "an abundance of science shows that a properly managed forest would reduce the size and severity of wildfires." Stop the lawsuits, and we'll have better managed forests with smaller and less severe wildfires, he argues.
If only it were so simple. This Sunday morning, MTN is airing a Face the State devoted to the problem of fire in the West. I encourage you to tune in. In preparing for the show, it was immediately apparent to me how complicated the issue of fire is in the American West even if I am not a fire ecologist—or any kind of ecologist.
But there's one thing I do know as a social scientist—and it's something that Senator Daines surely knows, too, as an engineer: Correlation does not equal causation. Senator Daines makes a causal claim when he asks us to look at the correlation between timber harvests and forest fire intensity. But simple bivariate relationships are not evidence that X generates Y; indeed, these simple associations are often misleading without having undergone a rigorous statistical analysis. (For a bit of fun, check out this website (LINK) devoted to correlations which are not causally related, such as the decline of pirates and rising global temperatures or people falling and drowning in pools and the release of Nicolas Cage movies). If I were to draw a causal conclusion from these relationships, we should be able to fix global warming by issuing more letters of marque or keeping Nicolas Cage away from the box office. Clearly, that's absurd! And it is just as absurd to make forest policy based upon two trends moving together without a deeper analysis controlling for other factors.
Clearly, to address global warming, we need...Pirates!
Most troubling is that Senator Daines conspicuously ignores two key factors in his opinion piece: climate and temperature. According to fire ecologists and foresters, those are the key drivers of fire intensity and growth—and forest management or lack thereof plays a much smaller role (this recent example). You would hardly know that, however, from reading the Senator's article. You also would not know that fire is an essential part of a healthy Western forest which requires its regenerative powers to remain in balance and even to allow certain species to propagate (such as the ubiquitous lodge pole pine).
Finally, an abundance of science clearly demonstrates that carbon emissions by humans is a critical factor responsible for climate change which is leading to hotter and drier summers in the West. To reduce the likelihood of the West burning, we should pursue policies that would reduce those emissions. Senator Daines claims that thinning our forests would reduce the release of dangerous greenhouse gases, but has refused to acknowledge in this piece and elsewhere that carbonemissions from the burning of fossil fuels is responsible for precisely the conditions most directly responsible for leaving our forests in cinders.
I could go on, as Dr. Diana Six of UM, a leading expert on pine beetles, has argued that thinning itself by pine beetles helps our forests adapt to the new realities of a warming world and that thinning by cuts might stymie an important natural process. Declining timber yields in Montana have less to do with lawsuits and more to do with the free market (lumber companies moving south where trees grow faster and wages are lower) and unfair trade practices (government subsidies for timber in Canada)—here's an extensive report on the issue published in 2005.
Bottom line: There are no silver bullets when it comes to fire in the West, and we need our elected officials to start leading an honest discussion instead of providing us with false hope and convenient scape goats for a problem that is much larger and messier than Senator Daines suggests.
I'm a political scientist—with an emphasis on the science. I've viewed my role in the public sphere as inserting into debates what political scientists have learned about political processes and institutions—and to try to keep both sides faithful to the empirics. At heart, I've always been a skeptic and my training as a political scientist makes me even more so. I'm not one to join partisan frays. It's not my style. I just go where data lead.
The election of Donald Trump, someone who had zero political experience, certainly sent my skepticism into high gear given the data. Limited political experience does not often equate with political success. One major exception is Dwight David Eisenhower, but he is the exception who proves the rule. Eisenhower was an exceptional student of leadership and, as Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, developed a well-honed ability to convince, negotiate and compromise with many talented, egoistic generals as they fought the Third Reich to rid the world of Nazism.
During the fall campaign, a video of historian David McCullough made the rounds on social media. I've long admired McCullough's accessible and well-written history, especially his biography of Truman.
In the video, McCullough draws our attention to Eisenhower's four qualities of leadership, noting that Trump exhibited none of those qualities. He had neither character, ability, experience, nor responsibility. In short, McCullough did not believe Trump was suited for the presidency. He was especially not suited to articulating a clear moral purpose and acting as the conciliator in chief in times of national sorrow and crisis.
Trump's repeated failure as a leader over the past eight months should not surprise. He was as prepared for the presidency as I am to do any kind of home or car repair.
Yet the president can be a poor leader and the nation can survive: We managed the ineptitude of Hoover and Carter. What is most troubling is that Trump himself, through apparently carefully contrived acts, may be encouraging values antithetical to the Republic itself.
That causes me great alarm and concern, as it should every American regardless of party.
There are certain moral certainties, bright lines in the sand, that are not debated in civilized society. Racism, white supremacy, and support for Nazism are among them. No race, no people, no ethnicity is superior to any other. Advocating violence against someone else because they are different than you is wrong. Killing innocent people is wrong. Full stop.
An easy test of leadership, methinks, is denouncing yesterday's terrible events in Charlottesville with clarity and precision. "Nazism, racism, and violence are acts of terrorism, and have no place in our Republic and receive my strongest condemnation" would've been a good start. Perhaps you might have taken a cue from Vice President Pence, who had no problem naming who was the blame for yesterday's events: "We have no tolerance for hate and violence from white supremacists, neo-Nazis or the KKK," said Pence, calling them "dangerous fringe groups" today in Colombia.
Instead, the President issued a statement that was ambiguous at best, but spoke volumes: Calling out racism, Nazism, and white supremacy wasn't on the table. Best case? He's a coward and inept. I'm less inclined to believe this is the case: He's spoken out clearly concerning acts of terrorism undertaken by Muslims in the past. And Trump certainly has no trouble telling us what he thinks most of the time. That leaves the worst case: He's sympathetic to their cause.
Many Americans voted for Trump because they were angry at what they believe our country had become. Others voted for Trump simply because he was the Republican nominee. Still others voted for him because they couldn't stomach Hillary Clinton. It is not for me to judge a person who voted for Trump. That's their business, and frankly, that's water under the bridge
We've seen Trump can't stomach doing what's right when the path is clear, and may be conspiring with forces seeking to undermine the very foundation of our Republic. It doesn't matter how you voted, but how you answer the question: "What now?"
If you are troubled with what you've seen, at least we have a constitutional system with multiple points of access. Write to the president; tell him how you feel (although I'm skeptical that would matter). Write to your congressional delegation: Remember, ambition counters ambition in our system of separated (but shared) powers. Write to your state parties and tell them to make changes to the primary system that will make it more likely better candidates survive the nomination process (ironically, that may mean a little less democracy in the primaries and more control to party elites who were overwhelmingly opposed to Trump). But do something. Be heard, while you still can.
We have a democracy. That is, as Ben Franklin said, as long as we can keep it. We've kept it for more than 200 years.
Whether we keep it for another 200 depends on the choices you make now.
Just in case you need a refresher course on leadership, here's how great leaders should behave:
1. Responsibility. Eisenhower, on the eve of D-Day, prepared this statement should the landings fail:
"Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I
have withdrawn the troops. My decision to attack at this time and place was based on the best information available. The troops, the air and the Navy did all that bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone."
2. Character. George W. Bush after 9-11.
3. Ability and Experience. LBJ and the Voting Rights Act.
4. Fortitude. Ronald Reagan in Berlin at the Brandenburg Gates.
5. All of the Above. Churchill. 1940, as France fell and Britain stood alone.
Ask our members of Congress to display the leadership our President will not.
How does one measure influence and the effectiveness of legislators? This is not a trivial question, as voters have to make sense of competing claims during election years when deciding whether to return an incumbent for another two or six year term. Of course, incumbents seek to inflate their importance and influence, while their opponents attempt the opposite. Justin Grimmer wrote a fascinating account of how legislators attempt to puff up their credentials in press releases, claiming credit for government spending and appropriations which are routine--the legislator likely had little role in procuring.
I am drawn again to the topic of legislative effectiveness and influence by a recent post by Don Pogreba at his new website, The Montana Post. Pogreba contrasts the legislative accomplishments of Senator Tester with those of Senator Daines, suggesting that Tester is far more accomplished than Daines—inferring that Daines has little influence in Washington and does nothing of substance in the U.S. Senate.
Unfortunately, I thought the piece trivializes an important issue to sell a partisan point. Both parties are guilty of simplifying this issue to create a narrative useful to them. Let's elevate the conversation, and see what political science can offer. Who is more effective: Daines or Tester?
I addressed the issue of influence and effectiveness in Battle for the Big Sky, as a key argument Team Tester made about Congressman Rehberg was that he had accomplished little of substance during his decade plus in the House of Representatives. I wrote this in evaluating the effectiveness of Tester and Rehberg as lawmakers:
"On average, House members passed less than one bill in the 109th through the 111th Congresses that became law, according to data compiled by the Congressional Bills Project. In the Senate, it isn't much better: Senators passed fewer than two bills on average that were signed by the president over the same period.17 Of the 42 bills and resolutions sponsored by Tester during his first four years in office, two passed. Rehberg passed seven of the 82 bills and resolutions he introduced between 2001 and 2010.18 In neither case do Rehberg nor Tester stand out as successful legislators, but their efforts are less reflective of their individual abilities than they are of governing in an era of polarization and divided government. Senior members of both chambers tend to be more successful because they often have committee chairmanships that provide them with the opportunity and responsibility to advance legislation central to their party's legislative agendas."
A couple of points are important. First, it's really hard to pass a bill. Second, it's really hard for House members to be effective in sponsoring bills—but it is "relatively" easier for Senators to get their legislation made into law. Third, appropriators don't often sponsor bills and exert influence through earmarks instead. Finally, seniority matters: Freshmen simply don't pass bills they sponsor in either chamber often.
Let's compare apples to apples. In 2007, Senator Tester was a part of the new Democratic majority. According to GovTrack, the same source Pogrebra uses to assess Senator Daines' performance, Senator Tester did not have a bill sponsored by him (not counting co-sponsored bills) pass that year. In 2015, Senator Daines was also in his first year in the Senate as part of a new Republican majority. And, no surprise, he did not have a single bill sponsored by him become law.
But sponsoring bills is only one way to think about legislative effectiveness. Indeed, it is a measure that is not terribly useful when looking at freshmen legislators. I noted in Battle for the Big Sky that the Senate gives far more opportunities for senators to participate directly in the legislative process through floor amendments. This is the similar tactic that my Georgia State colleague, Jeff Lazarus, employed to compare the legislative effectiveness of Senators Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. Read the piece here; Lazarus concluded that Clinton was the far more effective legislator, owing in part to the support she marshalled for her amendments.
Tester effectively used amendments to advance his legislative priorities, particularly for a freshman Senator in the majority. While he ranked second to last among his class in the passage of sponsored bills (in the first four years of his first term), he was the second most successful Senate amender among the cohort elected in 2006. Of the 38 amendments he sponsored, eleven were adopted on the floor. Again, this data is from my book.
Senator Daines, in the 114th Congress, sponsored 55 floor amendments (Data for this analysis was obtained from Congress.gov). Only five were adopted by the chamber—for a success rate of nine percent. How does that rank among Republican freshmen?
Eleven Republican freshmen were elected in 2014. Six had higher amendment passage rates than Daines, five had lower success rates. Senators Rounds and Sullivan had 32 percent of their amendments agreed to (about Tester's success rate), but both sponsored fewer amendments (19 and 41 respectively). At the bottom end of the scale, Oklahoma Senator James Lankford sponsored 34 amendments and had only one receive Senate assent (for a passage rate of 3 percent). Among freshmen, Daines also sponsored the most amendments—eight more than Colorado Senator Corey Gardner (17 percent success rate).
Legislative effectiveness is tricky to measure and must be placed both in career and institutional context. Daines' inability to pass legislation sponsored by him should not surprise given his relative junior status—and Tester found himself in precisely the same boat when he arrived in Washington. Looking at amendments, Daines is less effective than Tester was early in his career. Tester's experience as a successful legislator in the Montana Senate has carried over to the U.S. Senate. Daines, whose experience was in the private sector and not in politics prior to arriving on Capitol Hill, likely has had a steep learning curve when it comes to legislative maneuvering on the Senate floor.
One final and related point: political scientists have long argued that term limits are bad for legislatures. As David Mayhew notes in America's Congress, some of the country's most important, historic legislative measures were drafted and passed by members of Congress late in their careers. As the above analysis and discussion demonstrates, passing laws is the business of seasoned legislators and not those new to Capitol Hill. It is also not a particularly useful way to measure whether a legislator is effective or not earlier in their careers—especially not in isolation. There are also other ways to think about legislative effectiveness, including casework and pork brought back home. Both of these are hard to measure, and in the case of pork, ever more difficult to obtain given the recent ban on earmarks. Legislative effectiveness is multi-faceted and needs to be placed into comparative contexts.
Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren rose Tuesday night to register her objections to Senator Jeff Sessions' nomination to the Attorney Generalship. In the course of reading a letter from the late Coretta Scott King (widow of Martin Luther King) about her objection to his appointment in 1986 to the federal bench, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell issued an objection saying that Senator Warren had violated Rule 19. That rule states, in part:
"No Senator in debate shall, directly or indirectly, by any form of words impute to another Senator or to other Senators any conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming a Senator."
Senator Daines ruled Senator Warren out of order, telling her to take her seat. Warren challenged that ruling, but Senator Daines was sustained on 49-43 party-line vote. Senator Warren was then effectively barred from the remainder of the debate.
Senator Daines ruling Senator Warren out of order
The video of the incident quickly spread across social media. Democrats, liberals, and regular women were furious at a white, male senator suppressing the free speech of a female colleague. Even more galling, they indicated, was that Warren's male, Democratic colleagues were later allowed to read King's letter from the floor without interruption, let alone official reprimand.
As a professor of political science, I appreciate Senator Daines' commitment to civil discourse. It is something that I try to model for my students at Montana State, and it's a value which has evaporated during these hyper-polarized times. I agree that Senator Daines' interpretation of Rule 19 falls within the letter of the rule. Senator Warren did charge Senator Sessions with conduct unbecoming of a Senator, even if Senator Warren was quoting someone else.
Daines was right. According to the letter of Rule 19, that is.
But it's the spirit of the rule—and the intention behind it—that matters. And in that respect, Senator Daines and Senate Republicans erred greatly in ordering the honorable member from Massachusetts to take her seat.
Consider first why something like rule 19 exists: To provide a "safe space" for the difficult and often contentious disagreements about policy and the direction of our nation. Political debates should confine themselves to substantive matters without devolving into attacks on personal character. As we know from the literature on international relations, repeated interactions in negotiations encourages cooperation and long-term thinking. By encouraging elevated discussions whilst removing name-calling, the Senate pushes its members to engage in a battle of ideas and not personalities (Side note: Refusing to engage in personalities was one of President Eisenhower's keys to successful leadership). At the same time, this encourages the development of relationships that go beyond the disagreements of the moment—relationships essential to the institution functioning well and the production of good policy. In this case, Rule 19 is a good thing to have handy for officers presiding over debate.
While Rule 19 encourages elevated discourse, its use on Tuesday evening conflicted with the constitutional responsibility of the Senate; that is, to provide its advice and consent in the nomination process.
It would seem that a rule of the chamber concerning decorum should be subordinate to the pursuit of an important constitutional check on the executive branch.
When Senator Sessions became President Trump's nominee to head the Justice Department, he was no longer just a Senator. He had become a potential member of the executive branch and therefore subject to the advice and consent process. It would seem, then, that a full consideration of the previous actions and record of that nominee—including the judgment of those who are in a good position to assess that record—is fair game for consideration during the process of advice and consent. Even if those allegations include remarks that might be perceived as impugning the character of a sitting U.S. Senator.
Beyond this technical point, however, it's hard to buy that Senator Warren's reading of the King letter impugned the character of Senator Sessions. First, the letter was an account of his behavior not as a U.S. Senator but in his position as a U.S. Attorney. And, perhaps more directly, the views expressed by Mrs. King assessed the actions of an officer of the executive branch—the same branch Sessions would serve as head of the Justice Department.
Even if we accept the notion that Senator Warren's reading of the letter was out of line under a strict application of Rule 19, consider if that same letter were written about Betsy DeVos. Senator Warren could have freely read the letter without fear of rebuke. DeVos was not a sitting senator at the time of her confirmation, therefore, Rule 19 simply does not apply.
In 1989, the former U.S. Senator John Tower's nomination to lead the Department of Defense was rejected after senators openly discussed documented allegations of womanizing and alcohol abuse. Although Tower was not an active member of the Senate at the time of his nomination by President George H.W. Bush, the Senate did not shy away from this important and difficult discussion about a former colleague. It defies reason, therefore, that the Senate chose to silence one of its members rather than have a complete and full discussion of Sessions' qualifications to serve as Attorney General—simply because he is an active U.S. Senator. This is, quite simply, a dereliction of its constitutional duty.
At the end of the day, it is not a surprise that Senator Daines upheld McConnell's objection and the Republican majority supported his ruling. As University of Maryland Professor Frances Lee documents, senators increasingly vote along party lines not just on issues of policy and ideology, but on routine procedural matters. Why? Because the parties are more interested in building a mentality of teamsmanship at the expense of cross-partisan collegiality and cooperation.
While that teamsmanship might yield electoral benefits in the short-term, it comes at great expense to Madison's carefully constructed system of checks and balances.
The rise of teamsmanship along with the weaponization of congressional oversight (which Matt Dull and I have documented a few articles), leaves Congress vulnerable to the continued expansion of the executive branch accruing more and more power. Without congressional ambition vigorously countering executive ambition, we risk the rise of a majority tyranny running roughshod over our individual liberties.
I guess I should be used to folks taking the work that I do out of context. It comes with the territory when you are a scholar engaged in the public realm. Normally, I shrug it off because both sides can be guilty of it. But I take particular exception when the work I do to help inform the public and to elevate the public discourse gets twisted beyond all recognition to score cheap political points that bear no relation to the facts.
Back in the spring, MTN agreed to move Face the State to a weekly format through the election. I thought it would be wonderful to use this opportunity to hold debates on the show for the statewide offices receiving less attention: Auditor, Secretary of State, OPI, Attorney General, and Supreme Court. I reached out to all the major party candidates offering the opportunity to debate. Nearly everyone was excited for the opportunity to share their candidacies with Montana on statewide television.
In late August, Mike Dennison and I taped a Face the State segment with Jesse Laslovich, the Democratic candidate for state auditor. You can watch it here. That segment was supposed to be a debate. We had invited Matt Rosendale, the Republican candidate, to join us. He chose not to attend or offer other dates/times that would work with his schedule, which disappointed us. Laslovich was one of the first candidates to agree to debate back in June. Given Mr. Rosendale's decision not to debate, we gave Mr. Laslovich the whole half hour to share his vision for the state auditorship with Montanans.
Today, the Montana Republican Party sent out a press release calling Laslovich a "socialist" (I actually laughed out loud when I read this) and, using a clip from our interview on Face the State, intimated that he supports single-payer healthcare as "evidence" of their claim. Mr. Rosendale sent out a tweet with that same clip saying Mr. Laslovich supports more big government to destroy healthcare.
First, Mr. Laslovich did NOT say he supported replacing the Affordable Care Act with a single-payer option. He said our existing healthcare system was still broken despite the positive gains made by the Affordable Care Act, and that the single-payer idea should be taken seriously in any future discussions of healthcare reform. That's it. He did not say he supported single-payer. He did not advocate for it. He simply said a candid discussion was necessary.
Finally, and this is perhaps the most distressing, single-payer healthcare already exists in the United States and has received support from the Republican Party. It's called Medicare—you know, that single payer plan providing healthcare for elderly Americans. If single-payer programs are socialist, then any Republican supporting Medicare must be a socialist, too. At least, if we are to simply employ the "logic" expressed in the Montana Republican Party's press release.
Montanans deserve a fair and vigorous debate between their parties, both of which have different ideas for moving our state forward. That means candidates should debate one another, their views should be publicly scrutinized, and the conversation should be based upon facts rather than distortions. The Republican Party's characterization of our interview with Mr. Laslovich is simply unfair and mischaracterizes Mr. Laslovich's position. They should issue an immediate retraction and apologize.
I have been watching politics unfold for a long time—first as a young idealist hopeful to make the world a better place, later as a student of history interested in understanding the stories of our past, and now as a scholar and analyst helping others to understand the process and its intricacies. But today I write as a father concerned for the future of our political discourse. I'm specifically concerned when I see certain American politicians turn to fearmongering as a way to manipulate the electorate.
Politics has never been for the faint of heart, and very often, civil discourse can get drowned out by those who choose to be nastier than perhaps is necessary or over-simplistic in their rhetoric. And yet, this year—this time—is different. The tone is nastier, more simplistic, and more willing to disregard basic facts than at any time I have seen. It is a politics based upon raw emotion, rather than dispassionate analysis.
During this political season, I have seen candidates both nationally and here in Montana resort to the divisive language of "us" versus "them," pretending that they are leaders for "telling it like it is." These candidates purport to say what regular politicians refuse to voice, and because of that, they argue, we should lend them our support. They are not corruptible, they claim, because they are "one of us" and not "one of them." They come from outside the contemptible, "broken" political system. They can make America, and Montana, great again because only they have the will to do the tough things the venal politicians in the pocket of special interests refuse to stomach.
These candidates aren't tough and principled. They are master manipulators asking us to give in to our basest fears. They are unscrupulous charlatans selling us bill of goods.
That's not leadership. It calls to mind the Red Panic following World War I, or the McCarthyism of the 1950s. Have we lost all decency?
Leaders don't play on people's fears. They acknowledge our fears, but inspire us to overcome them. They ask us to move beyond fear and bind us together. They do not push us apart. Leaders, like all of us, are not perfect. They make mistakes. But they fundamentally strive to bring out the best in us as a people, together.
Make no mistake: Political disputes are healthy and good in a republic. We should disagree and do so vigorously. The problem is when that discourse becomes poisoned by a desire to win a political argument at all costs. This mentality encourages doubling down on fear to marshal our darkest doubts against our perceived enemies. It fosters and deepens divisions between us. It is especially dangerous when that fear encourages a majority "us" versus a minority "them"—stoked by too cute by half political framing that skews facts to make a convenient argument.
All is not yet lost. We—the people—are at a time of choosing, Ronald Reagan once said. We can chose candidates that manipulate our fears to advance their campaign, or we can chose candidates who wish to overcome them. We can chose hucksters who have no fidelity to truth or civil discourse.
Or we can choose leaders.
May Americans be inspired to act together this election season "by the better angels of our nature" rather than give into our fear. If we choose to surrender to the "nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance," then not only is our republic imperiled, but we really have lost our collective national soul.
On Election Night, both Mike Dennison and I were struck by the vote totals obtained by Terry Nelson, who was running for the Republican nomination for Governor, and Eric Mills, who was running for the nonpartisan Supreme Court. Nelson obtained 24 percent of the vote, and Mills received 20 percent of the vote. Neither ran a campaign of any note, nor did they spend any money. Nelson had raised $1,300 but spent none of it. Mills had $300. Why did they do so well without spending any money? It was curious.
I said as much on air, and sent out a tweet about the Republican primary vote totals earlier today. Former standout student Kendall Cotton suggested it wasn't odd--about 25 percent of primary voters go to the second candidate since 1996. He suggested it was par for the course--there's not much to see here. Move along.
Then why did Governor Bullock manage to get 92 percent of the vote and his opponent only 8 percent? I actually expected there would be more of a Democratic protest vote given that he is on his third Lt. Governor and the persistent attacks in paid media over the Governor's use of his plane. So it seemed odder still that Greg Gianforte, who I presumed had pretty much universal Republican support, would have done better than 75 percent. Especially given the fact that his opponent spent nothing.
Kendall's explanation sounded interesting. But then I looked at campaign finance expenditures from Follow The Money. Take a peak:
1996. Natelson received 23 percent of the vote in 1996 Republican primary. He spent $125,000. 2000. Natelson received 43 percent of the vote in the 2000 Republican primary. He spent $219,000. 2004. John Vincent received 27 percent of the vote in the Democratic primary. He spent $48,000. 2008. Larry Steele spent $2,073 in the Republican primary and got 19 percent of the vote.
Only Steele fits the pattern of almost no money spent and a vote share north of 10 or 15 percent. Otherwise, all the candidates spent some money--and many had some name recognition from their involvement in politics.
So, we have an observation: Terry Nelson spends no money. Hardly campaigns. And gets 24 percent of the vote while Greg Gianforte spends a considerable sum and gets 75 percent of the vote. We might conclude that:
1. Republicans are ornery and about a quarter just vote against the presumed nominee because they don't like presumed nominees (then why, pray, are Democrats less ornery this year?)
2. Some Republicans are not satisfied with Greg Gianforte as their major party nominee.
3. Something else is going on. Perhaps Democrats are crossing over (but really? With the Sanders-Clinton race)?
Does this mean Greg Gianforte will have trouble winning in the fall? It depends on whether 1, 2, or 3 are operative in this instance. He might go on to victory against Steve Bullock with a unified Republican Party. Or, he might have some lingering trouble with his base--a la Congressman Rehberg in 2012, when candidate Teske (spending about $20,000) received a similar share of the vote. And the Congressman did have some trouble with the base--as some Republicans (as detailed in Battle for the Big Sky) abandoned him for Libertarian Dan Cox and others for incumbent Democrat Jon Tester.
Vox had an interesting piece today examining the relationship between income and age expectancy. You can read it here. As one might expect, they report that growing income inequality is related to a growing gap in age expectancy. But there's another factor seemingly related to how long one lives: Where one lives. Here's a brief snippet explaining the importance of geography and longevity:
To Chetty's surprise, the strongest pattern in the data was the role geography played: Low-income individuals lived the longest (and had more healthy behaviors) in cities like New York and San Francisco with populations that are, on average, well educated, and high-income.
What leapt out at me, however, was not the connection between urbanity and life expectancy for the poor. Another geographic pattern became apparent as I scanned two charts reporting the life expectancy gap by income in each state: Access to public land. Here are both charts as reported by Vox. The one on the left looks at men; the second, on the right, at women. Click on them to enlarge.
Look at the states clustered at the top: many have substantial public land holdings. Montana is number one for men, and 10th for women. Like a good social scientist, I combined the data in the two charts and added a percentage of total public land ownership variable to the mix. I calculated the longevity gaps between the richest 25 percent and the poorest 25 percent of men and women. Finally, I ran a quick correlation between the gaps and the public land variable. The resulting correlation statistic is simply a measure of how well the two measures move together and in which direction. Here's a screen shot of the results:
The correlation is negative and statistically significant for men and women, suggesting that the more public land in a state, the lower the longevity gap between the richest and poorest quartiles regardless of gender. Further investigation uncovered that the gap between the poorest 25 percent and the second poorest 25 percent also decreases significantly with greater percentages of public land, but the correlation is less strong (-.30 and -.33 for men and women, respectively, versus the -.47 and -.43 reported above).
It's hard to make too much of this relationship, as I have not controlled for a whole host of other demographic and behavioral factors that explain health outcomes. Until I've done that, it's hard to see how strong the effect of public land access is on public health outcomes and whether it withstands controlling for these other factors. Correlation is not causation. People who value public land access are very likely different in many respects from those who do not. Certainly, people who move away from a place without much public land in favor of a place with lots of public space are probably going to have different habits and leisure activities than those who stay put. And places with public land are also quite different from places without. Without examining all of these factors, the relationship between life expectancy and public land access is not completely clear.
With those caveats made, an important finding mentioned in the VOX article is the association between poverty and two key factors associated with lower life expectancy: obesity and sedentariness. Clearly, greater access to the great outdoors would help combat both—and this access may be even more important for the poorest among us to increase their life expectancy. Providing and protecting access to public land might be one of the best ways to mitigate one the most dire consequences of rising income inequality.
This Sunday, you'll get to watch Republican gubernatorial candidate Greg Gianforte face off with me and Mike Dennison in the MTN studios on Face the State. I'll post a link once it has been uploaded. This is the first time I've interacted with Mr. Gianforte extensively, and I thoroughly enjoyed our conversation. It should be an exciting race.
Greg Gianforte: Founder of RightNow Technologies and Republican candidate for Governor
During the show, you'll hear me express skepticism about Mr. Gianforte's claim that Montana is 49th in wages. I wanted to provide some context for that discussion, and explain why I don't think this number is a particularly good measure of Montana's overall economic health--and how I think it undercuts the argument being made by Mr. Gianforte.
As a political scientist, I like quantitative data. At the same time, when we use quantitative data, it is important to know how the data are calculated and the potential ways in which that calculation can introduce bias into our measures. It is true that Montana is not as economically well-off as other states. But are we really only better than Mississippi? I found that hard to believe. Here are three other measures of the economy and how Montana ranks:
U.S. Census
Per Capita Household Income (2014): 38th
Per Capita Income (2014): 34th
Bureau of Labor Statistics
Unemployment (November 2015): Tied for 12th (with Kansas)
Not first or even in the top half for per capita or household income, but not nearly rock bottom as the 49th in wages number suggests. And the unemployment picture is stellar. So what gives? Do we really have such low pay?
Back in April, many Montana media outlets reported that according to tax data compiled by Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), Montana was 49th in wages. No one took any time, however, to actually do a deep dig into that number. Once I heard Gianforte using the number repeatedly during his statewide announcement tour, I decided to do exactly that.
I clicked on the methodology portion of the website, reading carefully about how the wage number is calculated. TRAC took the aggregate total of wage and salary-based income as reported on individual tax returns and divided that number by the number of tax returns received from the state. That led to the determination that at $33,180, Montana is 49th in average wages—just above Mississippi.
But there are two problems with this method. First, consider that some people derive no income from wages in a tax year. Some of these people are retired, some are students, and others live off of capital gains or other sources of passive income. Yet, these folks need to file a tax return—but are included in the data to compute the wage average despite having zero wages. This will serve to drag down the average wages. You might argue that this is the case in every state—and that's true. But, if a state skews older (which Montana does) or has a high number of retirees receiving income from passive investments (see Big Sky, for example), then this biases the wage average downward.
(In fact, Florida, New Mexico, West Virginia, South Dakota, Arkansas, and Maine are all at the bottom 11 and they are some of the oldest states in the US)
Second, consider the nature of Montana's economy. In 2015, we ranked number 1 (and, indeed, have been number 1 for quite some time) in the Kauffman Index of Startups. Put simply, we are a state full of small businesses and sole proprietorships—with people eager and willing to take risks. Many farmers, ranchers, telecommuters, tax accountants, consultants, plumbers, tradespeople and the like do not report W2 wage income either. I know this because for many years my wife was a consultant and she had no W2 income. Instead, all of her income was reported as business income—a separate line of a 1040 form. That means that many Montanans, who had good jobs, also report zero on the W2 line of their 1040s. And, that means they drag down the state's wage average, too. Again, this is a double hit. Their income is included as zero AND they their tax return is included in the denominator for the overall wage average.
I argue this number very poorly reflects on the state of Montana's job picture and I am skeptical of its use. There is no doubt in my mind that Montana can have a stronger economy and there's a path for an even better future for our state. That's a debate we need to have in this Governor's race. But it is important, while having a conversation about that future, that we use the best numbers to decide what policies we need to pursue to keep Montana the Last (but not 49th), Best Place.
