Abstract
In chapter 4 we examined the role of public interest lobbies in influencing congressional voting and concluded that the number of members of such lobbies in a state seemed significant in explaining the voting of congressional representatives from that state on issues that were important to the lobbies. If we believe that membership in public interest lobbies is determined by ideological factors, the evidence in chapter 4 is consistent with the hypothesis that ideology has an impact on congressional voting and hence on the passage of laws. In this chapter we continue the analysis of the influence of ideology on voting, but we use a different measure of ideology — namely, the rating given to representatives by the Americans for Democratic Action, a liberal pressure group. In chapter 6 we will explore the nature and significance of the ADA rating in further detail; the results presented in this chapter may be considered a preliminary test of the use of this rating to measure ideology.
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Notes
Data sources: Union data by state for 1939 and 1953 are from Troy (1957); for 1964, 1970, and 1974 data are from the U.S. Bureau of the Census (1977). These are the only years for which these data are available. A weighted average was used to compute union membership in 1961. Number of blacks by state is available in the U.S. Bureau of the Census (1977); it is available for census years only. Weighted averages were used to compute number of blacks for the minimum wage years. The ADA ratings and party for 1950 and 1956 are from the ADA World; for subsequent years, these data are from the Congressional Quarterly for the appropriate year. Average hourly earnings in manufacturing are from the U.S. Department of Labor (1975). For a small number of states in 1949, average hourly earnings were not available; a simple average for the corresponding region was used. Roll call voting records and political party for 1938 are from the U.S. Congress (1938); for subsequent years, from the Congressional Quarterly for the appropriate year.
In some years the ADA included voting on minimum wages in the list of bills on which its rating was based. In 1961 the final vote was included; in 1949 another vote on the minimum wage issue was included; and in 1966 three minimum wage bills, not including the final vote, were used. This overlapping could create some problems; however, in 1955 and 1974 no minimum wage bills were included in the ADA rating, and the results for these years do not differ from those of the other years. Thus, inclusion of minimum wage votes does not seem to be a problem.
Thomas Borcherding (1977) has pointed out that we would not, in fact, expect higher welfare payments to change voting patterns: At any time, the lowest observed market wage would reflect all such transfers, and a minimum wage above this level would lead to undesired unemployment.
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© 1982 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
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Kau, J.B., Rubin, P.H. (1982). Voting on Minimum Wages. In: Congressman, Constituents, and Contributors. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-1139-5_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-1139-5_6
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
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