Please contact me at lee.hannah@psu.edu for original files.

1. Day 7 – Legislative Recruitment
July 8, 2013

2. In the News
 Congress Lets Student Loan Rates Double
 http://video.msnbc.msn.com/up/52406830#52406830

3. Gerrymandering
 “Not Gerrymandering, but Districting: More Evidence on
How Democrats Won the Popular Vote but Lost the
Congress
 http://themonkeycage.org/2012/11/15/not-gerrymandering-but-
districting-more-evidence-on-how-democrats-won-the-popular-
vote-but-lost-the-congress/
 “Unintentional Gerrymandering” Political Geography and
the U.S. House Vote
 Democrats are inefficiently concentrated in large cities and
small industrial agglomerations.
 http://themonkeycage.org/2012/11/10/political-geography-and-
2012-u-s-house-vote/
 http://elections.nytimes.com/2012/results/house/big-
board

4. Where Have We Been?
 Constitutional Foundations & Design of Congress
 Constitution
 Federalist 51
 The Two Congresses and the Representative-
Constituent Linkage
 Two Congresses:
 Miller and Stokes (1963)
 Institutionalization of Congress
 Elections and the Rules of the Game
 Districting Process

5. Where Are We Going?
 Who enters?
 Who wins?
 Who votes for them?
 What effect do elections have on governance?

6. Readings
 DOL (58-67)
 Maestas et al. (2006) “When to Risk It?
Institutions, Ambitions, and the Decision to Run for
the U.S. House” American Political Science Review
100(2): 195-208.

7. Constitution
District
Features
Nominating
Procedures and
Primaries
General
Election

8. Barriers to entering
 Constitution
 What does the Constitution require of Congressional
candidates?
 District features
 What must candidates consider about their districts?
 Nominating procedures and primaries
 How can this process change who decides to run?
 General election prospects

9. Maestas et al. (2006)
 Why are the authors concerned about analyzing the
decision model through a two-stage process?
 What method do they use to determine the ambition
of state legislators?
 Why might members of a professional legislature be
more likely to run for Congress? Conversely, why
might they be more likely to stay in their current
office?
 Finally, what do they find? What factors make
legislators more or less ambitious? What factors
make ambitious legislators more or less likely to run?

10. PA National Congressional Districts
Source: http://www.redistricting.state.pa.us/Maps/House.cfm

11. Pennsylvania State House Map
Source:
http://aws.redistricting.state.pa.us/Redistricting/Resou
rces/GISData/Districts/Legislative/House/2011-
Revised-Final/PDF/2011-Revised-Final-Plan-Map-
House.pdf

12. Pennsylvania State Senate Map
Source:
http://aws.redistricting.state.pa.us/Redistricting/Resources/GI
SData/Districts/Legislative/Senate/2011-Revised-
Final/PDF/2011-Revised-Final-Plan-Map-Senate.pdf

13. Running for Higher Office – Previous
Assumptions
 Expected utility of winning a higher office - E(Uh)
 E(Uh) = phBh – Ch
 Expected utility of retaining the current, lower office -
E(Ul)
 E(Ul) = plBl – Cl
 Under this assumption, an ambitious politician will
attempt to move to higher office when:
 E(Uh) = phBh – Ch >E(Ul) = plBl – Cl
 What is problematic about this assumption?

14. Running for Higher Office – A Two-Stage
Decision Process
 Maestas and colleagues argue that there is a stable
disposition, or function, that each legislator holds.
 Stage 1
 Progressive Ambition = f(E(UA)
 = pgenBmarg – Cmarg + M)
 Where pgenis the long-run probability of winning office
 Bmargis the expected gain from the target office
 Cmargis the expected costs from running for the target office
 M = personal motivations outside of the cost-benefit analysis
 Those who enter Stage 2 have already crossed a
threshold level of ambition.
 Stage 2 Pr(Run | Progressive Ambition > 0 = f(Pt, pgen,Ct,)

15.  f(E(UA)
 = pgenBmarg – Cmarg + M)
pgen Bmarg Cmarg M
Estimation of
winning the party
nomination.
Assessment of
prestige and
effectiveness in U.S.
House career.
Family-cost index Desire to make
social or business
contacts
Estimation of
chances of winning
the general election.
Assessmentrelative
to current position in
state government.
Campaign-cost
index
Perception of district
partisan balance.
Signals from party.

16. Results
What is this
model
predicting?

17. Moving to the Second Stage
 f(E(UA) = pgenBmarg – Cmarg + M)
 If f(E(UA)) > 0, then they are scored as „1‟ (i.e. ambitious)
 If f(E(UA)) ≤ 0, then then they are scored as „0‟ (i.e. not
ambitious)
Interviews
N = 597
F(E(UA))
1
0
N = 263
N = 334

20. Discussion
 How do the authors connect their findings to political
responsiveness?
 What are the implications for their findings?
 What can they not determine from this study?
 How might this study be extended?