海角大神

As the election season ramps up, Americans offer聽dozens of claims about the 鈥減roblems鈥� facing our country and their purported 鈥渟olutions.鈥� 聽But while many of these claims are amenable to empirical scrutiny, few are ever studied.

Spoiler alert: Americans are lousy empiricists!

A recent post聽examined whether 鈥渃areer politicians鈥� are 鈥渙ut of touch鈥� which their constituents.聽 According to a simple聽regression analysis, the answer is a resounding 鈥渘o.鈥� When we look at聽the data, veteran lawmakers represent their constituents in much the same way as 鈥渘ew鈥� lawmakers.

In today鈥檚 post, we鈥檙e going to examine what is perhaps the most cited claim about how Americans聽can 鈥渇ix鈥� Congress: All we need are new lawmakers! According to this hypothesis, if we simply 鈥渢hrow the bums out,鈥� the federal government will run better.

But while 鈥渢hrowing the bums out鈥� is intuitive, there are good reasons why electing a聽large volume of new lawmakers is聽actually bad for Congress. I鈥檒l get to that in a moment.

How can we examine this hypothesis?聽 First, we need to define Congress鈥檚聽鈥減roblems.鈥� While it probably depends on who you ask, we can measure legislative performance using three intuitive constructs: (1) the number of laws enacted, (2) the size of the federal deficit, (3) Congress鈥檚 approval rating.

For laws passed, we can measure legislative accomplishment two ways. On the one hand, we may want to isolate 鈥渕ajor鈥� legislation. For this we can use data collected by聽David Mayhew (# landmark laws passed) and聽Joshua Clinton and Josh Lapinski (# significant bills passed). On the other hand, we may want to know about the fate of 鈥渁ll鈥� bills. For this we can use data collected by聽Scott Adler and John Wilkerson (# bills passed). For budget deficits, the charts above use the total budget deficit or surplus divided by GDP. And for congressional approval, I鈥檓 using data from the American National Election Studies (ANES) on Americans鈥櫬爈evel of 鈥渢rust in government.鈥�

With these data in hand, the rest is straightforward: Calculate the percentage of new lawmakers in a given Congress and examine the bivariate relationship with each measure of legislative performance. For laws enacted and trust in government, we are expecting a positively slopped line (increases in new members correlates with more legislation passed and higher overall trust) while for budget deficits we are expecting a negatively slopped line (increases in new members correlates with lower spending).

Here are the results. Each chart is for聽the 80th to the 112th Congresses (1947-2012).

• When we examine聽鈥渕ajor鈥� enactments, we see a distinct negative relationship. (See the first two charts above: Landmark Laws and Legislative Accomplishment. Click the arrows to scroll through the charts.) While the relationship isn鈥檛 significant because of the limited sample size, the effect is substantively large. 聽According to the data, a 10% increase in the percentage of new lawmakers decreases the number of landmark laws enacted by 3 and decreases the number of significant bills passed by 20.

• When we examine the total number of laws, however, the relationship is almost exactly zero. (Third chart above: Total Laws.)

• We see the same聽null聽relationship with budget deficits: large changes in the percentage of new lawmakers has virtually no effect on the overall budget. (Fourth chart above: Budget Deficit)

• Finally, there is a small negative relationship with trust in government. 聽As the number of new lawmakers increases, there is a minor decrease in the number of Americans saying they trust the federal government. (Fifth chart above: Trust in Government.)

So in summary, not only is there no improvement in Congress鈥檚 job performance when a large volume of new lawmakers are voted into office, but, if anything, there is a modest negative relationship. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, therefore, it would seem that聽鈥渢hrowing the bums out鈥� negatively impacts Congress鈥檚 job performance.

What explains this negative effect? 聽While not directly examined here, there are good reasons to suspect that聽political聽polarization is at fault. 聽As we documented in this post, polarization is caused in large part by聽the replacement of old members with new members. In fact, according to political scientist Sean Theriault鈥檚 excellent book, Party Polarization in Congress, about two-thirds of the increase in Congress鈥檚 polarization is due to new members.聽

As an example, imagine that tea party-backed state Sen. Chris McDaniel had defeated six-term US Sen. Thad Cochran in Mississippi鈥檚 contentious GOP primary. Would McDaniel have 鈥渇ixed鈥� Congress, or contributed to its further polarization and gridlock? 聽While this is just one race, it represents the larger trend over the past 30 years.

In sum, when you 鈥渢hrow the bums out,鈥� you actually increase Congress鈥檚 polarization which, in turn, has negative聽consequences for the institution鈥檚 overall performance.

Finally, let me just clarify that wanting to throw the bums out is not misplaced. Arguably, Congress deserves聽its negative rating. Nonetheless, flooding the institution with new members won't solve the underlying problem. It鈥檚 important to keep our eye on what matters.

Jordan Ragusa publishes his Rule 22 blog at http://rule22.wordpress.com/.