Tarnishing Opponents, Polarizing Congress: The House Minority Party and the Construction of the Roll-Call Record

摘要: Existing research on congressional parties tends to focus almost exclusively the majority party. I argue that inattention House minority party hampers our understanding of construction roll-call record and, consequently, sources polarization in voting. Employing an original data set members' requests for recorded votes between 1995 and 2010, demonstrate demanded by are disproportionately divisive partisan make Congress appear considerably more polarized based commonly used measures. Moreover, minority-requested vulnerable members ideologically extreme.