Legislative Politics in the Solid South The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation Olson, Michael. 2020. Legislative Politics in the Solid South. Doctoral dissertation, Harvard University, Graduate School of Arts & Sciences. Citable link https://nrs.harvard.edu/URN-3:HUL.INSTREPOS:37365770 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA ©2020 — Michael Olson All rights reserved. Dissertation Advisor: James M. Snyder, Jr. Michael Olson Legislative Politics in the Solid South Abstract How does the absence of competitive parties aect legislative politics? In this three-paper dissertation, I explore this question in the context of the American Solid South, which persisted from the re-establishment of white Democratic rule following Reconstruction until the Civil Rights Era. Using a variety of original data, particularly on state legislative roll call voting, I explore how one-party government aects legislative behavior and the representation that constituents receive. In the rst paper, I examine how the creation of the Solid South through black disfranchisement aected state legislative roll call voting, demonstrating that formal, in- stitutional black disfranchisement was impactful for legislative representation. This piece lls an important gap in the literature by demonstrating that the rules limiting the franchise in the South shaped the unique political character of the Solid South. In the second paper, I examine whether southern state legislatures exhibited party-like patterns in roll call voting. This allows me to assess whether intra-party factions capably substituted for parties in facilitating issue representation in this one-party, Democrat-dominated political setting. Finally, in the third paper, co-authored with James Snyder, we explore how representation on a particular issue, prohibition, was aected by the Solid South’s lack of party competition. By focusing on this single issue, we are able to develop estimates of voters’ preferences for this important period of American political history. Taken together, these papers rene scholarly understanding of the role of parties in the legislative process and oer new detail and nuance to characterizations of politics in the one-party, Democratic South. iii | Contents Title Page i Copyright ii Abstract iii Table of Contents iv Acknowledgments vi Introduction1 1 “Restoration” and Representation: Legislative Consequences of Black Disfran- chisement in the American South, 1879 – 19164 1.1 Disfranchisement and Legislative Representation................8 1.2 Disfranchisement of African Americans, 1877-1908............... 12 1.3 Roll Call Voting in Southern Legislatures..................... 16 1.4 Empirical Strategy.................................. 26 1.5 Results........................................ 29 1.6 Discussion and Conclusion............................. 38 2 State Legislative Factions and Roll Call Voting in the American Solid South, 1935-1946 41 2.1 The Classication of Southern Factions...................... 46 2.2 Empirical Approach and Data........................... 50 2.3 Measuring Factionalism............................... 53 2.4 Assessing the Electoral Connection........................ 62 2.5 Discussion: Louisiana and South Carolina..................... 69 2.6 Conclusion...................................... 76 3 Dyadic Representation in the American North and South: The Case of Prohi- bition With James M. Snyder, Jr. 79 3.1 Background on Prohibition............................. 84 3.2 Data.......................................... 87 iv 3.3 Empirical Strategy.................................. 95 3.4 Results........................................ 97 3.5 Discussion and Conclusion............................. 105 A Appendix to Paper One 110 A.1 Roll Call Scaling Details............................... 110 A.2 Descriptive Information............................... 122 A.3 Additional Results.................................. 131 A.4 Robustness Checks................................. 142 B Appendix to Paper Two 162 B.1 List of Legislative Sessions............................. 162 B.2 Alternative Numbers of Dimensions and Clusters................ 166 B.3 Alternative Measures of Factionalism....................... 168 B.4 Alternative Measures for Regression Analysis.................. 170 B.5 Louisiana and South Carolina Regressions.................... 174 C Appendix to Paper Three 175 C.1 Descriptive Information............................... 175 C.2 Robustness Checks................................. 188 Bibliography 212 v | Acknowledgments While the popular conception of writing a dissertation characterizes it as solitary under- taking, this dissertation has been anything but. It is not at all an exaggeration to say that without my family, friends, and mentors, this dissertation could not have been completed in its present form. While all remaining faults are my own, so many others have been avoided through others’ contributions. My dissertation committee is comprised of four incredible scholars and people, and it has been my privilege to receive their guidance and instruction throughout my time in graduate school. Jim Snyder, my dissertation chair, has always treated me as a colleague and an equal. Through both his feedback on my solo research and through authoring a paper together, his guidance has dramatically improved my work, and I am proud to call him a colleague and a friend. Ken Shepsle has been a xture of my graduate experience, starting with our weekly meetings in my rst year when he was my assigned faculty mentor. His generosity with his time, both in that rst year and beyond, has been incredibly benecial to my development as a scholar. I have learned so much from him about developing and pursuing interesting research questions. Jon Rogowski has been a constant mentor to me. Not only have I learned an im- mense amount about being a productive researcher from observing and working with him, but the professional and professional-adjacent advice that he has given me—which I solicited far more frequently than was reasonable—has kept me sane during the more turbulent periods of my graduate career. I will be forever thankful for his generosity. Matthew Blackwell, similarly, has always given of himself without complaint. On the numerous occasions in graduate school vi that I found my research outstripping my own statistical abilities, Matt was always able and willing to assist, and it is no exaggeration to say that numerous projects of mine would not have been completed without his help. Together, these four have comprised an outstanding committee, and I am so grateful for their eorts both individual and combined. While I suspect that shared experiences bind all graduate school cohorts together to some extent, I am certain that the group of people I have been surrounded by in graduate school is uniquely kind, supportive, and intelligent. A particular joy has been sharing an oce with some of my best friends in recent years. Shom Mazumder’s passion for research and issues have inuenced my thinking so much. Chris Chaky is an outstanding scholar and teacher, and I have beneted so much from having him in my life. Jaclyn Kaslovsky has been a constant research companion. Partially by dint of studying similar topics, and partially because we complement each others’ strengths as researchers, Jaclyn has immeasurably improved my re- search. Gwen Calaise-Haase has been a wonderful more-recent addition to the oce. Outside of the oce, Jeremy Bowles has been a remarkable friend, and a constant source of advice and goodwill. Andy Stone joined our department in our second year of graduate school, and it is now hard to imagine how much less rich of an experience it would have been without him. Riley Carney routinely and graciously allowed me to interrupt her work so that I could think out loud in her direction. Gabby Malina has been an excellent friend who has oered thought- ful advice and kept me grounded. Amy Lakeman is a wonderful person and scholar who has shaped my own thinking about what research is and can be. Shiro Kuriwaki is incredibly giv- ing of his time and is so incredibly talented. So many others have been good friends and have oered thoughtful feedback, some of whom I am sure I am forgetting: Jake Brown, Max Go- plerud, Chris Havasy, Hanno Hilbig, Daniel Moskowitz, Connor Phillips, Albert Rivero, Tyler Simko, and Michael Zoorob. I have been so fortunate to benet from the collaboration and friendship of so many in the Harvard Government Department. I had the privilege to present portions of this dissertation in a number of venues. At Har- vard, the American Politics Research Workshop, Political Economy Workshop, and the annual vii graduate student poster session provided excellent forums for sharing this work and receiving feedback, and I am grateful to the organizers, faculty advisers, and all who attended and oered thoughts. Outside of Harvard, the annual meetings of the Midwest, Southern, and American Political Science Associations, the annual conference at Yale University’s Center for the Study of American Politics, the University of Virginia Religious Studies Department Graduate Con- ference on “An Age of Extremism,” the Congress and History Conference,