I Distribution Agreement in Presenting This Thesis Or Dissertation As A

i Distribution Agreement In presenting this thesis or dissertation as a partial fulfillment of the requirements for an advanced degree from Emory University, I hereby grant to Emory University and its agents the non-exclusive license to archive, make accessible, and display my thesis or dissertation in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter know, including a display of the world wide web. I understand that I may select some access restrictions as part of the online submission of this thesis or dissertation. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis or dissertation. Signature: __________________________ ___________ Name Date ii Partisan Preferences in Southern State Legislatures By Matthew Gunning Doctor of Philosophy Department of Political Science __________________________ Randall Strahan Adviser ___________________________ Merle Black Committee Member ___________________________ Alan Abramowitz Committee Member Accepted: ___________________________ Dean of Graduate School ___________________________ Date iii Partisan Preferences in Southern State Legislatures By Matthew Gunning B.A. Hillsdale College, 1988 M.A. Emory University, 2003 Adviser: Randall Strahan, Ph.D. An Abstract of A Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the James T. Laney School of Graduate Studies of Emory University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in 2011. iv Abstract Partisan Preferences in Southern State Legislatures By Matthew Gunning Legislative parties in Congress have merited increased scholarly attention in the late 20th and early 21st century. At mid-century American legislative parties appeared to be at low ebb. Individual members chosen in candidate-centered elections were characterized as free-lancing policy entrepreneurs. Strong committee chairs protected by the seniority system were able to thwart party leadership inside of the Congress. In the following decades party leaders benefited from reforms that increased their authority and the tools at their disposal. Inside the chamber party line voting increased sharply and electoral parties benefited from a decline in split ticket voting in national elections. Recent scholarship on political party strength in the U.S. House of Representatives has focused upon the revival of formal party leadership positions. Other scholars have suggested these changes are not meaningful because parties cannot cause House members to vote against their preferences. This debate has caused scholars to look for empirical evidence of direct party effects—situations where the presence of political party activity could be credited with shifting or biasing outcomes. This dissertation seeks to contribute to our understanding of party influence by looking at evidence of indirect party effects on legislator preferences. In particular it seeks to demonstrate that through their monopoly over the nomination phase of elections parties select in favor of candidates who hold a specific party-ideology. This partisan filter effect on legislator preferences is present when primary voters are polarized between the two parties. A cross-sectional examination of ten southern State House chambers will demonstrate that when competitive parties exist across that region, the filtering effect of parties produces a predictable polarization of legislator preferences. Legislators who survive the polarized nominating electorate tend to be non-centrist in their ideological location. In contrast, this polarization effect is lacking during the one-party period when nearly all registered voters participated in the same nominating election. A second indirect effect of parties is the reduction of the multi-dimensional policy space. When a competitive party system exists and polarized electorates filter in favor of candidates who adopt the party ideology, roll call voting within the legislative chamber is primarily one-dimensional. When party filtering is absent, the policy space is multi-dimensional. v Partisan Preferences in Southern State Legislatures By Matthew Gunning B.A. Hillsdale College, 1988 M.A. Emory University, 2003 Adviser: Randall Strahan, Ph.D. A Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the James T. Laney School of Graduate Studies of Emory University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Political Science 2011 vi Acknowledgements My journey through graduate school and the writing of this dissertation spanned nearly a decade and there many people who deserve a word of thanks for their support or assistance. First and foremost I must thank my committee, the Political Science Department and the Dean of the Graduate School for allowing me an opportunity to complete this work. I want to thank Professor Black for reminding me that advanced methodology should never obscure the fact that ‘politics’ is at the heart of our study in political science. Professor Abramowitz is always ready with a cogent observation or a helpful suggestion and I thank him for nudging me forward on this journey. My committee chairman Randall Strahan has been a constant presence in my graduate career from admission to completion of this degree. I thank him for his support, patience and understanding throughout these years. The work that follows in these chapters was enhanced by a number of individuals and organizations. I would like to thank the National Science Foundation for a Dissertation Completion Grant that facilitated the creation of roll call vote code books. I would like to thank Professor Chris Zorn who helped me prepare my NSF application. Thousands of roll call votes were scanned at Emory University’s Beck Center where Joel Herndon and Rob O’Reilly assisted me. I could not have completed this project without access to the legislative journals provided via inter-library loan by the Emory Law Library and Center for Research Libraries in Chicago. I thank Professor Gerald Wright of the University of Indiana for collecting and sharing the roll call votes for U.S. states houses (1999-2000). I also thank Keith Poole who customized an early version of his W-NOMINATE program for my desktop so that it would function given the memory capacity of the computer. Without his creation of W-NOMINATE scaling program this work would not have been feasible. Finally, I wish to thank Denise Brubaker of the Political Science Department who has gone above and beyond the call of duty on behalf of myself and other graduate students. I must also acknowledge fellow graduate students who contributed directly and indirectly to this project by listening or making suggesting along the way. Brian Lai, Kyle Saunders, Erik Tillman, Tavishi Bashin and Rich Vining are all more than just colleagues, they are also valued friends. Other graduate students who helped along the way include: Aimee Akerman, Vin Moscardelli, Moshe Haspel, Charles Hankla, Chris Palazzolo, Curtis Meek, Jesse Hamner, Joel Moore, Katie Vigilante, Ozlem Elgun, Ruth Melkonian-Hoover, Scott Langford and Susan Allen. With the National Science Foundation grant I employed a number of graduate and undergraduates in coding roll call votes. For their work I acknowledge the contributions of Erik Tillman, Adam Cooper, Susan Allen, Amy Yuen, Ravish Bhasin, Michael Malanoski, Nick Brubaker, Nadine Khattak, and Adam Province. In addition, I thank Brett Simison and Jesse Hamner for assistance with computing in the early phases of this project. I thank Matt Asher for saving my data after a hard drive crash. I came to graduate school to become a professor because I was inspired by others, namely Michael Poliakoff, Lorna Holmes, Mickey Craig and Mark Kaltoff at my undergraduate institution. At Emory I learned more about how to teach from Randall Strahan, Michael Giles, Merle Black and Thomas Lancaster. I hope that someday I too will inspire a student to take up this profession. vii During the length of this project I experienced many highs and lows. Many friends rendered moral support and so I thank the following individuals for their role in helping me move forward: Adam and Heather Blank, Anchalee Mahasaen and Kat Martin, Chris and Aki Swanson, Christine Troyke, Eric and Jenn Fickes, Jennifer Brown, Jennifer Bowman, Ted Moore, Joe Harris, Rick Esparza, Tony Rodgers, Scott Wages, Terry Wickman, William Munden, Wendy Korotkin, Jason Wilkins, Steve Lamb, Chris Farmwald, Tim Fabiniak, Laura Astorian, David Gregory, Michael Albuquerque, Buddy Lee Faile, John Clifton, Claudia Crenshaw, Steve Davis, Chuck Hagel, Dave Lathers, Jim Waddell, Chuck White, Mark Weiland, Adam May and Todd Vierling. Finally I wish to thank my family including my sister and brother-in-law Mark and Leslie Brandow and their children Mason, Chloe and Eli. My parents Steve and Maggie Gunning have offered constant support and encouragement. Even when the convolutions of the process were opaque to them, they stood steadfast behind me. I thank them and dedicate this dissertation to them. viii Table of Contents CHAPTER ONE: Introduction and Background 1 CHAPTER TWO: Historical Variation of U.S. Parties 9 CHAPTER THREE: Preferences, Primaries and Polarization 25 CHAPTER FOUR: Political Parties and Spatial Constraints 44 CHAPTER FIVE: Political Change in Georgia 1960-2005 60 CHAPTER SIX: Coalition Voting Patterns in the Georgia House 1960-2005 75 CHAPTERS SEVEN: Party, Preferences and Sequence 104 CHAPTER EIGHT: Conclusion 112 ix List Tables and Figures Figure 3-1. Alabama Legislator Preference

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