Essay
Congress & Parties Exam Question
- Module
- Congress
- Institution
- PEARSON (PEARSON)
Past paper exam paper on Congress & Parties.
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Evaluate the extent to which political parties are the largest factor affecting voting behaviourwithin Congress.
Political parties within the US play a huge role when it comes to voting behaviour within Congress.
With the two-party system, the dominant parties, Democrats and Republicans bring a diverse variety
of opinions considering the factions within each party. Which shows that it can affect voting
behaviour within Congress.
To commence, the main parties tend to be broad coalitions that have always divided roughly along
party lines on votes on key issues like gun reform or civil liberties. This is largely due to the overall
ideology of the party rather than a strong national platform or platform discipline. This does not
mean that parties will always vote together as the parties are broad coalitions and may contain
liberal republicans or conservative democrats. We can see this with the New Deal Coalition, which
was endorsed by the Democratic party since the beginning. However, parties tend to loose coalitions
rather than strongly bound by ideology, so polarising leaders within Congress or the presidency can
play a role in determining voting behaviour. Individuals in Congress may choose to vote against a
polarising leader even from their own party if they do not support their controversial policies, as
seen by Trump and his admiration to build a wall. Even if a party dominates both Houses of Congress,
they cannot assume that their policies will succeed.
Voting in Congress has also been affected as parties have become more polarised in recent times.
This has led to more partisanship when voting, particularly on approving appointments as
demonstrated under Trump with his nomination of Amy Coney Barrett which in the senate cloture
vote achieving 51-48. This shows that parties are becoming more likely to vote along party lines on
key issues and not just not significant ideological differences such as gun reform. However, members
of Congress may choose to vote according to strongly held personal beliefs rather than party
ideology. This is demonstrated in issues that are seen as moral such as abortion or capital
punishment, but may also include wide-ranging issues such as the extent of federalism and state
power. This means that the parties will not be able to influence such members of Congress to vote in
a certain way, particularly if these beliefs are a central plank of their electoral campaign.
The rise of more divisive and populist campaigns for the nominal head of the parties, the president
has strengthened the Republican Party in particular and has a big impact on voting. This means that
voting within Congress has become more partisan with fewer Republican’s in particular voting
against the administration’s policies. Whereas the Democratic Party have become more divided over
the national leadership and has struggled at times to unify as an effective opposition. However,
members of Congress may be more influenced by lobbyists and interest groups than their party
when voting. Many interest groups publish scorecards for individual members of Congress who
support or do not support their policies during election time and so will take this into account when
voting on key issues like gun reform. This means that members of Congress particularly those in the
House of Representatives may be more influenced by lobbyists and interest groups as they need to
raise money and support.
Factions within the parties also affect voting behaviour in Congress. This is evident in modern-day
politics as we can see subdivisions within parties especially for high-profiled Democrats and
Republicans. Despite them being in the party, they may not agree with all party beliefs and therefore
may conform to one certain faction. This leads to a number of members of Congress joining the
factions and voted to support their policies to gain wider electoral support and to show support for
wider Republican ideological views on limited government. However, political climate may be a
stronger influence than the political individual members of Congress represent, especially in
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