Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-mp689 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-23T06:38:33.672Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Polarization without Parties: Term Limits and Legislative Partisanship in Nebraska's Unicameral Legislature

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2021

Seth Masket  and
Boris Shor
Seth Masket*
Affiliation:
University of Denver, Denver, CO, USA
Boris Shor
Affiliation:
Georgetown University, Washington, DC, USA
*
Seth Masket, University of Denver, 469 Sturm Hall, 2000 E. Asbury Ave., Denver, CO 80208, USA. Email: smasket@du.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Despite a long history of nonpartisanship, the Nebraska state legislature has polarized rapidly within the past decade. Using interviews and campaign finance records, we examine politics in the modern Unicam to investigate nonpartisan polarization. We find that newly instituted term limits created opportunities for the state's political parties to recruit and finance candidates in an increasingly partisan fashion. Social network analysis suggests that there is a growing level of structure to campaign donations, with political elites increasingly less likely to contribute across party lines. The results offer a compelling example of parties overcoming institutions designed to eliminate them.

Keywords

party organizationsparties and interest groupsparties in legislatureslegislative behaviorlegislative politicslegislative electionsroll call votingterm limits
Type
Research Article
Information
State Politics & Policy Quarterly , Volume 15 , Issue 1 , March 2015 , pp. 67 - 90
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2014

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aldrich, John H. 1995. Why Parties? Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bailey, Delia, and Sinclair, Betsy. 2009, April. “Partisan Polarization via Term Limits: Political Networks in the California Assembly.” Annual Meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago, IL.Google Scholar
Bawn, Kathleen, Cohen, Marty, Karol, David, Masket, Seth, Noel, Hans, and Zaller, John. 2012. “A Theory of Political Parties: Groups, Policy Demands and Nominations in American Politics.” Perspectives on Politics 10 (3): 571–97..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beer, Caroline. 2001. “Assessing the Consequences of Electoral Democracy: Subnational Legislative Change in Mexico.” Comparative Politics 33 (4): 421–40..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cain, Bruce E., and Kousser, Thad. 2004. Adapting to Term Limits: Recent Experiences and New Directions. San Francisco: Public Policy Institute of California.Google Scholar
Campaign Finance Institute, and Institute for Politics Democracy and the Internet. 2006. Small Donors and Online Giving: A Study of Donors to the 2004 Presidential Campaigns. Washington, DC: George Washington University.Google Scholar
Cohen, Marty, Karol, David, Noel, Hans, and Zaller, John. 2008. The Party Decides: Presidential Nominations before and after Reform. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cox, Gary W., and McCubbins, Mathew D.. 1993. Legislative Leviathan: Party Government in the House. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Cox, Gary W., and McCubbins, Mathew D.. 2005. Setting the Agenda: Responsible Party Government in the U.S. House of Representatives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cranmer, Skyler J., and Desmarais, Bruce A.. 2011. “Inferential Network Analysis with Exponential Random Graph Models.” Political Analysis 19: 66–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cranmer, Skyler J., Desmarais, Bruce A., and Menninga, Elizabeth J.. 2012. “Complex Dependencies in the Alliance Network.” Conflict Management and Peace Science 29 (3): 279–313..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Diermeier, Daniel. 1995. “Commitment, Deference, and Legislative Institutions.” American Political Science Review 89 (2): 344–55..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dominguez, Dominguez Casey Byrne. 2005. “Before the Primary: Party Participation in Congressional Nominating Processes.” Doctoral dissertation, University of California, Oakland.Google Scholar
Galvin, Daniel J. 2012. “The Transformation of Political Institutions: Investments in Institutional Resources and Gradual Change in the National Party Committees.” Studies in American Political Development 26 (1): 50–70...CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gerber, Elisabeth R., and Morton, Rebecca B.. 1998. “Primary Election Systems and Representation.” Journal of Law, Economics, & Organization 14 (2): 304–24..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hassell, Hans J. G. 2013, May. “The Non-existent Primary-ideology Link, or Do Open Primaries Actually Limit Party Influence in Primary Elections?” Presented at the 13th Annual State Politics and Policy Conference, Iowa City, IA.Google Scholar
Kanthak, Kristin, and Morton, Rebecca. 2001. “The Effects of Electoral Rules on Congressional Primaries.” In Congressional Primaries and the Politics of Representation, eds. Galderisis, Peter, and Lyons, Mike. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield: 116-31.Google Scholar
Kurtz, Karl T., Cain, Bruce E., and Niemi, Richard G.. 2007. Institutional Change in American Politics: The Case of Term Limits. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Manning, Eric. 2004. “The Effects of a Nonpartisan and Partisan Legislature on Legislative Output: The Case of Minnesota.” Presented at the Annual Conference of the Southern Political Science Association, New Orleans.Google Scholar
Masket, Seth E. 2009. No Middle Ground: How Informal Party Organizations Control Nominations and Polarize Legislatures. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Masket, Seth E. 2011. “The Circus That Wasn't: The Republican Party's Quest for Order in the 2003 California Gubernatorial Recall.” State Politics and Policy Quarterly 11 (2): 124–48..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Masket, Seth E., and Noel, Hans. 2012. “Serving Two Masters: Using Referenda to Assess Partisan Versus Dyadic Legislative Representation.” Political Research Quarterly 65 (1): 104–23..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McGhee, Eric, Masket, Seth, Shor, Boris, and McCarty, Nolan. 2014. “A Primary Cause of Partisanship? Nomination Systems and Legislator Ideology.” American Journal of Political Science 58 (2): 337–51..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mitau, Theodore. 1960. Politics in Minnesota. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Niemi, Richard G., and Powell, Lynda W.. 2004. “Time, Term Limits, and Turnover: Trends in Membership Stability in U.S. State Legislatures.” Legislative Studies Quarterly 29 (3): 357–81..Google Scholar
Schattschneider, E. E. 1942. Party Government. Westport: Greenwood Press.Google Scholar
Schulte, Grant. 2014. “Nebraska Lawmakers Vote to Override Budget Vetoes.” Associated Press State Wire, April 1.Google Scholar
Schwartz, Thomas. 1989. “Why Parties?”. MS. UCLA.Google Scholar
Shor, Boris, and McCarty, Nolan. 2014. “Individual State Legislator Shor-McCarty Ideology Data, July 2014 update.” http://dx.doi.org/10.7910/DVN/26805UNF:5:B/ieM8k2T-3p72LQHCJp/Wg==HarvardDataverse Network [Distributor] V1 [Version].Google Scholar
Sittig, Robert. 1986. “The Nebraska Unicameral after Fifty Years.” Unpublished manuscript, University of Nebraska–Lincoln.Google Scholar
Van Oot, Torey. 2011. “Republican Chairman Pushing for New Nominating Process,” CapitolAlert, February 15. http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2011/02/crp-chair-ron-nehring.htmlGoogle Scholar
Welch, Susan, and Carlson, Eric H.. 1973. “The Impact of Party Voting Behavior in a Nonpartisan Legislature.” American Political Science Review 67 (3): 854–67..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wright, Gerald C., and Schaffner, Brian F.. 2002. “The Influence of Party: Evidence from the State Legislatures.” American Political Science Review 96 (2): 367–79..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zhang, Yang, Friend, A. J., Traud, Amanda L., Porter, Mason A., Fowler, James H., and Mucha, Peter J.. 2008. “Community Structure in Congressional Cosponsorship Networks.” Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and Its Applications 387 (7): 1705–12..CrossRefGoogle Scholar