This collaborative research investigation focuses on the electoral dynamics of U.S. Senate elections in state legislatures before the ratification of the 17th Amendment in 1913. It is motivated by a set of theoretical and empirical questions that pertain both to political parties as organizations and legislative behavior at the state level during this era. Studying state legislative choices for U.S. Senate generates hypotheses about how partisan majorities in legislatures translate their numerical strength into cohesive voting blocs, that, in turn, produce policies that reflect electoral majorities. At the core of this project is the analysis of all U.S. Senate elections in the United States from 1871 to 1913. Its starting point challenges the two major, yet contradictory, "stylized facts" that have been used to characterize these elections. The first, associated with Riker (1955), is that Senate elections were effectively popular affairs in the nineteenth century and that state legislative elections functioned effectively as shadow senatorial elections. The second, associated with Progressive historiography is that party bosses and corporate interests completely controlled state legislative activity such that the election of U.S. senators was pre-determined before the first day of a new legislative session. The choice for U.S. Senate was bound up in a much larger set of choices for legislators that directly reflected their allegiance to state and federal party organizations and specific policy platforms. Consequently, this project is designed to create and disseminate a unique data set on party organizations in state legislatures in the nineteenth century from 1871 to 1913, ranging from legislator party identification, to chamber organization votes, to vote choice for U.S. Senate, to state electoral returns. This data set will include the actual roll call data (taken from state legislative journals) for all U.S. Senate elections from 1871 to 1913, roll call data pertaining to the organization of all state legislative chambers, state legislative election data, and data about the nominating methods (legislative caucus, convention, or primary) that produced U.S. Senate nominees. The research produced with this data set will complement current projects that investigate the ties between state and national elections, and the effects of political primaries at the local level during this era.
Broader Impacts: State legislators were the key links between parties in the electorate and party in government, both at the state and federal levels (through U.S. Senate elections). The end product of this research project will be a major database that will, for the first time, enable scholars to systematically analyze legislative behavior in state legislatures, at the individual and aggregate levels. As such, this research project will enable scholars to draw a comprehensive picture of the development of the American political party system at the state level, as well as assess the coherence between state and national political parties during this era.
