Religious Identification and Legislative Voting: The Mormon Case

Political Research Quarterly, Forthcoming

34 Pages Posted: 9 Jan 2008

See all articles by Damon M. Cann

Damon M. Cann

Utah State University - Department of Political Science

Abstract

While religious affiliation and religiosity have profound effects on political behavior in mass publics, less is known about the effect of religion on political elites. While questions regarding the influence of religious leaders (especially for hierarchically structured sects) looms large in the popular media, a host of other possible religious influences exist. This paper considers the extent to which religious identification influences the roll-call voting behavior of Mormon members of the U.S. House of Representatives. The possibility for influence seems high in the Mormon case as Mormon citizens demonstrate high levels of support for pronounced church positions on ballot initiatives. However, a review of influences on legislative decision making shows that the theoretical rationale for religious influence on legislative roll-call voting is tenuous at best. I present a simple empirical test of the hypothesis that Mormon representatives are more cohesive than randomly selected sets of legislators. Results show that across a range of different issue areas, Mormon representatives are no more unified in their voting behavior than randomly selected sets of legislators.

Keywords: religion and politics, Mormon, roll-call voting, cohesion

JEL Classification: D73

Suggested Citation

Cann, Damon M., Religious Identification and Legislative Voting: The Mormon Case. Political Research Quarterly, Forthcoming, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1081967

Damon M. Cann (Contact Author)

Utah State University - Department of Political Science ( email )

0725 Old Main Hill
Logan, UT 84322-0725
United States

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