Congressional Roll Call

Congressional Roll Call 2013 is the definitive reference source of congressional voting information. Its objective and authoritative approach presents a member-by-member survey and analysis of every roll call vote taken in the House and Senate during 2013.

Congressional Roll Call 2012 is the definitive reference source of congressional voting information. Its objective and authoritative approach presents a member-by-member survey and analysis of every roll call vote taken in the House and Senate during 2012. It also includes one chapter dedicated to in-depth data and analysis of congressional support of the president, voter participation, and party unity. Critics from across the political spectrum agree that Congressional Roll Call presents the best summaries of bills available.

Using supercomputers, the authors have analyzed 16 million individual roll call votes since the two Houses of Congress began recording votes in 1789. By tracing the voting patterns of Congress throughout the country's history, Poole and Rosenthal find that, despite a wide array of issues facing legislators, over 80% of a legislator's voting decisions can be attributed to a consistent ideological position ranging from ultraconservatism to ultraliberalism.

In a sense, this book might seem like a strange undertaking for two economists. The material seems to be much closer to political science than to economics; our topic is the determinants of congressional voting. Legislatures and roll call voting are traditionally in the domain of political science. This introduction is intended to explain why we have found this book worth writing. Today the economy functions in a regulated framework. Whether or not there ever was a "golden age" of laissez faire capitalism is an issue for historians; such an age does not now exist. One implication of the high degree of politicization of the modern economy is that one cannot any longer study economics divorced from politics. The rise to prominence of the field of public choice is one strong piece of evidence about what many economists see as the significant influence of the political sector over what would seem to be purely economic variables. A more homey example may also be used to il lustrate the phenomenon of increased politicization of the economy. All economists have had the experience of lecturing on the unemployment creating effects of a minimum wage or on the shortage-creating implications of price controls, only to have a student ask: "But if that is so, why do we have those laws?" One way of viewing this book is as an attempt to answer that question.

In Ideology and Congress, authors Poole and Rosenthal have analyzed over 13 million individual roll call votes spanning the two centuries since Congress began recording votes in 1789. By tracing the voting patterns of Congress throughout the country's history, the authors find that, despite a wide array of issues facing legislators, over 81 percent of their voting decisions can be attributed to a consistent ideological position ranging from ultraconservatism to ultraliberalism. In their classic 1997 volume, Congress: A Political Economic History of Roll Call Voting, roll call voting became the framework for a novel interpretation of important episodes in American political and economic history. Congress demonstrated that roll call voting has a very simple structure and that, for most of American history, roll call voting patterns have maintained a core stability based on two great issues: the extent of government regulation of, and intervention in, the economy; and race. In this new, paperback volume, the authors include nineteen years of additional data, bringing in the period from 1986 through 2004.

In Ideology and Congress, authors Poole and Rosenthal have analyzed over 13 million individual roll call votes spanning the two centuries since Congress began recording votes in 1789. By tracing the voting patterns of Congress throughout the country's history, the authors find that, despite a wide array of issues facing legislators, over 81 percent of their voting decisions can be attributed to a consistent ideological position ranging from ultraconservatism to ultraliberalism. In their classic 1997 volume, Congress: A Political Economic History of Roll Call Voting, roll call voting became the framework for a novel interpretation of important episodes in American political and economic history. Congress demonstrated that roll call voting has a very simple structure and that, for most of American history, roll call voting patterns have maintained a core stability based on two great issues: the extent of government regulation of, and intervention in, the economy; and race. In this new, paperback volume, the authors include nineteen years of additional data, bringing in the period from 1986 through 2004.