Episode 7: Polarization, Agenda Setting, and the Court

Hello. Welcome back. So seven of the Policy Agendas podcast. AM E.J. Fagan tonight joined

by four very special hosts, our co-hosts. So I was going to left or right. I

am joined by Chloe Slusher. Say hello. Hello. Krista Kolinsky.

Hi, Matt Maldonado. Hello. Now, these three are Pickel fellows. They are undergraduate students

who’ve worked with the project for most of the last year and have produced some really great research that we’re gonna talk about.

But I’m also joined by the director of the Policy Agendas Project, Brian Jones himself. Hey, guys.

Okay. So thank you, guys all for all for joining me. It’s it’s been a great semester. I have. It’s been a pleasure

working with all of you for this semester. For anybody listening who who might not know

what have you guys been up to for the last four months? Four policy agendas.

So we’ve been coding a serious

report with E.J. Congressional Research Service. Yes.

Which has been an interesting experience to see like what Congress, men and women

requests like for a report. Very interesting topic that they want. What

you’ve not read more IRS reports released that titles and summaries of Sciarra supports than any people

alive. So what do you what do you guys glean from this? What what what did you learned

about the CPRS that that was surprising? I was surprised by the,

I guess, versatility that the Congressional Research Service has in regards to writing these reports.

Members of Congress come up with all kinds of questions, some very broad. For example, like you’ll

you’ll see serious reports that are just like Uganda. Question mark, like very little context. Just tell me everything

there is to know about the country. It is located in Africa, on the east side, near the Great Lakes region.

Things like that. But then you also get some very specific questions that are geared towards economic policy.

What are the effects of this specific sanction on this specific country or the specific trade

provision? So I thought their versatility in research was very interesting.

Would you guys like to work for Sarah someday? It’d be an interesting job,

I think. I don’t ever do that. Good. I go into long term. But I would be interested

to see how it works on their side to the we we talk to a former Suarez

analyst as we were we were putting this together. Matt lassman

and what I find fascinating about that, some other serious analysts I’ve read about is that one of those reports,

or maybe two or three of those reports is their career. So their job is to be the person

who is the expert on the post office. It first e.r.’s and you know that that

report is everything that they know and it’s all written down on paper and it’s their job to take that information and

make it available to Congress and and a help Congress that way. So they’re fun. And you

notice they update these reports, right. Sometimes we had to figure out

which version we’re supposed to take a look at, whether we’re to count those separate. Yeah, I think context

is very important. One of the things that helped us code these serious reports was looking at

not only the what they spoke about in the report, but looking at the the day

and understanding what kinds of conversations were going on in Congress around those times. It kind of gives

you more, more context for how to code them. So, Krista, you’ve

you’ve read a lot of these. I’m curious, do you have a report that really stuck out as just weird? Anything

anything that you read that just just shocked you that it existed? There is something about an

agricultural tax on like pigs feet or something like that. It was

really, really specific. There are a lot of really strange ones, but there are also a lot of really broad

just tax policy, those kinds of things. It it it’s a great

dataset. You guys are hard at work finishing the last rung, a bit of coding for it. And then we’ve got a

whole lot of reconciliation and cleaning to do after you guys go after you guys not graduate, I guess, but are done for

us, for us over the summer. And hopefully we’ll have that report that that dad set

out at some point this summer. So great work, guys. We we and all of all of the country and academia

appreciate your hard work. And in the future, it will be available on the Policy Agendas Web site. Yep.

Probably June or July is my guess at this point. So we’ve got we got some research

to talk about. So you’re not just not just research assistants, your researchers and you three have

been working all year on projects for our Pickel program. And one of you guys just described briefly

the what the Pickel program is. Sure. It’s a yearlong research fellowship

with the government department here at U-T. So students apply. And when you’re accepted, you spend

a year doing an independent research project as well as helping the government department with any research

they’re doing. And so, yes, the policy agendas project, such as the policy agendas projects.

And at the end of the second semester, we take a trip to D.C. and

get to interview some really cool people and see all the sights. It’s it’s fun. It’s just over.

You enjoy it? Yeah, it’s fantastic. The the program is wonderful

because they they develop a research project, which we’re going to talk about for the rest of this of

this podcast. So back way back in September, they’re asked to propose an idea,

find some data to analyze that idea, work for professors and graduate students to come up with a research design and

execute it. And then last week, earlier this week, they presented those those projects in a poster

session in the government department and university wide. So to start with, Krista

so Krista, you did a rally to call Congress a Congress project.

So can you describe your project for us? Sure. So my research project is modeled on

a project that Professor Sean Theriot did back in 2006. So looking at party polarization

based on member adaptation and member replacement, so whether new members are

contributing to the increase in polarization or current members of Congress are

changing throughout the course of their career and becoming more polarized.

So I found a little bit. My results were a bit different than

theresults and that no replacement accounts for more polarization only

in the Senate now, whereas member adaptation actually is contributing more in the

House. In 2006, he found that member replacement was contributing

more in both the House and the Senate. So as he’s changed over the last decade. Half. Mm hmm. What

do you think is changed? We think it may be because of the House Freedom Caucus.

In addition, the polarization rates in both chambers are a bit different.

So the Democrats in both chambers are polarizing at about the same rate. The House a bit more polarized than the Senate,

but the Republicans in the Senate are actually polarizing quite a bit faster. And they’ve actually caught

up to the Republicans in the House. So they use today’s asymmetry between the House Republican caucus in the House Senate

caucus. I know they’re called a caucus, but they have senators, Republican senators. And that’s pretty

much going away because of adaptation or because or because of or because of replacement.

In the Senate, it’s more because of replacement, although members are adapting as well. So a bunch of moderates are losing their elections

and being replaced with with with extremists. Right. That’s that’s interesting. This was this project

was a hit on Twitter. So so Krista asked me or tweeted yesterday

after after her tweet, got 18 likes on Twitter, which was which was the most of any of our of our projects

because it was first. But but she got a lot of questions on Twitter and asked, is this what it’s like to be famous?

And I told her, coming on the podcast is what it’s like to be famous. So, Krista, famous person,

a question of Twitter was about tournaments and asked if this if

your results suggests that term limits could increase polarization. What do you think?

I think they could. Specifically with the House right now, what we’re seeing

is that members are adapting over the course of their career to become more polarized.

If term limits were to be imposed on the Senate, I think that could change Senate polarization quite

a bit. But I think just as well, it could happen in the House.

Back when Presser theory out that his research, he found that no replacement accounted for two thirds of polarization

in both the House and the Senate. And so that’s changed a little bit now. I don’t see any reason why

new members couldn’t make the House a lot more polarized. Why do you think?

Why do you think that replacement such a powerful mechanism? Is it that primary voters aren’t

actually making threats to existing incumbents successfully? And then their only real opportunity to

come up with find a real, real true believer is to wait for that incumbent to be gone?

Or are incumbents just, you know? Is it just an age thing where you were you know, it just

takes time for ideology, kind of trickle its way up to senators who

have more elected initially. Thirty years ago. I think it’s probably more so the latter.

You see a lot of senators and representatives who have been in Congress for 30

plus years and only recently they’ve become much more ideological than they were.

And so Lindsey Graham used to be one of the good ones we’re getting on. But I wonder if there’s

something you could think of that you studied this in detail that might help the situation by

help as a good centrist that would say make the whole system more, more moderate.

That stuff has gotten increasingly tough, hasn’t it? Yeah.

I don’t know. I feel like that’s not a question. I

mean, I don’t. Well, yeah, I guess maybe maybe

I’m maybe I’m playing in my own dissertation here. A little bit of what you guys think about the CPRS. Is the Sierra as a force

for centrism or for extremism?

I mean, I think it depends on the the members who are using cigarets. I think if you have some

very polarized members who are asking you some very polarizing questions, the

reports that Ceres is producing are going to be somewhat extreme depending

on how the question is asked. But yeah, I don’t I don’t. I think it depends on the member.

Primarily, do you see any and maybe move to Matt’s project

because it has a problem solving angle, doesn’t it? Did you notice

any changes over time in terms of members asking fewer problem oriented, problem

solving oriented questions for sea areas and more? I want to find the answer I

already know. Questions. Or did you notice? Nothing. Did you even think of that?

In regards to my research 0 ACARS first and then we’ll turn to your research and.

Let’s talk about series quickly and I want you to explain your research before we turn to it more serious.

The way that our reports were assigned to us that were reported to us thematically.

So I don’t think we got a natural progression as far as time. So

every week we’re dealt 400 serious reports in no particular order. Alphabetical

order, alphabetical order. But they’re not chronological. So I think it’s a little bit difficult

to get an understanding of how issues are spoken about in CRF reports over time.

Did you. Did you see both of you? Please also chime in. Did you see any aying that seemed

extreme to you or did it seem fairly boring? Is the word I’ll use

these much urging them in a back room? Or are they or are they true believers? I think it seemed fairly

neutral. The titles weren’t formatted in like the questions

that the CPRS was asked. It was just whatever topic they were talking about in that report.

So it seemed fairly neutral from our standpoint, but we didn’t read too deeply into any one report.

Yeah, the few that I like did end up reading in an effort to code them just to figure out what they were about.

It seemed like there was definitely an effort to just present the facts as they are. I didn’t notice

much like bias or anything along those lines in the reports that I have like

don’t dove deeper into. Yeah, I think I might just

show my cards or might for my dissertation is I think increasing the size and

power of v._c._r.s or at least to the resources available to the CPRS would be a good way to kind of fight

against polarization. We may be we may be too far, too far out with some of these very

extreme current members to do that. But they go for and I’m going to move on. Yeah, I was gonna ask the question wasn’t

serious. One of the institutions that was gutted by Speaker Gingrich when he took

power was in 1995. You dramatically cut the budgets of the CBO,

ACARS, J.O. and Office of Technology Assessment, and then their budget got zeroed

in and sort of was coming back. Actually, the Congress passed a bill

last year which required the J.O. to basically create its own little office of technology assessment,

which hopefully will help. But I want to move on and talk about our next project. That’s projects so that

your project has a very long title, which is why I didn’t even try to say titles. But why do you say the very

long title of your project? So my project is titled The Reactionary Presidency.

Question Mark The Speed of Presidential.

I honestly don’t remember the whole thing. That’s a long drive. Yeah, looks great on a poster.

But explain it. Yeah. So for my project I won. I took a two pronged approach for

looking at agenda setting policy agenda agendas, policy agenda. So

I picked three policy topics that historically had not been dealt with specifically

by the federal government on. Minority discrimination. Higher education

and air pollution policy. And I picked three policy mediums in which

these issues were being expressed during the mid 20th century, so I looked at State of the Union

rhetoric, party platform rhetoric and congressional hearings in order to get an understanding of when

these policy issues sort of peaked or broke through the legitimacy barrier in each

one of these different mediums. And in addition to that, I took the two

rhetorical mediums, party platforms and state of the unions, and I coded them using an experimental

coding book for problem and solution statements to get an understanding of not only

when these issues were being talked about, but how these issues were being talked about. So that

that was the essence of my project and was the result. So the result was when you plot

those three policy issues in those three mediums, you see that they first

came to prominence in party platform rhetoric, which was then very fault,

very quickly followed by presidential rhetoric and State of the Union addresses. But

both of them taproot off. And when you compare that to congressional hearing data,

you see that these three policy issues

grew much more slowly and much more steadily over the years, but continued to grow beyond the scope of this study.

I cut my years off in 1984, and that was in the hearings. That was in the hearings. So for me, that points

to a change in the way that these issues are being talked about, primarily

through the use of investigative hearings and using the language

from the the foundational text that it used, the great broadening, which is just not even out yet, which is not even

out yet. Government attention in government policy thickened after it. brotton.

So that was my finding as far as plotting those three. So yeah, there’s very clear order of

operations, right? So the party platforms start to talk about an issue. Then

the president starts to talk about an estate of union and then you get congressional hearings on the issue and then plot

this. But presumably after that and you get policy change. Yes. And so you’re showing this very early

stage of the process. It’s actually led by parties. Yes. That’s what the data points to. Why

do you think that it is? I think if

I was the pair of party platforms, I’d say to the Yoon’s together, I think I mean,

rhetoric is so much easier than kinetic action with congressional hearings. You got it. You need

to get a policy issue on the agenda. You need to take it through the process

to that point in order for this body to meet and therefore register in the in the

data set. So I think it’s a lot easier if you’re a party who wants to

expand the issues that are being talked about to just include an item and party platforms,

because let’s be real. Unless you’re super partisan, you’re not going to reach

those party platforms. So that that’s a venue where an issue can be slipped in

and over time it can snowball into action down the line, whether it’s

from the president or whether it’s from Congress. Maybe you get the president on the deal and more rhetoric,

even if you follow other venues, you could find some supporting evidence of that, I suspect. But

what about the problem solving set of questions? Where do you find there? Yes,

I think my most interesting finding from that dataset was that when you when you compare

the party platform rhetoric in election years where the party is trying to reclaim

the White House. So, for example, Republican Party rhetoric from the 1968

platform or Democratic Party rhetoric from the 1972 platform, Democrat

Democratic rhetoric has a much more positive spin on the issues when compared

to Republicans. Republicans had a much larger percentage of problem statements and statements, which

I’m calling both statements that express both a problem and a solution within a single statement.

And I mean, that intuitive intuitively makes sense when you think about it. For a lot of those years,

at least the House, if not the Senate, were controlled by the Democratic Party. So it’s much it’s much

easier for the Republican Party to be able to sling things at the opposing

party because they’re perceived as being in power. They have control of a lot of the chambers.

So I will move on to topic Chloe’s project. So clearly, you didn’t do anything involving Congress.

You did not you, since you are a future lawyer. Yes. You did something involving

the courts. Yes, I did. So my project was inspired by a combination

of things. The great broadening English book coming out soon. It’ll be a podcast episode

on May. Yeah. So I read that. And basically it talks

about how government has gotten bigger and federal agencies have increased starting in the 1940s.

And that kind of got me thinking because I’ve always kind of really liked the institution of the Supreme Court. So it’s

not something that I think on a personal level I’ve been very interested in. And so I kind of thought about how those two

things could possibly relate to each other and the effect that this like great

increase in the big ocracy, animistic number of agencies, how that would affect the types of cases the Supreme

Court has been seen in so long, that logic. I kind of hypothesize that

there’d be a correlation between the increase in the bureaucracy and the number

of cases before the Supreme Court, citing like problematic bureaucratic or federal agency rules

that rules that kind of came in, came into clash with the Constitution

or with some type of law. However, kind of surprisingly, I think

the hypothesis was wrong and there has been no increase or no real correlation

at all from what I can tell. So the court isn’t so the bureaucracy grows, adopts

a whole bunch more policy issues, and the court just doesn’t seem to care. Yeah, that’s kind of

what my that’s what the data that I have collected has shown that

the court seems to be pretty much letting the theocracy do what they want. So I think it’s a more interesting finding them than finding

what you were expecting. So, yeah. So why what what’s what’s going on? You know, I don’t know.

I think I’m almost kind of at a loss at this point because I was so ready to find exactly

what I thought I was going to find. And why didn’t I? I first I thought I did this wrong

or something. And so I went back and kind of checked and looked to see what it could have done differently. And

I did it again. And I came up with the same answer. You know, the rules don’t have to

conflict with with the Constitution. They can be a statutory interpretation, which the court

does. And that’s what surprises me about this finding that they got into that more.

John Roberts, when he took over as chief justice, said, we spend too much time on

the social issues, on criminal justice, want to spend more time solving business issues.

I wonder if in the future some new Supreme Court justice will call on saying we need to

figure out how to handle the amount of rules that are coming up without treating them in a simple

fashion, deferring too much to the agency or being too critical of the agency’s

work in this area. Are you optimistic or pessimistic? I don’t know. I think

that, like, if I were to choose one explanation, I think it’s odd that the Supreme

Court doesn’t care and that they maybe won’t revisit it in the future. But I do think that if I

had the data set, I’d like to repeat this project, like for the D.C. courts. I think that they

catch a lot of the cases that I would be interested in before they reach TuneCore. And I think that the Supreme Court

has been deferring to their rulings. Great point. It’s a wonderful board.

The courts specialize. And that’s the that’s the brand. That is the district that handles

most of these appeals. Great. And you would think that the Administrative Procedures Act probably

governs most court challenges and some of the follow up at ACS, which put requirements

on the regulating process. That’s. That’s not a problem for the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court does

need to resolve those issues. Right. In whether or not like a law or regulation, I went through,

you know, proper cost benefit analysis. Right. Yeah. Yeah. That’s exactly. I think. I think that the

problems like they’re just kind of deferring to the lower courts because the problems aren’t big enough

for them to feel like they have to step in. But even that that I’m surprised that there’s not bigger

problems because I think that like beer, like bureaucrats, like they may be experts on whatever

agency, the EPA environment, for example, but they don’t necessarily know like

exactly like how the law works. And so I’m surprised that there aren’t bigger problems that

have swayed. The court is not paying enough attention. Are the bureaucrats are better than we thought there were? Yeah, pretty much.

That’s the big takeaway from my project. So I like to wrap up

here and ask you guys just a little bit of a valedictory question. Right. So it’s been a year

you guys have been doing research for a year. You’ve been working with Policy Agendas Project for a year. You’ve spent a

intense week in D.C. interviewing people as key as each NAMEY. One thing that

you’ve learned about public policy in the United States that you did know

a year ago. And I’ll give you guys a second. A minute. I mean, I talk for a little bit while you guys think

and tell everybody that we’ve got a nice upcoming schedule for the next month or so if you’re still

listening to this process that is at the top of the show. But whatever, we’ve an education policy

podcast coming hopefully in about two weeks and then we’re gonna be doing the great broadening with

with Brian, his coauthors and coauthors, Sean Perry and Michele Wiman at some point in

May. So now that I vamped a little bit, who would like to go first? What do you guys learned,

Krista? What have you learned? I think just in the course of my

projects specifically. I think I expected to see

some massive change in 150+ Congress with Trump coming in and with that

what seems to be a pretty big change in political rhetoric, rhetoric, but really

polarization is not the rate of polarization isn’t really changing much at all.

So I was really just surprised to see that despite all the negative attention

politics is getting in the media. Nothing’s really

changing all that much between the parties. So is the Trump phenomenon a symptom

of a longer problem or is it causing a new problem? It’s definitely a symptom.

Nothing new is really happening, at least in terms of party polarization.

Sometimes you don’t pay enough attention to the trends or want to see this dramatic effect from one new

leader. And sometimes that’s not the way it works. Matter of fact, I think most of the time it doesn’t.

Man, what you learned this year. Hopefully something. Yeah, I think if I did

boil it down to one specific thing, I I was a little bit surprised as to how

positive the party platform statements were. I I assume going into

the into my research that in especially in years where parties were trying to reclaim the White House.

Party platform rhetoric would be extra overwhelmingly negative, but

with the exception of that one instance, with Republican Party platforms in

those White House seeking years, almost all other instances,

the positive statements hovered around 50 percent and that stayed consistent across parties

across election year. So I was actually surprised by that. Why do you think that is? That’s

a good cause. I think the question I always ask. I think just because

of the spectacle that is the convention and the show that the parties are trying to put on for their constituents,

they want to keep things positive, especially because, I mean, even when you’re,

for example, if you’re in the minority party, if you’re trying to reclaim the White House, you still have a stake in the

in the legislative process. There are still Republicans involved. So I think being overwhelmingly negative

in the end doesn’t necessarily help your cause because there was there were still Republican hands in the pie,

for example. What do you. Well, see, guys think about that. So why why are these these party platforms and I’m

with men. I’ve read a lot of them. And they’re they’re very aspirational. So why why are party’s aspirational?

What we hear about negative campaigning is the most effective type of campaigning. And this is in a way, a campaign document,

but it doesn’t look like the rest of the campaign.

Is all in the end as most American dialog about

aspirational matters, that is freedom and liberty and

choice. And shining city on the Hill to quote President Reagan.

I think it dominates in many ways American politics. I’m surprised, as Matt is that

it shows up in the party platform. Well, yes, it does. I feel like parties like to be associated,

like if it’s on their platform, it’s really closely associated with them. And so they like to be like more

positive. But the negative campaigning. It’s effective, but they just don’t necessarily

want to associate with them directly. They won’t sign a name to it. Yeah.

They don’t like openly. Yeah. They don’t want on their website or anything. But yeah, it’s.

I am just my thoughts about this. Yeah. I don’t know how much of you how much C-SPAN you guys have watched during that during

the party conventions. I’ve watched a number of party conventions through and through every minute of them.

And they’re fun. Like they think that the delegates who go there, like they really love what

they do. They they love politics. They love. They love policy. They think that they’re there for a purpose.

And when the parties are putting their mission statement out there, I think that they’re they’re putting

out something aspirational, believe, because that’s what they are. They are they’re an aspirational institution. And, you know, even,

you know, there’s some parties in recent years that I have disagreed with strongly. But you go you watch video of their convention

there. They’re holding up American flags and enjoying themselves and having the time of their lives.

And and I think that’s I think I think I think we underrate that in our cynicism sometimes.

And as a future professor, hopefully that is one of my one of my goals with my students. What are

the things you should look at then? Is a comparison of party platforms here and other countries of the world

to see if we’re more or less aspirational compared to see if you, as he thesis, matter

clearly. One thing you have learned and this podcast is I cannot. Two things.

One, just how powerful like federal agencies are. That’s definitely a big takeaway

from my project. But also just coding ACARS reports gave me a really good insight

as to how the lawmaking process works on the side of senators

and representatives. Just like that, they don’t know everything they’re legislating

on and that they need help. New information. I thought that was really interesting.

Just the topics that they choose to. It just gave me a really good insight as to the

legislative process or a better insight. Yeah. You guys have you guys not just worked on Sciarra supports. You guys have now

read congressional hearings. A lot of congressional hearings. Right. You guys are

about to do go visit a whole lot of public log Web pages, by the way, just just on your way out the door.

They’re all they’re all smiling and very happy about the work I’m doing. I’m going to give them you guys.

I’m trying to. What else you guys you guys have worked on. But you guys have been have have,

I think, really seen the legislative process in detail. So clearly, I

want to ask you, what what do you think of something that Congress does that you do know it did

that that that that’s just interesting. I mean, I didn’t know that the concussion

like Sierras existed until I entered the. So it’s OK. I mean, until

this I think I the main source information that I thought of was like lobbyists

and think tanks. I knew that that’s where a lot of people are. Representatives got their information.

And I’d say I did not know there was this whole service that provides very detailed information makes me feel

better almost. I think they know it’s talking to the experts. Yeah. Somewhere

down the street. Yeah. Let’s go talk to ask them. They’re they’re running

Windows XP on their computers, but they they’re some of the most ideological congressmen

can come up with some major policy proposals perhaps because of

operations like the IRS might get to is famous for being a little bit

kooky out of west Florida has a wonderful climate change proposal. Really?

Yes. What’s the proposal? That’s for another price. All right.

Thank you, guys for joining me. This has been your Policy Agendas podcast.