MCs and their records – Page 3 – Immigration Politics, Policymaking in the U.S.

Category: MCs and their records (page 3 of 4)

NY14 – Samantha Goerger

March 7, 2019 / Samantha Goerger / 0 Comments

Introduction Slide

New York 14 is situated in the upper Bronx and northwestern Queens of New York City. It is currently represented by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Slide #1

NY14 has had consistent Democratic representation for at least two decades. Joseph Crowley represented the area from 1999-2018, with a redistricting in 2012 from NY7. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) unseated the incumbent Democrat in the 2018 New York primary election and proceeded to win the house seat with 78.2% of the vote. She ran as a Democratic-Socialist with progressive policies aimed at mobilizing the minority constituents. As depicted in the left-hand graph, it was not uncommon for Democrats to win over 70% of the vote in NY14, situating it as an unquestionably Democratic district.

Slide #2

Academic literature surrounding immigration politics focuses primarily on variables pertaining to area demographics and to local political representation. Specifically, Wong (2017) theorized that a larger foreign born population would shift the median voter to the left. Wong (2014) also found that increased LatinX representation is negatively correlated with support for strict enforcement policies. Additionally, districts with large minority populations are less likely to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement (Wong, 2012), and larger numbers of recent arrivals are positively correlated with pro-immigrant policies (Ramakrishnan & Wong, 2010). That said, the most salient variable in most immigration literature is political party representation. Specifically, Republican representatives, both locally and nationally, are more likely to favor restrictive immigration policies (Wong, 2017; Casellas & Leal, 2013; Ramakrishnan & Wong, 2010).

Slide #3

NY14 is highly diverse with native born constituents comprising only 53% of the population. 57% of constituents self-identify as non-white, with 48% identifying as Hispanic or LatinX of any race. As seen in the introduction slide, the average adult education level trails the national average, with few having obtained a Bachelor’s degree or higher. According to the US Census Bureau, 11% of the population falls under the poverty line. Given the aforementioned literature on local demographics, the median voter in NY14 is expected to be more liberal than the general public. The district representatives are, therefore, expected to favor less restrictive policies and not support strict internal enforcement.

Slide #4

Because AOC has only been in office for three months, it is difficult to analyze her policy preferences directly through voting records. In fact, vote tracking websites do not list any votes pertaining to immigration except to overturn the recent national emergency declaration. Because of this increased difficulty, I relied on AOC’s campaign website and Twitter feed. When discussing the issue on social media, she is vehemently against ICE and immigration enforcement, often invoking intense language such as “hostage” to describe President Trump’s intention to build a wall and detain families. That said, immigration is not a central focus of her campaign. Immigration is listed as the seventh key issue of fifteen on her website. Additionally, only 5.66% of recent Tweets and 2.95% of election month Tweets reference immigration. Conducting a basic analysis of words used in her Twitter feed, I found that most prominent issues mentioned were taxation and climate change. Therefore, while AOC is passionate about pro-immigration policies as predicted by the aforementioned literature, it falls short of the most important issue in her platform.

CA 51: Juan Vargas

March 7, 2019 / Amy Jeon / 0 Comments

LINK TO SLIDES

CA 51: Juan Vargas

Amy Jeon

Slide 1:

This slide shows the election results for Congressional District CA 51 from 2008 to 2018. CA 51 contains Imperial County and the southernmost parts of San Diego County along the US-Mexico border, and is represented by Juan Vargas. Vargas has been in this office since the 2012 election, after former Democrat incumbent Representative Bob Filner resigned in order to run for (and become) San Diego mayor. CA 51 is a safely Democratic district, and has not had a Republican representative since 2003. In fact, Vargas has won each of his elections with a supermajority, thrice with over 70% support and once with 68.8% support. This is Representative Vargas’s sixth year and fourth term in office.

Slide 2:

I have chosen to focus on 3 main findings from existing literature about how local electoral context and MC characteristics generally affect immigration policymaking. The first is that a district with a higher Hispanic population has a higher likelihood of pro-immigrant policies (Wong 2014). Following the delegate model, in which the public’s views are delegated to representatives to carry them out, a Hispanic population is likelier to be Democrat and be foreign-born themselves, and thus would support policies welcoming to immigrants. The second point is that partisanship is one of the strongest indicators of voting on immigration policy (Wong 2012; Ramakrishnan and Wong 2010; Casellas and Leal 2013; Wong 2017). Democrats are likeliest to consistently vote for less restrictive and more pro-immigration policies, while the opposite is true for Republicans. Depending on the district and MC’s party, even the mobilization of Hispanics can differ. Lastly, a higher foreign-born population is linked to a MC that is less likely to vote for a restrictive immigration policy (Wong 2017).

Slide 3:

Using the literature from the previous slide, we can now make some predictions about Representative Vargas’s voting on immigration policy, given the characteristics we know about him and his congressional district. CA 51 is 71.5% Hispanic, which is an overwhelming proportion of the district, and so Vargas will likely vote pro-immigration. The district has a 31.48% foreign born population, which is roughly half the size of the native born population (68.5%), which would probably make Vargas lean more pro-immigration, though a larger proportion of foreign born constituents would yield more definite support for pro-immigration policies. In addition, Vargas is a Democratic representative in a safely Democratic district (in the sense that it has not been Republican in the last 10 years) and this partisan influence would likely lead to pro-immigration voting. Moreover, Vargas himself is Hispanic and the child of immigrants, which would lead him to a pro-immigration stance.

Slide 4:

After making our predictions, we now test their veracity by examining Vargas’s voting and sponsorship record, tweets, interviews, and website. Overall, we can see that pro-immigration policy is indeed a priority for Vargas. 19% of his sponsored bills have been immigration related, which is the largest percentage of any topic he has sponsored. Moreover, he voted against the 2019 Government Funding Bill (HJRes 31) that would continue federal appropriations for the Department of Homeland Security and border control (Massey 2019). Turning to his public image and social media, we can see this photo of the front of his website, which reads, “Deported veterans fought for us, we must fight for them,” again demonstrating Vargas’s commitment to the immigrant community. His website does not explicitly list what issues he is currently pursuing, but his bill sponsorship and signaling paint a good picture. 15% of his total tweets from January to March 2019 were related to immigration, and 100% of them were positive, expressing frustration at Trump’s border wall and decrying the separation of children from their parents at the border. In news media, the San Diego Union Tribune quotes his statement that “comprehensive immigration reform will improve border security while treating immigrants with human decency,” which is quite self-explanatory. Lastly, though a minor point, his entire website is also available in Spanish, which is a nod to the 69% of his constituents that speak a language other than English, and the 28% that speak English “not very well,” again showing his commitment to inclusivity of the Spanish-speaking community and immigrants.

Abigail Spanberger (D-VA-07): Immigration Representation

March 7, 2019 / Morgan Bell / 0 Comments

Abigail Spanberger represents Virginia’s seventh congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives. The district is located in the suburbs of Richmond, VA its representative is a member of the Democratic Party.

Map from: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/VA/7

Photo from: https://abigailspanberger.com/

This slide highlights the electoral history of VA-07 over the last decade which is actually quite interesting. The bold red and blue indicates the candidate who won the general election, and the asterisk indicates a candidate is the incumbent. It is clear then that the district is heavily Republican given the decade of Republican congressional representation, however the extent of the district’s Republican lean needs to be noted. In 2014, Rep. Eric Cantor, the House Majority Leader and thereby the #2 Republican in the House of Representatives, was beaten out in the primary election by newcomer Dave Brat. Brat was even more conservative than Cantor, and he came to power as part of the Tea Party wing of the Republican Party. However, after Donald Trump carried the district by 6 percentage points in 2016, a shift seems to have occurred. Democrat Abigail Spanberger claimed victory in the 2018 midterm election for the U.S. House of Representatives by framing herself as a different kind of Democrat. Brat won in 2014 by being an outsider who would create the change the district needed, but after serving his constituents, they deemed him ineffective and instead shifted to the left, choosing newcomer Abigail Spanberger. By framing herself as a different kind of Democrat — one who would work across the aisle to create positive change — she was able to overcome the district’s Republican lean and proved to be what the people of VA-07 were looking for in the 2018 midterm elections.

Election info from: https://www.politico.com; https://www.newyorktimes.com

As existing literature has shown, partisanship is the greatest consistent predictor of how a representative in Congress will vote on immigration issues (Casellas and Leal 2013). However, there are other factors that can impact a member of Congress’ decision-making on the issue of immigration. One of which is the size of the immigrant population in the representative’s district as the larger the immigrant population is, the less likely the representative will be to support restrictive immigration policies (Wong 2017). Looking at the bar chart on the right of the slide, VA-07 is largely comprised of native-born citizens (90%). The remaining 10% of the population are immigrants, and of these immigrants, about half are naturalized citizens and the other half are not citizens. Despite the fact that immigrants are the minority in this district, its representative’s action on immigration-related policies is important to study. Immigration has been one of the toughest areas to create effective policy in given the past policy failures and difficult negotiations (Tichenor 2009). These are only two of the four challenges Tichenor lists in immigration policy with the other two being trouble defining the problem of immigration and inadequate policy alternatives, but past policy failures and difficult negotiations are the most relevant for the current study of VA-07 (Tichenor 2009). Given this and the hyper-partisan voting behavior on immigration issues since H.R. 4337 passed in 2005 and the increasingly entrenched party polarization, it is difficult for any policy to pass let alone an effective policy (Wong 2017). Another factor more specific to the representative is the number of terms that the representative has served in Congress. Members of the House of Representatives are more likely to support restrictive immigration policies the fewer terms they have served (Casellas and Leal 2013). These characteristics can then be used to predict how a legislator behaves in Congress.

Population data from: https://factfinder.census.gov

Taking into consideration the various characteristics included in scholarship and information about Abigail Spanberger herself, there are several predictions that can be made. Spanberger is a wife and mother of two daughters who has never held public office before. She worked as a law enforcement officer for the U.S. Postal Inspection service and as a CIA Operations officer. Spanberger grew up in VA-07, and she and her husband decided to move back there to raise their family. Relating these facts about Spanberger to the characteristics discussed in existing literature, it is likely Spanberger will use past policy failures to learn from past mistakes to create effective immigration policy with an emphasis on border security and national security. However, this is difficult given the extreme polarization in Congress. In this way, partisanship and party polarization are working against each other. Spanberger is a Democrat, which allows for the prediction that she will side with fellow Democrats on policy, which in turn means she would side with immigrants. However, her district is heavily Republican, so this in conjunction with the difficult negotiations surrounding immigration policy, Spanberger will likely try to work across the aisle to create measured and effective policy solutions. Although, with such a small immigrant population in her district and the fact that she is only in her first term, it is also likely that Spanberger will be more supportive of restrictive policies than her Democratic colleagues. Partisanship though remains the strongest indicator of representative behavior on immigration and will likely drive her decision-making on the issues, meaning she will be less vocal in her support for more liberal immigration policies since she may also support some restrictive policies as well and does not want to draw attention to herself for her liberal leanings with her conservative constituency.

Spanberger bio from: https://abigailspanberger.com/

Despite the fact that immigration is an important issue to Spanberger, it is not an issue she is particularly active or vocal on. Immigration is listed sixth out of 15 total issues listed on her campaign website, which at first indicates that the issue is not of particular importance, yet it has one of the longest paragraphs — along with health care, jobs and the economy, gun violence prevention, and good governance —showing that it actually is one of the representative’s priorities. Consistent with her law enforcement background, the paragraph’s substance focuses on border security, and with the district’s heavy Republican lean, it also emphasizes the need for bipartisan solutions. She explicitly states that she opposes “safe havens” like sanctuary cities, which is a bit more restrictive than some of her Democratic colleagues. However, she has consistently voted in support of immigrants as she opposed funding for the Department of Homeland Security to build a border wall and most recently voted to end President Trump’s national emergency declaration. Spanberger’s Twitter account reveals she is quiet on issues of immigration but also that she is cautious about how she discusses immigration in her conservative and majority-native district. Only about 10% of the representative’s tweets focus on immigration-related issues, and in particular, these tweets focus on the government shutdown and the need to reopen the government with a bipartisan solution which prioritizes border security. This is consistent with her past law enforcement and CIA experience as well as her voting as she consistently voted to reopen the government during the shutdown. In terms of bill co-sponsorship, Spanberger has not been an active sponsor on immigration legislation. Only about 18% of her sponsored bills have related to the issue in some way, but since she is only in her third month in office, there is plenty of room for her to grow in this area. Taking all of this into consideration, Abigail Spanberger is a quiet supporter of immigrants, consistently voting with fellow Democrats to support immigrants while also being vocal about the need to come up with bipartisan solutions and framing the issue around border security to appease her conservative constituents.

Voting info from: https://www.spanberger.house.gov/

Bills info from: https://www.congress.gov/member/abigail-spanberger/S001209

Issue info from: https://www.abigailspanberger.com

Twitter info from: https://twitter.com/SpanbergerVA07?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

Honor Code:

This assignment represents my own work in accordance with University regulations.

– Morgan Bell

CA27 – Judy Chu

March 7, 2019 / Doris Li / 0 Comments

Link to Slides: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1jtf2NLJmqmaf7_6FAn3ervp9WYMEFYEzyYm2G_d9SPM/edit?usp=sharing

Slide 1:

Former congressman Brad Sherman served (officially) from 1997-2013. As a congressman, he advocated strongly for issues regarding taxes, the economy, and education. While he does not prioritize immigration as one of his main issues, he explicitly expresses his support to defund President Trump’s agenda and attacks his travel ban. From 2008-2013, Sherman has been able to win re-election fairly easily, with a wide margin of roughly 30-40% each time. Following Sherman in office, Congresswoman Judy Chu is district 27’s current representative and the first Chinese American elected to Congress. Chu tends to focus on education, the environment, and immigration. She, as opposed to Sherman, is very vocal about her outlook on immigration, as she expresses her desire for immigration reform. Since 2013, Chu has won re-election by a wide margin of victory: around 30-60%.

Slide 2:

The median voter theorem acts as basis for the how different compositions of a district’s population affects the way a representative votes on immigration policies. The “median voter” is measured on a right-left political scale and represents how the majority of the district will vote. Wong argues that a Member of Congress will try and appeal to the median voter in order to gain the most votes and win an election. Wong then proceeds to predict how percentages of the foreign born population affect the median voter, and effectively, how the MC will vote. He concludes that a high foreign born population will lead to a lower likelihood that the MC will support restrictive immigration bills. Similarly, a high naturalized citizen population will also lead to the same result. Regarding interior enforcement, Wong states that population with high percentages of Latinos and Asians in a district will lead to a lower chance that the representative will support interior enforcement. He admits, however, the one of the strongest indications of how a representative will vote depends on partisanship. Wong delves deeper into analysis and hypothesizes that in particular, a high Latino population even decreases a republican MC’s chance of voting against interior enforcement, while a high Asian population has the opposite effect on republican representatives.

Slide 3:

Using the theories from the previous slide, we can predict how members of congress in California District 27 will vote. The foreign born population in CA27 is 38.6%, a higher percentage than the national percentage (17.8%) and state percentage (27.0%). Thus, we can expect that the MC will be less likely to support restrictive immigration policies. Similarly, the Latino population and Asian population (28.0% and 38.%, respectively) in the district is fairly high and is also greater than the national statistic (17.6% and 5.4%, respectively); thus, we can predict that an democratic MC will be less likely to vote for interior enforcement. Ultimately, partisanship also affects how a MC will vote. For the past 18 years, those who have held the house seat in CA27 have been democratic, so one would expect that the district is fairly liberal (also, based off the election results from the slide 1, democrats have won by a large margin). We can also predict this with Wong’s prediction about the median voter theorem. Chu is more liberal than 86% of the house and has an ideology score of -0.488. Thus, we can reaffirm that the median voter in this district is also just as liberal.

Slide 4:

Chu’s voting record is consistent with her party, in that she typically votes in accordance with however the democratic party votes. Regarding immigration, she tends to sponsor bills that support immigration or block presidential actions that restrict immigration flow and votes for bills that support immigration reform. Both her website and twitter handles reinforce Chu’s backing for immigration, in which they clearly outline her opinions on this subject. For example, her website lists the immigration policies she supports, including DREAM Act and POWER Act and recent press articles on Chu’s interactions with immigration policy, including blocking President Trump’s National Emergency. Since January of 2019, roughly 67% of all her tweets address immigration. She criticizes republicans and President Trump for “falsely insisting that immigrants are dangerous” (Feb 11) and rebukes with tweets defending immigrants (“Immigration is not a threat” (Jan 29)). Her social media and voting record reinforces the prediction made previously that she tends to vote against restrictive immigration policies.

CA-53 Susan Davis

March 7, 2019 / Tabitha Belshee / 0 Comments

Susan Davis

Link to higher-quality and more legible slides

CA 53 was one of the products of a redistricting effort in 2001-2002 when it was sectioned off from CA 49. Susan Davis became the House Representative for this district at its inception in 2003 after serving from 2000-2002 in District 49. Davis has represented the district since 2003 and has had no problem maintaining her seat. As seen in the plot I made using California Secretary of State data, she has won consistently with a 20% or more margin of victory.

I chose to focus on two very CA-53-applicable pieces from the semester so far: Wong’s The Politics of Immigration: Partisanship, Demographic Change, and American National Identity from 2017 and Wong’s 2012 publication on 287(g) and local cooperation in Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies. Specifically I am taking hypotheses from these texts which cover a much broader range of information than is relevant to the scope of this assignment. In Wong’s 2017 piece, a primary hypothesis is that restrictive immigration policy is negatively correlated to foreign-born population. Such that more foreign-born people would predict looser immigration policy. In Wong’s 2012 piece, he looked at multiple factors that might predict the level of cooperation with local authorities and 287(g) agreements, or local partnerships with ICE. I chose to pull two of these factors: political partisanship and growth of Hispanic/Latino population. Directionally, Democrat partisanship predicts less cooperation and Republican partisanship predicts more cooperation. A growing Hispanic/Latino population predicts more cooperation.

Applying the above hypotheses to CA 53 is a multi-step process. Data for the plot on the left comes from the US Census, including the anticipated error calculations depicted on each data point. The plot shows a steady but small climb in foreign born population in the last ten years. According to Wong 2017, CA 53 should have more relaxed policy regarding immigration now than several years ago to reflect this trend. The plot and visuals under Wong 2012 are less clear at face value because I included two of Wong’s factors to consider. The plot shows a ~5% increase in Hispanic population in the last 8 years. Wong predicts that the increasing Hispanic population will indicate an increase in local cooperation and 287(g) agreements. It can be hard to isolate CA-53 from surrounding districts, but the donkey underneath is meant to reassure viewers that CA-53 is blue on the map, indicating that the district overall is expected to have reduced cooperation and 287(g) agreements. The partisanship and growth of the Hispanic population predict contradictory directional effects according to Wong; however, partisanship is generally stronger than other factors so the overall expectation for CA-53 is low levels of cooperation and 287(g) agreements.

In reality, CA-53 and Susan Davis are not too far off expectations from the literature. Davis is a fairly average Democrat in Congress with a slightly better voting attendance (missed 1.6%) than the median lifetime Congressional average (2.0%). In terms of immigration, Davis has never differed from the results of a prediction algorithms’ expectations, indicating that her votes have been consistent with the overall vote of Democrats. Furthermore, Davis has sponsored or cosponsored 63 total bills having some relevance to immigration. As exemplified in the tweet seen here, Davis has been very vocal in her disapproval for the Trump administration’s behavior at the border as well as the resulting government shutdown. Returning to the prediction from Wong 2017, it is challenging to know if her stance on immigration has changed very much considering she has never disagreed with the Democratic Party on it. She appears to have always been and has remained a strong proponent for lax and supportive policy. Looking at the heat map on the right allows us to revisit the prediction from Wong 2012. The heat map uses 287(g) agreements and other indicators of local cooperation where green is low and red is high. CA-53 has generally low cooperation, which is consistent with the prediction. Although California has very low cooperation overall which makes it hard to compare different districts.

NY-9 Yvette D. Clarke

March 7, 2019 / Grace Xu / 0 Comments

Slide 1: New York’s 9th Congressional District has historically been dominated by Democrats. In the past 10 years, two Democratic Representatives and an interim Republican Representative have held office in New York’s 9th Congressional District. From 1999-2011, Anthony Weiner held office. In 2010-2011, New York City was redistricted according to data from the 2010 census. In 2011, Anthony Weiner was forced to resign from Congress after a sexting scandal and was replaced by Robert Turner (a Republican candidate). Since 2011, Yvette D. Clarke has held office, winning by a margin of more than 60% in every election (according to the graphs on the slide). In the most recent 2018 election, Clarke received 89.3% of the vote, while her opponent (a Republican named Lutchi Gayot) received only 10.3% of the vote.

Slide 2: There are three overarching hypotheses of influences to immigration policymaking that I extracted from the literature that we have been reading: first, partisanship; second, district demographics; and third, the effects of the House and the Senate. The most important factor influencing immigration policy is partisanship. Republican congressmembers tend to support more restrictive policies, whereas Democrats tend to support more permissive policies. Congressmembers are also influenced by their voters: according to the median voter theorem, candidates will place themselves along a political spectrum to capture the most votes possible. As the electorate in recent years has also become more partisan, it can be extrapolated that congressmembers will be affected by the new, more polarized median voter. The idea of the median voter also feeds into the second overarching set of hypotheses: that the demographics of the district affect voting for immigration policies. A higher foreign-born population decreases the likelihood that legislators will vote for restrictive immigration-related legislation (Wong). While in general, naturalized citizens have more influence than undocumented immigrants (due to their electoral power), undocumented immigrants still have ways to exert political power, primarily through immigrant activism: for example, according to Ramakrishnan & Wong, after the 2006 Immigration Protests, cities in which the protests were strongest were correlated with representatives that voted for more permissive immigration policies. The effect of the Latinx population had mixed results through different studies: while Casellas & Leal find that a higher Latinx population increased the likelihood of a congressmember supporting more permissive immigration-related legislation, Ramakrishnan & Wong find that it did not make a huge difference. The final overarching influence has to do with whether a congressmember is in the House or the Senate; because the terms for the House are much shorter, members of the House tend to be much more worried about reelection, especially if the margin of victory is lower. Due to reelection concerns, House members tend to be more risk-averse about their vote, whereas senators (who have six-year terms), tend to be less worried about reelection and therefore are more willing to vote outside the desires of their constituency (Casellas & Leal). In addition, possibly due to reelection concerns, the Latinx population has a larger effect on House votes than Senate votes (Casellas & Leal).

Slide 3: Both the demographics of New York’s 9th Congressional District as well as the personal biases of Clarke probably had a significant effect on more permissive policymaking for immigration. As aforementioned, the district is largely Democratic. In fact, according to the Cook Partisan Voter Index (which measures partisanship of a district according to how it voted in the last presidential election compared to national result), the Democratic leaning is measured at D+34, making it about the 13th most Democratically skewed district in the United States. As a result, Clarke, being a representative of this district, would probably vote for more permissive immigration policies. In addition, the district comprises of 40% foreign-born residents, so Clarke probably has more of an incentive to focus on immigration concerns and to vote on immigration bills in general (esp. in comparison to other areas of concerns). Considering that a higher foreign-born population has a significant impact on more permissive immigration policymaking, it can be expected that Clarke was probably influenced by this section of her constituency to vote more permissively. In addition, the fact that approximately 15% of the population are non-citizens probably has a significant impact on Clarke voting. As a side note, some of the 2006 Immigration Protests were held in Brooklyn, suggesting the activism of the immigrant / undocumented population there. Finally, the district is also 10% Latinx, a relatively large number but less than the percentage of Latinx people in the nation (about 18.1%), so I’m not sure the extent to which this part of the population would affect Clarke’s vote. I assume that it would have somewhat of an impact on Clarke’s immigration policies. Meanwhile, Clarke herself is also Democratic, and thus probably more likely to vote for permissive immigration policy. In addition, while Clarke is a member of the House, this issue is probably mitigated by the high margin of victory she has achieved in past elections (in 2018, winning about 89.3% of the votes), as well as the fact that she has been in office for an extended period of time. Finally, Clarke’s personal connection to immigration, being a child of Jamaican immigrants, probably provides a certain bias towards the topic.

Slide 4: As expected, Clarke has spent much time voting on and advocating for immigrant rights. Approximately 21% of her votes have been dedicated to immigration (making it the second-most important issue for her). Her vote probability for immigration bills have been higher than 98% for every piece of legislation related to immigration, indicating her consistency: she always votes for permissive immigration regulation and votes against restrictive immigration legislation. Clarke’s interest in immigration is also reflected through her website and social media. Her website features a subpage on immigration policy (which is currently 28 pages), and all of the posts are pro-immigration. As of recently, a majority of these posts have been dedicated to responding to Trump’s comments or policies. Clarke’s twitter also features a large number of immigration policy tweets. Approximately 18% of her tweets from January 1, 2019 to March 1, 2019 were related to immigration policy, mostly to do with responses to Trump’s policies (especially about the border wall and the national emergency), but also some updates about bills, personal opinions, and interviews with undocumented immigrants. The slide also features two tweets that reflect the tone / content of many of her immigration tweets: they are largely reactionary towards President Trump’s policies about the Mexican border. As a side note, Clarke also tweeted extensively about the national emergency in general, but I did not include that in the 18% of tweets as I thought that it was mostly about executive power rather than immigration.

LINK TO SLIDES: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NWXe2qQ4Bv7eJ7Fy7vzFEhKBSuROZFNC/view?usp=sharing

CA-40 Lucille Roybal-Allard

March 7, 2019 / Michelle Vilarino / 0 Comments

Title: CA 40 is a largely Hispanic district (88.6% Hispanic), containing parts of Los Angeles, Maywood, East Los Angeles, Commerce, Bell, Bell Gardens, Downey and more. It’s mostly a low-income district.

Slide 1:

Since 2008, CA 40 has only had 2 Congressional representatives. Edward Royce, a Republican, was the representative since the 2002 election until the 2012 election, and before then the representatives were mostly Republican. Lucille Roybal-Allard, a Democrat, won the 2012 election against another Democrat. The opponents since 2012 have been Democrats, Independent, or Green Party members. It’s clear that in 2012 there was a shift. This shift might have been due to the redistricting from Orange County (which has a mostly White population) to what CA 40 contains now (mostly Hispanic).

Slide 2:

Ramakrishnan and Wong (2010) studied what factors impact the proposal and passage of restrictive and pro-immigration policies. Their results showed that in the passage and proposal of policies, partisanship is the most consistent factor. In the passage of policies, the growth of the Hispanic population increases the likelihood of support for restrictive policies while recent immigrant population increases pro-immigration support. Wong (2012) studied what factors will impact the municipal government’s likelihood to request partnerships for federal immigration enforcement. He found that rapid Hispanic population growth increased the likelihood for support yet a large Hispanic population decreased the likelihood for support. Most research findings show that partisanship is what drives the representatives support restrictive immigration policies, if they are Republican, or to not support restrictive immigration policies if they are Democrats. This is seen in Casellas and Leal (2013), Ramakrishnan and Wong (2010), and Wong (2014).

Slide 3:

Based on the research evidence, it can be predicted that Representative Roybal-Allard will not support restrictive immigration policies since she is a Democrat with a very large Hispanic population. Since there hasn’t been a rapid Hispanic population growth it is not likely that this will affect her voting behavior.

Slide 4:

Lucille Roybal-Allard’s voting record shows that she is very pro-immigration. A total of 31% of the bills she has sponsored are related to immigration, which is the second most, Health-related bills being the most she has sponsored. Her website shows large support for immigration. Right underneath her name, she describes herself as “Original Co-Author of the Dream Act” this shows that she really cares about immigration and that it is an important topic. In her issues tab, she has a tab dedicated to immigration with six paragraphs that beg for reform of a broken system, she humanizes immigrants, and fights for citizens and noncitizens equally and to keep families together. Most of her other issues (13 other issues) have three paragraphs except Health which has seven paragraphs. In her Twitter, we can also see that immigration is very important. 35.9% of her tweets from Jan 1, 2019, to March 1, 2019, are about immigration-related topics, most of which are against President Trump’s “pointless” wall, she desires a humane immigration system as well as effective border security. All of this shows that Lucille Roybal-Allard would be against restrictive immigration policies, instead, she supports pro-immigration policies.

Link to slides: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1ITF-OabwplJocLRuxTdtEJH7mfZKD6CBUudPCYropYo/edit?usp=sharing

Immigration Policy in TX-23

March 7, 2019 / Tara Frederick / 0 Comments

Slide 1: TX-23 is a low-income, mostly Hispanic district which shares the largest piece of the border with Mexico than any other district. It is a swing vote district, both in its representation and its voting habits. Since 2008, TX-23 has had three different Congressional representatives. Each election since then has shown very slim margins between the Democratic and Republican candidates. The district has bounced back and forth between party representation. Will Hurd, their current Republican Congressman, has been the only representatives to last more than one consecutive term since Ciro Rodriguez in 2006. Since the margins in each election are so slim, one of the reasons for Hurd’s success and reelection is probably is moderate standpoint.

Slide 2: Casellas and Leal’s work “Partisanship or population? House and Senate immigration votes in the 109th and 110th Congresses” highlights some of the impacts on immigration policymaking. Districts with higher populations of working class citizens are more likely to favor strict immigration policy out of fear of economic competition and lack of job opportunities. Communities with higher Latino populations prefer more liberal immigration policies because many of the members of this population come from immigrant families or immigrant backgrounds. They are more likely to be more sympathetic towards other immigrants and their governmental limitations. Partisanship is another great factor in immigration policymaking because of strong party loyalty in Congress which has been deepened by increasing polarization. Casellas and Leal make similar arguments regarding reelection motives as Carrie Skulley does in “Majority rule vs. minority rights.” Both argue that a Congressional representative’s greatest goal is to be reelected into office. This is why many representatives strive to please their voters by voting to represent their general preferences. Skulley also discusses that a district’s percentage of foreign-born citizens impacts a representative’s policymaking decisions because foreign-born citizens would be more likely to advocate for greater immigration and undocumented immigrants’ rights.

Slide 3: Based on the theories provided by Casellas, Leal, and Skulley, one can make predictions about how Will Hurd would vote on immigration policy. In TX-23, there are high populations of both working class and Latino citizens. This puts TX-23 in an interesting position. By these theories, it could be predicted that Hurd would vote in favor of strict immigration policy to please to working class and lenient immigration policy to please to Latino community. So, many of Hurd’s policy decisions push for tougher border control and immigration reform which are economically favorable for the district. However, he also supports bipartisan immigration reform to make the process of legalization easier. He also continues to support immigration rights in regards to family separation and detainment. Hurd is a right-leaning moderate representative. Though it is a difficult task with a broad constituency, he has to aim to please all of TX-23 citizens in hopes of achieving reelection.

Slide 4: Will Hurd’s Twitter account does not directly mention immigration very often. Only about 6.7% of his tweets since the start of 2019 mention immigration. Many of his tweets focus, instead, on border security and national security. Hurd emphasizes the importance of supporting Border Patrol, stronger reinforcements at the border, and promoting American safety. He also promotes bipartisan negotiations and better cross-party conversations. Similarly, his website does not focus heavily on immigration. Though there is no “Issues” tab on his website, his most-mentioned topics are Education, Veterans Affairs, National Security, Urban Developments, and Hispanic Institutions. He also writes many of his mission statements in both English and Spanish. This shows a support to his Hispanic community, but does not emphasize immigration. This is surprising because of the district’s relationship with the Mexican border. His bill sponsorships follow the same pattern. Only 13% of his sponsored bills since 2015 regarded immigration. Many of his “Yea” or “Nay” votes on immigration bills depend on their overall costs to his constituents.

Link to slides:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=14cBbDD9lwBnZAYleW7MmwGfsyrCDumvMV42R-fMa5Gk

Immigration In PA District 4

March 6, 2019 / Christopher Callegari / 0 Comments

Because of the redistricting for all of the congressional districts in Pennsylvania in February of 2018, the first five election results are not particularly representative of district 4’s populace. Previously, district 4 was located in central/western Pennsylvania which is a very different environment than the Philadelphia suburbs. Although in the far northwest sections of the new PA 4 there is rural farmland, prior to 2018 rural land was the majority. This explains why after the switch, a Democrat with a 26.79% margin replaced a Republican who previously won by margins of 49.08% and 32.14%. The new PA 4 is entirely different geographically than the pre-2018 district.

The two papers which focused most on the impact of both electorate and congressional characteristics were Casellas and Leal (2013) and Wong (2014). The most prominent finding from both papers seemed to be that partisan divide is the biggest predictor for determining a stance on immigration. When either an MC is Republican, or an area is predominately Republican, it is more likely to hold a restrictive stance on immigration. If the area is mostly Democratic or if the MC is a Democrat, then the reverse would likely be true (Casellas and Leal 2013) (Wong 2014). In addition, MCs who are new to office are more prone to support restriction (Casellas and Leal 2013). This could potentially be caused by a reluctance to make a big change or take a strong stance in order to not alienate a sector of the MC’s electorate. Wong (2014) also found unemployment to be associated with support of enforcement bills. One potential causal reason for this is because of a fear that immigrants will choose to work for lower wages and increase labor competition in the region. The ethnicity of the MC and his or her electorate is also an important factor—Hispanic and Asian voters are less likely to support restrictive immigration bills (Wong 2014). In addition, non-white MC’s as a whole are more prone to loosening immigration laws. The amount of foreign-born individuals also makes it more likely for a region to be in support of immigration (Casellas and Leal 2013).

Following on the predictions presented in slide 2, I compare how PA 4 appears based on the national findings in Casellas and Leal (2013) and Wong (2014). Since Madeleine Dean won by such a large margin, I argue that PA 4 is predominately Democratic. If the district is in fact very partisan, even if some other factors suggest a lean towards anti-immigration, partisanship is still the most important indicator as shown by Casellas and Leal (2013) and Wong (2014). Based on this evidence alone, PA 4 would strongly support loosening of immigration laws. The findings for electoral threat, unemployment, race, and amount foreign-born suggest otherwise, however. Madeleine Dean is newly elected in 2018, so she may be more prone to favor restrictive bills. She does not want to upset the people who elected her with a polarizing stance on an important issue. In addition, having over double the national unemployment rate suggests a conclusion that the district would not support immigration. The racial makeup is also much less diverse than the US, and mostly comprised of Caucasians—suggesting again that there may be an anti-immigration lean. The amount of foreign-born citizens as shown by the pie chart is quite small, which may make the topic of immigration less of a priority than other more personalized issues for this electorate. Although everything besides partisan divide suggests that PA 4 may not be in favor of increased immigration, I believe that because of such a large partisan divide, Madeline Dean will support loosening of immigration laws.

Because of the redistricting and the fact that Madeleine Dean was elected so recently, it was challenging to find comprehensive congressional records for the region. Madeleine Dean is co sponsoring two bills which relate to immigration: H.R.541 and H.J.Res.46. H.R.541 stops agents at the border up to 100 miles inland from separating a child from a parent or guardian even if they entered the country illegally. The bill specifies specific cases where the child may be separated such as abuse or suspected future harm, but the purpose is to give immigrant families more rights. Without this, a small child may be taken from his or her parents simply because they were trying to enter without proper authorization. In addition, H.J.Res.46 would end President Trump’s national emergency relating to immigration over the US/Mexico border. Both of these bills suggest Madeleine Dean is at least partially supportive of immigration. Outside of these two bills, there was little information to glean from her public accounts and websites. The only other vaguely related reference I found was that she wanted to “[Empower] Our Diverse Communities.” Although that is nowhere near an explicit statement of support for immigration, by strengthening minority communities, she would also be strengthening immigrant communities (since they are often found to be the minority). One reason this may be a difficult topic to find information on is because immigration may not be a prominent issue for PA 4 specifically. With a small amount of foreign born individuals, it appears that there are not many people moving to the area from abroad, so the populace may prioritize issues that pertain directly to them.

Immigration Policy Analysis of Representative Jody Hice (GA 10)

March 6, 2019 / Jay Rolader / 0 Comments

Slide 1: The 10^th Congressional District in Georgia is a heavy republican district. Their past two representative have been Republican, and according to the 2018 Cook Partisan Voter Index, “for this district was R+15, meaning that in the previous two presidential elections, this district’s results were 15 percentage points more Republican than the national average. This made Georgia’s 10th Congressional District the 83rd-most Republican nationally.”¹ The two representatives shared similarities in their ideology on federal policy, however, in both cases immigration was not of great concern. In Hice’s case immigration policy only accounts for 12% of his voting activity.²

Slide 2: Existing research on relevant to the subject suggests a highly partisan driven policy initiative. Due to the relatively low number of Hispanic/Latino voters in the district (%10<), there is very little pressure from his constituency to align with favorable immigration policy. Instead, Hice is more likely to vote for restrictionist immigration policy that falls in line with his parties ideology. This is further supported by FiveThirtyEight who observed that Hice votes in favor of Trump policy 89.6% of the time.³ There are limits to this, however, as Hice voted against the Republican driven Border Security and Immigration Reform Act of 2018 where compromises made in order to obtain greater support from both sides.

Slide 3: Policy Predictions for this district are relatively straight forward according to relevant research. Due to the largely white and black demographic in his district, Hice will not face much resistance from the constituency when voting for restrictive immigration policy. Therefore, Hice is likely to vote in favor of such policies, while additionally supporting federal immigration authorities in his district. This is supported by the partisanship hypothesis found in the Wong 2017 study, as well as the Wong 2012 study that suggests larger districts are more likely to cooperate federal authorities. Lastly, due to a growing number of Hispanic and Latino population it is possible that the wage competition hypothesis could play a factor in Hice’s voting decisions in order to maintain the support of local voters.

Slide 4: Lastly, when analyzing Hice’s voting record it is apparent that immigration is not a significant factor in his policy voting. From 2014 until 2019, immigration voting has accounted for 12% of his activity. Additionally, of the 37 bills Hice has sponsored only 4 bills which pertain to immigration issues. That being said of the 9 immigration bills Hice has participated in voting for 7 were restrictionist and he voted in favor of all 7 of these bills.⁴ While Hice often does vote alongside his party on these issues, immigration does not seems to play a large role in his online presence. From 2014 to the present, Hice has only tweeted on immigration 24 times. The content of his tweets are in line with the Republican stance on immigration though. The general themes of his tweets reinforce Republican’s general anti-immigrant sentiment, and show that he does not differ from his parties ideology.

Link to Slides: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1F5MlInd5IVLUmx2VE1tNXDs9O0jvDrXe

-Jay Rolader

11 “Georgia’s 10th Congressional District.” Ballotpedia. Accessed March 07, 2019. https://ballotpedia.org/Georgia’s_10th_Congressional_District.

22 “Rep. Jody Hice.” GovTrack.us. Accessed March 07, 2019. https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/jody_hice/412623.

33 Bycoffe. “Tracking Congress In The Age Of Trump.” FiveThirtyEight. December 21, 2018. Accessed March 07, 2019. https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/congress-trump-score/jody-b-hice/.

44 “Rep. Jody Hice.” GovTrack.us. Accessed March 07, 2019. https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/jody_hice/412623.