The Conditional Lawmaking Benefits of Party Faction Membership in Congress

In this new Center for Effective Lawmaking (CEL) paper published in Political Research Quarterly, CEL co-directors Craig Volden and Alan Wiseman of the University of Virginia and Vanderbilt University respectively, alongside Lafayette College’s Andrew Clark (also a CEL Faculty Affiliate), examine how joining a party faction can impact a lawmaker’s effectiveness. Party faction membership has been shown to increase lawmakers’ electoral success, but this paper investigates if the benefits persist once those lawmakers enter Congress. The authors’ research tests three hypotheses about the conditional lawmaking benefits of faction membership: (1) that benefits from faction membership are limited to those in the minority party; (2) that members of ideologically centrist factions gain the greatest benefits; and (3) that sizable factions exploit their pivotal positions to help their members achieve legislative victories. They find that party faction membership bolsters the effectiveness of those in the minority party but “offers no significant lawmaking benefit to majority-party legislators.” 

To learn more, read the full paper here.