Skip to main content
  • Home
  • About
  • Faculty Experts
  • For The Media
  • ’Cuse Conversations Podcast
  • Topics
    • Alumni
    • Events
    • Faculty
    • Students
    • All Topics
  • Contact
  • Submit
Media, Law & Policy
  • All News
  • Arts & Culture
  • Business & Economy
  • Campus & Community
  • Health & Society
  • Media, Law & Policy
  • STEM
  • Veterans
  • |
  • Alumni
  • The Peel
  • Athletics
Sections
  • All News
  • Arts & Culture
  • Business & Economy
  • Campus & Community
  • Health & Society
  • Media, Law & Policy
  • STEM
  • Veterans
  • |
  • Alumni
  • The Peel
  • Athletics
  • Home
  • About
  • Faculty Experts
  • For The Media
  • ’Cuse Conversations Podcast
  • Topics
    • Alumni
    • Events
    • Faculty
    • Students
    • All Topics
  • Contact
  • Submit
Media, Law & Policy

Maxwell Professor Asks, Where Have Congressional Moderates Gone?

Thursday, May 25, 2017, By Jeffrey P. Rodgers
Share
facultyMaxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs

When journalists and pundits talk about the bitter partisanship in Congress today, they tend to point to three culprits: gerrymandering, the influence of big money and primary systems that favor more ideologically pure candidates. But when scholars have tested these hypotheses, according to Maxwell Assistant Professor of Political Science Danielle Thomsen, they have come up short.

Danielle Thomsen

Danielle Thomsen

“The most obvious counterpoint for the gerrymandering hypothesis is the Senate,” she says. “There’s been no change in district boundaries because they are state borders, but we’ve seen rising polarization.” In the case of big money, Thomsen adds, studies have found that public financing of campaigns has not resulted in the election of more moderates. The same goes for primaries—for instance, open and closed primaries, which are expected to generate different types of primary voters, have produced very similar types of candidates.

So what else could be behind today’s hyperpartisanship? In her new book, “Opting Out of Congress: Partisan Polarization and the Decline of Moderate Candidates” (Cambridge University Press), Thomsen argues that a crucial factor has been overlooked: who chooses to run in the first place. “Moderates who could run for Congress aren’t doing so to the same degree as conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats,” she says. “And if the only people who are signing up to run come from the extremes, polarization is unlikely to diminish.”

Thomsen, a native of South Dakota, began the research behind the book as a doctoral student in government at Cornell and a post-doctoral fellow at Duke. Initially she focused on the partisan gap of women in Congress—to explore why the number of Republican women in Congress, most of whom were moderates, stagnated in the ’80s and ’90s while the cohort of women in the Democratic Party grew. But as she dug deeper, she found that the underlying issue of partisan polarization went beyond gender dynamics—the “hollowing out of the political center,” as she calls it in the book, applied equally to men and women in Congress.

Thomsen, who joined the Maxwell faculty in 2015, notes that Congress has not always been like this. Forty years ago, moderates accounted for more than half of the House and had significant power. “Today,” she says, “with the moderate faction being perhaps 20 people, it’s very difficult to band together and shape the direction of the party.”

State governments, however, are a different story. While some state legislatures are polarized (for instance, in New York, California and Wisconsin), many others are not. In “Opting Out of Congress,” Thomsen uses data sets that became available in recent years to compare the ideology of state legislators with Congress members. She found that 20 percent of Republican state legislators are comparable to recently retired moderate Republican Olympia Snowe; and 30 percent of Democratic state legislators are similar to former congressman John Tanner, a conservative Blue Dog Democrat.

So the problem, Thomsen posits in the book, is not that moderates don’t exist; it is that even if they were elected to Congress, the benefits of the office would be too scant. Today’s moderates, she says, “have virtually no impact on policy, because the party leadership is setting the agenda and dictating the terms of debate. None of the top chair positions or the choice committee assignments are going to moderates. The moderates who are there are leaving, and they’re highly critical of the direction of their parties in Congress.”

All of which begs the question of what, if anything, can be done to create an environment where compromise—and progress—can be made. “If you want to elect people who are less extreme than current office holders, you need to have those people running,” says Thomsen. “How do you get those people to run? Perhaps just as you do with any group that has been historically underrepresented—women, people of color—you put extra resources into them. You recruit them. You give them institutional positions of power, such as a spot on Appropriations or Ways and Means. The party can incentivize certain behavior.” But the odds don’t look good for moderates right now.

  • Author

Jeffrey P. Rodgers

  • Recent
  • Exploring the Existence of Life at 125 Degrees Fahrenheit
    Tuesday, September 26, 2023, By Dan Bernardi
  • Cool Class: Mona Awad’s Art of the Fairy Tale
    Tuesday, September 26, 2023, By Dan Bernardi
  • How Climate Warming Could Disrupt a Deep-Rooted Relationship
    Tuesday, September 26, 2023, By Dan Bernardi
  • Be Proactive: How to Keep Yourself Safe on Campus
    Tuesday, September 26, 2023, By Christine Weber
  • Academic Strategic Plan Launch Symposium Set for Sept. 26
    Monday, September 25, 2023, By Wendy S. Loughlin

More In Media, Law & Policy

Maxwell Sociologists Receive $1.8M From the NIA to Study Midlife Health and Mortality

A team of Maxwell School faculty led by Jennifer Karas Montez and Shannon Monnat have been awarded a $1.8 million grant from the National Institute on Aging (NIA) to support their research on geographic disparities in midlife mortality. Montez, University…

Languages Unlock Opportunities for English for Lawyers Alumna

Languages act as a guide for communicating our goals and dreams. It’s how we make sense of the world and connect with the communities around us. Become fluent in a variety of languages, and it’s like collecting keys that unlock…

Law Student Tyriese Robinson Named Inaugural Recipient of the NDNY FCBA Hon. Norman A. Mordue ’66, L’71 Law Scholarship

The first recipient of a scholarship established in honor of the Hon. Norman A. Mordue ’66, L’71 is second-year law student Tyriese Robinson. The Northern District of New York (NDNY) Federal Court Bar Association (FCBA) Hon. Norman A. Mordue ’66,…

Robertson Fellows Aspire to Serve as Foreign Service Officers

Interested in careers in the foreign service, Zoe Prin and Forrest Gatrell took advantage of internships and other opportunities as undergraduates that exposed them to the inner workings of government, policymaking and service from differing vantage points. While Gatrell obtained…

Craig M. Boise to Conclude Tenure as College of Law Dean at End of Academic Year

When Craig M. Boise stepped into his role as dean of the College of Law in the spring of 2016, he described his vision to create “a sustainable law school that leverages the knowledge, skill and imagination of its faculty…

Subscribe to SU Today

If you need help with your subscription, contact sunews@syr.edu.

Connect With Us

  • X
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Youtube
  • LinkedIn
Social Media Directory

For the Media

Find an Expert Follow @SyracuseUNews
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Youtube
  • LinkedIn
  • @SyracuseU
  • @SyracuseUNews
  • @SUCampus
  • Social Media Directory
  • Accessibility
  • Privacy
  • Campus Status
  • Syracuse.edu
© 2023 Syracuse University News. All Rights Reserved.