Comparing interest group scores across time and chambers; adjusted ADA scores for the U.S. Congress.(Americans for Democratic Action)

An econometric model is designed to aid legislative behavior researchers in making intertemporal and interchamber comparisons of interest group ratings. The proposed model uses an index that is similar to the inflation index for consumer prices and allows the parallelisms of the interest group scores even across time. Applying this to the American for Democratic Action scores reveals that members of Congress from 1947-1994 are more liberal as compared to those who have replaced them in 1995 until the present.

Without question, the 1974 House elections that brought an influx of ...

Read the rest of this article with a Free Trial at HighBeam Research.