PUBLIC OPINION AND DEMOCRACY

(Week 15)

(Note: these are actual class notes, valuable to those having an excused class absence, or those wishing to review their class notes for the test. Double spaced notes reflect subjects that are so important that they are likely to be asked about on a test.)

Well, this is our wrap-up week, where we discuss our final topic and briefly review for the final exam. This new topic also will not be on the Final Exam, but it is important to cover to complete the course you signed up for.

So, is American public opinion as a whole generally consistent with our nation’s public policy? That is, do our public officials do a pretty good job of doing what the public wants? I’d argue, yes, pretty much. One study found a consistency between the public's general ideology (public mood) and the ideology of national policy from 1952 to 2012. Also, as the public's ideology shifted, so did public policy (textbook). Another study found that if national public opinion desired a change in existing federal policies, most of the time the public law would change. If the public desired no change in the status quo, there would be no change three-fourths of the time (text). A third study showed that public opinion polls on nine important issues have been generally consistent with U.S. Senate roll call votes. A fourth study found the same linkage at the state level, as there was a consistency between the state public's ideology and state public policy. States with more liberal residents also had more liberal policies (text), compared to conservative states. Note the difficulties that President Trump has faced trying to impose his immigration and anti-crime policies on states and cities, which have Democratic public officials and publics who support more liberal policies.

Some scholars have cautioned that on particular policies, public officials may be biased from the masses and not represent their values in enacting public policy. Verba and Nie in their Participation in America book written in the 1960s argue that public policy on domestic economic issues may be more conservative than the public desires. People with higher incomes and education levels are more likely to be politically active than the lower socioeconomic status, and they had more conservative views on economic issues, so they may exert more influence over public policymakers than do more liberal citizens. Shaffer’s research later in the last century pointed out that public policy, at least on racial and civil liberty issues, may be biased in a more liberal direction than the average citizen desires. That is because the more politically active highly educated citizens are more liberal on racial and civil liberty issues, than are the less educated. An example might be President Biden’s strong support for DEI (demographic diversity in appointments and public policies) and for transexuals in women’s sports. Perhaps these researchers are both right, therefore we can have growing economic inequality in America while having the prevalence of political correctness (until Trump’s second administration). What do you think??

Why is public policy generally consistent with the public’s desires? Well, it may be because people with more liberal views correctly identify the Democrats as the more liberal party, and people with more conservative views correctly identify the Republicans as the more conservative party, and they adopt those partisan identifications consistent with their ideologies. For example, about three-fourths of Strong Democrats view themselves as being ideologically consistent with the Democratic Party or even more liberal than that party, as did three-fourths of Strong Republicans who viewed themselves as consistent with or more conservative than their party (text). Indeed, the ideological differences between the parties are quite evident, as a strong majority of Republican national convention delegates have viewed themselves as conservatives, while Democratic delegates have consistently been the more liberal party delegates (text). States that have more liberal citizens therefore have more Democratic party identifiers in the population, and more conservative states have more Republican party identifiers (text). That people generally vote consistent with their partisanship is reflected by the partisan composition of their states’ U.S. Senators, as more Democratic states usually have two Democratic Senators and more Republican states usually have two Republican Senators (text). Congress members of the two parties clearly vote in an ideologically different manner, as Democrats vote in a much more liberal direction than do Republicans (text). Therefore, more conservative states (the Trump states) have U.S. House delegations that vote in a more conservative direction on congressional roll calls, than do the liberal (Clinton) states (text). More conservative states in state public opinion polls have more Republican U.S. House members whose roll call votes are more conservative, compared to the more liberal states (text).

Mississippi also has a similar ideological split between the parties. Our two NSF grants of grassroots party activists (county Democratic and Republican party chairs and county committee members) found that Republicans were split between moderate conservatives and very conservative people, while Democrats were split three ways between liberals, moderates, and conservatives. Since those studies were done twenty-five years ago and white Democrats have become an endangered species in the state legislature as the Black Caucus has risen, it is likely that Democratic party activists have shifted to the left since then. In the state legislature, African Americans vote in a pretty liberal direction, while Republicans are pretty conservative. Historically, white Democrats were pretty moderate, but their numbers have fallen to 1 in the state house and only 2 in the state senate. Fortunately, Mississippi lacks the bitter partisanship in the U.S. Congress, as the historically one-party Democratic legislature was willing to share power with Republicans, and the modern Republican- controlled legislature has also shared power with Democrats by appointing some as committee chairs (particularly African Americans). So Mississippi is an interesting case where major bipartisan laws can be enacted, as shown by the 1982 Education Reform Act, the 1987 Highway Bill, and the 1992 tax hikes for education (as well as other programs, mentioned in my book chapters assigned for upcoming courses).

So is there a need for increasing the impact of American public opinion on public officials and public policy, and if so, what reforms may be enacted? Given the ignorance shown by some current public officials about the basics of our government (Can you name the three branches of the government, which a Senator struggled with? Are you aware that the FBI and Justice Departments should operate independently of the President? Do you really think that Socialism is better than Capitalism?), how about improving the teaching of civics, government, and politics in the public schools? We used to have a Taft program for educating a couple of dozen school teachers in the summer about our two-party system. How about encouraging our political science college professors to interact more with the high school teachers, and seek to improve the teaching of those subjects? Such an initiative might increase the level of public awareness of our form of government. Another initiative might take the Senator Byrd Constitution Day program (mandated by Congress once a year for our universities) to the general public, to teach them about the wisdom of our founding fathers’ form of government (see my Honors American Government notes). We could also improve the teaching of Civics in our universities by limiting class sizes to 30, to promote more class discussion and encourage respect for others’ points of view (a concern of former President Obama). Another possible reform is to expand the franchise by making it easier to vote. But that was controversial with the Democratic For the People bill during Biden’s presidency, which included such ideas as enfranchising felons (after they serve their terms) despite state constitutional prohibitions, mandating early voting options, mandating mail voting options, and permitting ballot harvesting. I suggest that each state take a look at their current voting requirements and procedures instead of federalizing our federal elections, as Pennsylvania did the year before the controversial 2020 presidential election. A positive about federalism where the states set their own requirements by-and-large is that those state officials have a stake in the process and will generally fight against any effort to corrupt the process (though Texas Republicans in 2025 sought a mid-decade U.S. House redistricting scheme to increase the number of GOP seats). So, the thing about reforms is, remember you can have good intentions, but you can make a bad situation even worse.