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Voting in the U.S. House on Abortion Funding Issues
Author(s) -
Gohmann Stephan F.,
Ohsfeldt Robert L.
Publication year - 1994
Publication title -
american journal of economics and sociology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.199
H-Index - 38
eISSN - 1536-7150
pISSN - 0002-9246
DOI - 10.1111/j.1536-7150.1994.tb02618.x
Subject(s) - abortion , voting , political science , voting behavior , supreme court , house of representatives , politics , public administration , law , pregnancy , genetics , biology
A bstract . The Supreme Court's ruling in Webster v. Reproductive Health Services increased the political saliency of the abortion issue. Since pro‐choice and pro‐life groups within the constituencies of U.S. legislators paid closer attention to abortion‐related roll call votes after Webster, the legislators’ voting behavior on such issues might have changed as a result of the decision. Accordingly, voting model estimates for abortion funding issues before and after Webster are used to examine changes in the role of legislators’ personal policy preferences and the role of policy preferences among their constituency on voting on this issue. The results show that legislators, to some extent, vote according to their personal preferences on abortion funding issues. Moreover, the influence of personal preferences on voting behavior did not change substantially after Webster, despite the change in the outcome of the vote.