WELCOME!
I am a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Political Science at the University of California, Davis. My primary field of study is American politics. My research interests include legislative behavior, racial and ethnic politics, and representation.
DISSERTATION ABSTRACT
My dissertation examines Congressional position-taking and the issue of immigration. In the first section, I demonstrate that there is little evidence members of Congress rely on district preferences to guide their position-taking at the beginning of a bill’s life. Instead, I show constituent opinion with respect to immigration to be most significant at the roll call stage when the outcome of the legislation has practical policy implications. Second, I turn this question to state legislatures, and examine why states with growing numbers of Hispanic votes and Hispanic representatives still support anti-immigrant policies.The third section provides evidence position-taking behavior varies over time as a function of changes to the national political agenda. As these first three sections rely on recorded positions to estimate legislators’ policy preferences, and most positions are not ever recorded, the final essay uses a quantitative approach to text analysis to illustrate a novel way for estimating policy goals.
I am a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Political Science at the University of California, Davis. My primary field of study is American politics. My research interests include legislative behavior, racial and ethnic politics, and representation.
DISSERTATION ABSTRACT
My dissertation examines Congressional position-taking and the issue of immigration. In the first section, I demonstrate that there is little evidence members of Congress rely on district preferences to guide their position-taking at the beginning of a bill’s life. Instead, I show constituent opinion with respect to immigration to be most significant at the roll call stage when the outcome of the legislation has practical policy implications. Second, I turn this question to state legislatures, and examine why states with growing numbers of Hispanic votes and Hispanic representatives still support anti-immigrant policies.The third section provides evidence position-taking behavior varies over time as a function of changes to the national political agenda. As these first three sections rely on recorded positions to estimate legislators’ policy preferences, and most positions are not ever recorded, the final essay uses a quantitative approach to text analysis to illustrate a novel way for estimating policy goals.
