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Women in Political Office in Minnesota: Why Has Minnesota Elected So Few Women to Major Political Offices?
No full textMinnesota has a reputation for being a liberal state. It's the home of many Democratic Party greats such as: Hubert Humphrey, Eugene McCarthy, Orville Freeman, and Walter Mondale. In addition to this, Minnesota has not voted for a Republican for President since before 1960. It would seem that in a state with such a liberal tradition women would be elected to all levels of political office on a regular basis. However, this is not the case. Minnesota has never elected a female U.S. Senator or governor, and has elected only one U.S. Congresswoman (in 1954). Why do women have so many difficulties getting elected in Minnesota? Have there simply not been enough female candidates? If so, why is this? Has there been a lack of support from the major political parties? Have female candidates just been involved in particularly tough races or is there something about Minnesotans that prejudices them from electing women? Do women candidates fare better in the metropolitan area than in outstate Minnesota?WOMEN IN
POLITICAL OFFICE
IN MINNESOTA
WHY HAS MINNESOTA ELECTED SO FEW
WOMEN TO MAJOR POLITICAL OFFICES?
MAURA SHUTTLEWORTH
Gustavus Student Repository
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 Introduction
-Literature Review p. 2
-Research Design p. 8
Chapter 2 Women Who Ran for Major Political Office in Minnesota
-Goya Knutson p. 10
-Goya's Lesson for Women Candidates p. 15
-Is Minnesota's Record Abnormally Poor: a Comparison with
Other States p. 16
-Social Prejudice or Political Opportunity Structure? p. 17
Chapter 3 Historical Trends of Women in the Minnesota State
Legislature
-Women in the Minnesota Legislature: from Below the National
Average to Seventh in the Nation p. 24
-Two sides to Minnesota: The Progressive Metro Area and the
Socially Conservative Rural Areas p. 28
Chapter 4 Women as Candidates for the Minnesota State
Legislature
-Resources p. 33
-Constraints p. 44
-The Residual Sexism Factor/Bitch Factor p. 47
-The Future p. 50
Chapter 5 Conclusion
Gustavus Student Repository
Chapter 1: Introduction
Minnesota has a reputation for being a liberal state. It's the home of many
Democratic Party greats such as: Hubert Humphrey, Eugene McCarthy, Orville
Freeman, and Walter Mondale. In addition to this, Minnesota has not voted for a
Republican for President since before 1960. It would seem that in a state with
such a liberal tradition women would be elected to all levels of political office on a
regular basis. However, this is not the case. Minnesota has never elected a
female U.S. Senator or governor, and has elected only one U.S.
Congresswoman (in 1954). Karen Boros sums up the history of women in
Minnesota politics in the article "Women's sad record persists after 70 years in
state politics":
When Hannah Kempfer (one of the first women elected to the Minnesota
House in 1922) died in 1942, Minneapolis Star Journal political writer
M.W. Halloran wrote about how women had failed in politics because in 20
years they had not elected any of themselves to the U.S. House or Senate
or made any serious attempt to get elected governor. That was fifty years
ago. Nothing has changed (Boros, 1992).
Why do women have so many difficulties getting elected in Minnesota? Have
there simply not been enough female candidates? If so, why is this? Has there
been a lack of support from the major political parties? Have female candidates
just been involved in particularly tough races or is there something about
Minnesotans that prejudices them from electing women? Do women candidates
fare better in the metropolitan area than in outstate Minnesota?
Gustavus Student Repository
Literature Review
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There has been a significant amount of research done on why the
numbers of women in political office are so small. This research has explored
many factors including: party support, numbers of women seeking political office,
recruitment of women, effect of the media, fundraising, social prejudices against
female candidates, and the political opportunity structure. These factors all may
have effects on the numbers of women that are elected.
The numbers of women seeking political office is a very basic variable in
the number of women who are elected to office. If enough women do not run for
office, there will not be many women elected. However before most women will
run, they must have encouragement and support from people who are important
in their lives and people whom they respect. This has not happened enough in
Minnesota for large numbers of women to run for political office.
The recruitment and encouragement of women by the major political
parties are crucial factors in how many women run for office. In the book Women
as Candidates in American Politics, Susan J. Carroll (1985) explains that
recruitment is especially important because women are not as likely as men to be
self-initiated candidates. Carroll writes, "The decision to run for office is counter
to traditional conceptions of a woman's proper role in society" (p. 28). Carroll
states that there are four sources of encouragement that women candidates
mention most often: family, friends, party officials, and present or former public
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officeholders. Of these four, the support of family and friends is often cited as
being more important than party support (p.30).
There appears to have been a lack of support for female candidates from
both major political parties. This is especially harmful to the recruitment of
women and to their candidacies because women are much less likely than men
to run without the encouragement and support of their party. Carroll writes about
how the two parties often do not recruit women to run for office unless it is for a
position that seems impossible to win - the recruitment of "sacrificial lambs".
Carroll writes:
The parties' reluctance to approach women and to present them with the
opportunity to run in races where there is at least some chance of general
election victory is, then, an important feature of the political opportunity
structure that inhibits substantial increases in the numerical representation
of women among elected office holders (p.36, 1985).
In the book In the Running. Ruth B. Mandel (1981) also writes about the
lack of support from the parties for female candidates. When the level of office is
higher there tends to be less support for female candidates. She writes:
New Jersey's Marge Roukema recalls that after she announced her
candidacy for a congressional nomination in 1978, "Party people came to
me and said, 'Why don't you run for freeholder [a county-level office], not
Congress?"' That is a piece of advice many women hear - stay near
home and don't reach too high (p.103).
The effect of media coverage is another factor that may affect the abilities
of women to get elected to political office. Media coverage of female candidates
may be more negative than that of male candidates or, even if it is not negative,
hold women to a different standard than men. Maria Braden discusses these
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practices in Women Politicians and the Media. Braden (1996) writes about how
female candidates are demeaned by the media in many ways. One example of
this is the many references to their physical appearance. She says:
Sometimes the words trivialize women, as they did Geraldine Ferraro
when she stood triumphant before cheering delegates to the 1984
Democratic National Convention. Tom Brokaw commented, "Geraldine
Ferraro .. . the first women to be nominated for Vice President . . . size
six! (p.15).
This type of coverage sounds like the coverage of Olympic gymnastics,
"Shannon Miller on the beam now . . . she's gained 15 pounds since last year
and grown four inches." It may cause voters to take female candidates less
seriously than male candidates. Coverage of any candidate should focus on the
factors that are relevant to the office that the candidate is seeking, such as the
candidate's stances on issues and previous experience.
There is also, of course, the famous example of the media's reaction to
Pat Schroeder crying when she withdrew from the 1988 presidential race. One
woman said of this occurrence, "The men of this country are not going to vote for
a woman who looks like she might break down and sob when she can't get an
arms agreement with Gorbachev" (Witt, p.205, 1994).
Kim Kahn and Edie Goldenberg, two political scientists, did a study of the
differences in coverage of female and male candidates in twenty-six U. S. Senate
races in 1984 and 1986. They found that stories written about male candidates
were longer and focused more on issues than stories about female candidates.
They also found that articles about women candidates were likely to concentrate
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on their lack of resources and imply that they did not have much chance of
winning (Witt, p.96, 1994). This reinforces the image in the minds of voters of
women as losing candidates.
Fundraising is often thought to be more difficult for female candidates than
for male candidates. Reasons given for this are that women are not involved in
the same kind of networking groups as men are and that women are less
comfortable raising money than men. Carroll (1985) writes about the social
structure that limits the fundraising of female candidates:
Women do not have the same avenues of access to money and influence
as men do. They have been excluded from decision-making levels, they
don' t play golf or tennis with "fat cats," they don't casually drop into the
bar for social and political contacts, and they are never members of the
respected "male clubs" which are frequently the first rungs on the political
ladder (p. 50).
Carroll also discusses the psychological difficulties women have with raising
money:
Men have a long history of asking for money for their personal use. In
preparation for their roles as family breadwinners, men traditionally have
been socialized to believe that requesting money for functions they
perform is a natural part of life. In contrast, women, in preparation for their
role in the domestic sphere have been socialized into a different set of
expectations. Much, if not all work, is done without consideration of
financial compensation (p.50).
Fundraising seems to be getting easier for female candidates, though. Women
are even excelling at raising money. This is partially because women are
forming their own networks and political action committees that have been very
successful. For example, EMIL Y's List is the largest political action committee in
the country. There are many other PACs which are dedicated to raising money
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for female candidates. In Minnesota, in the 1984 U.S. Senate race, Joan Growe
raised more money than any other Democrat in the history of the state up to
1986. (By now, several of the 1998 gubernatorial candidates have surely
surpassed her.) Fundraising does not seem to be the problem that it was for
women candidates fifteen years ago.
The social prejudices against female candidates are important to consider
when looking at why there have not been more women in political office. There
are people, perhaps many people, who still believe that women do not belong in
politics. Mandel (1981) gives some examples of the type of bias some female
candidates have encountered:
It always comes as a shock when the candidate is greeted with these
kinds of remarks made during door-to-door canvassing in recent election
seasons: "I don't believe in women in political office"; "I ain't voting for no
woman or no nigger''; "I wouldn't vote for a woman for dogcatcher'';
"Women should stay home where they belong"; "Go home and take care
of your family" (p.114).
There are also high profile examples of this type of prejudice. George Bush,
campaigning for the Republican candidate, employed these tactics against a
female candidate for governor of Oregon:
When Barbara Roberts ran for governor of Oregon, she had acquired
political experience that spanned more than two decades and
encompassed every level of state government ... President George Bush
warned voters that if they voted for Barbara Roberts, they would have to
put up with "on-the-job training" (Witt, p.117, 1994).
In 1984, after the George Bush - Geraldine Ferraro debate, Barbara Bush said
that Ferraro was" a five letter word that rhymes with rich" (Witt, p.14, 1994).
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There is a great story about when Minnesota State Senator Ember
Reichcott Junge was doorknocking in her district for a candidate for the state
House. She knocked on a door and an eleven-year-old boy answered the door.
She said, "Hi, I'm Ember Reichcott Junge and I'm your state senator. Is your
mother home?" The boy went inside the house and yelled, "Mom, there's a
woman here who thinks she's a senator" (Reeve, p.1 B, 1996). The fact that
women candidates are still subject to this kind of prejudice is important in
understanding why more women are not elected to office.
There are many factors that have been mentioned as reasons for women
not being elected to political office. The factor that seems to be the most
significant, however, is that of the political opportunity structure. The main
problem is that women are usually not incumbents. Richard A. Seltzer, Jody
Newman, and Melissa Voorhees Leighton showed that women candidates are as
likely to win as men when incumbents are compared to incumbents, challengers
to challengers, and open-seat races to open-seat races. They claim that in order
for more women to be elected many more women must run, especially for open
seats ( Seltzer, p.90, 1997).
Carroll (1985) also comes to the conclusion that incumbency is the most
important factor. She writes:
While incumbents tend to win elections at a much higher rate than
nonincumbents, very few women are incumbents. Candidates who run against
incumbents (and/or against candidates of the opposing party who have defeated
incumbents in primaries) rarely win elections, and sizable numbers of women
candidates run in races where they confront such situations. In comparison to
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this explanation, other explanations for why women lose have far less
explanatory power (p.119).
The incumbency factor is a huge problem for women seeking political office.
However, other factors could help to alleviat e this problem if they were more
favorable to female candidates. For example, if the parties were better at
recruiting women to run for political office, there would be more women running,
and more women would be elected.
Research Design
There are several theories about why women do not get elected to major
political office in Minnesota. These theories all fit into three categories: a lack of
resources, constraints women running for office face, and the political opportunity
structure. This includes such factors as: incumbency, lack of encouragement and
recruitment of women, lack of support for women candidates from the major
political parties, and a social prejudice against women running for office. In the
following chapters, I will look at the resources, constraints, and political
opportunity structure that women candidates in Minnesota must deal with. I will
also try to determine which factors are most significant as reason's for the lack of
women in major political offices in Minnesota.
In Chapter 2, I will look at the history of women as candidates for major
political offices in Minnesota. I will do this by relaying stories about individual
women candidates, one who was successful and several who were not. I will
look at the combination of resources, constraints, and political opportunity
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structure they confronted and how this contributed to the eventual outcomes of
their campaigns. I will also compare the Minnesota's history of electing women
to major political offices to that of other states.
In Chapter 3, I plan to examine the historical trends of women serving in
the Minnesota State Legislature. I will look at how the numbers of women
serving in the state legislature have increased over time. I will then compare this
record to that of other states. Next, I will use maps that show the number of
women each county has elected to the state legislature and compare this to other
demographic information about the counties. This will indicate whether or not
counties with different characteristics react differently to female candidates.
Chapter 4 will focus on women as candidates for the Minnesota State
Legislature. I sent surveys to all 62 women currently serving in the Minnesota
State Legislature. The surveys asked them about the resources, constraints, and
political opportunity structure present in their campaigns. The responses indicate
what qualities and type of political environment are necessary for a woman to be
elected in Minnesota.
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Chapter 2: Women Who Ran for Major Political Office in Minnesota
Coya Knutson
In 1954, Minnesota elected its first, and to this date only,
Congresswoman, Goya Knutson. She was not only the first woman elected from
Minnesota, but also the first woman elected to Congress from the Midwest. Goya
was elected from the Ninth Congressional District, which is now part of the
Seventh Congressional District (northwestern Minnesota). This area is mostly
rural, made up of small towns and farms. It is not the Minnesota congressional
district that would seem to be most receptive to female candidates.
Goya, the daughter of Norwegian immigrants, grew up in Edmore, North
Dakota. Her parents were farmers and politically active in the Nonpartisan
League. Gretchen Urnes Beito describes the Nonpartisan League in the book
Goya Come Home, "Prior to the 1930s the League was the most successful,
radical political movement in the upper Midwest and, in the tradition of Populist,
Progressive, and other protest movements, was aimed at eradicating the
farmers' dependent, exploited status" (1990, p. 23). In Minnesota, this
movement eventually became the Farmer-Labor Party
Although Goya's parents were active in the Nonpartisan League, they
were better off than most farm families in the 1920s and 1930s. Goya and her
sisters were all able to attend high school and college. Goya graduated from
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Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota. After graduating, Goya became a
teacher. This would later prove to be a vital resource when she sought political
office.
In 1939, at the age of 27, Goya married Andy Knutson and they settled in
the small town of Oklee, Minnesota. It was here that Goya first became active
in politics. Beito writes about how Goya was influenced to become involved by
Eleanor Roosevelt:
One June day in 1942, Goya stopped her work at around noon to listen to
a speech bythe wife ofthe President of the United States. Eleanor
Roosevelt's high-pitched voice, mixed with static, poured into Goya
Knutson's airy farm kitchen urging her - and countless other listeners - to
become active in the political life of the nation. Mrs. Roosevelt said that to
provide good government in these extraordinary times, the nation needed
astute people - both men and women - to run for political office (1990 p.
65)
Goya was also inspired by President Roosevelt's appointment of Francis Perkins
to the position of Secretary of Labor.
Later that month, Goya organized a political event for the first time. She
held a meeting of neighborhood farmers at her house to discuss bringing
electricity to their township area. Electrical service was not brought to the area
until eight years after this initial meeting. However, one of the neighbors who
had attended the meeting, Ross Shetterly, was looking for someone to be a field
representative for the Agricultural Adjustment Administration and asked Goya if
she would be interested (Beito, 1990, p.67). Goya's new position mainly
consisted of traveling around the northwestern segment of Minnesota and talking
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to farmers about the importance of farming to the war effort. This job came to an
end in 1945 with the end of World War II.
Coya continued to be active in her community with many community
service organizations and she returned to teaching. She and her husband, Andy,
decided to sell their farm and buy a hotel in the town of Oklee. This was
beneficial to Coya because she became more well known in the community. In
1948, the Red Lake County DFL chose Coya to be their county chairwoman.
In 1950, an opportunity arose for Coya to run for political office. The local
DFL leadership asked Coya to run for the position of state representative. At that
time, it had been seven years since a woman had served in the state legislature
(Beito, 1990, p.101 ). However, the local party leaders still thought that Coya
could win the election. There were objections from her family, though. Beito
writes about these problems, "Andy did not like it that people in town knew 'who
wears the pants in the Knutson house.' He was resentful of her having usurped
the man's traditional role" (1990, p.100). Coya decided to run for the seat,
despite these objections. She was elected in 1950 and then re-elected in 1952.
In the 1952 election, Coya received the highest number of votes that the district
had ever given a candidate (Beito, 1990, p.118).
After two successful terms in the state legislature, Coya decided that she
wanted to run for the Ninth District's United States Representative seat. She
asked the Ninth District DFL Party chair to back her campaign. He responded,
"No. The party cannot afford to lose your state legislature spot" (Beito, 1990,
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p.123). Caya decided to go fo
The origins of monetary policy disagreement: The role of supply and demand shocks
No full textWe investigate how dissent in the FOMC is affected by structural macroeconomic shocks obtained using a medium-scale DSGE model. We find that dissent is less (more) frequent when demand (supply) shocks are the predominant source of inflation fluctuations. In addition, supply shocks are found to raise private sector forecasting uncertainty about the path of interest rates. Since supply shocks impose a trade-off between inflation and output stabilization while demand shocks do not, our findings are consistent with heterogeneous preferences over the dual mandate among FOMC members as a driver of policy disagreement
Who's Voting for the President's 'Stupid Cousin': An Examination of ELCA, Episcopal, and Catholic Member's Vote Choice for Congress
No full textThe research question that I have can be posed as this: What are the most important factors that influence a respondent's (consisting of the ELCA, the Episcopalians, and the Roman Catholics) vote for Congress in 1998? This is necessary for a number of reasons. The first is that understanding the relationship between constituents and a member of Congress can better help us comprehend the often-overlooked organization of Congress and the actions of it. We can see that this type of constituency that favors factors X, Y, and Z is selecting certain members of Congress. The second reason that this is important to test is that we can better grasp the nature of the political behavior of ELCA, Episcopal, and Catholic members. These churches "function as political communities by promoting attitudinal consensus: the more conservative the congregation theologically, the more strong the individuals within it adopt conservative political positions" (Wald, Owen, and Hill 543). The third reason why this test is so important is that over the last twenty years, there has been a modest increase in Democratic adherence among faithful mainline Protestants. The mainline Protestants, like the Catholics, have become a swing constituency (Folwer, Hertzke, and Olson 106). I hope to tease out certain tendencies like this that the regression models might show to distinguish the political behavior of these denominations.Who's Voting for the President's 'Stupid Cousin': An Examination ofELCA,
Episcopal, and Catholic Member's Vote Choice for Congress
Devin Colvin, Gustavus Adolphus College
Political Science Thesis
Prepared for Dr. Chris Gilbert
5/21/01
Gustavus Student Repository
Throughout the last twenty years, much of the public's attention has been focused
towards the presidency. Why not? The presidency is where all the action, glamour, and
intrigue are generated for in American politics. Consequently, much of the political
research that is done focuses on the President and especially on how people decide to
vote for a particular candidate for President. Presidential vote choice is a staple of
political behavior that political scientists love to study and create theories for. An
important fact that I would like to note is that although the President is the central figure
associated with the American government, he is not the only actor. We Americans live in
a republic, not a democracy. We tend to forget that we elect people that are supposed to
make responsible decisions for the greater good of the people. The people that we elect
to make those tough decisions are called the members of Congress. Congress as a body
is an equal and influential actor in the political sphere of the American society. Much too
often, Congress is treated like the President's 'stupid cousin' and I think that more
attention should be directed towards congressional vote choice.
The examination of congressional vote choice is not an easy task. The duty of
these people is no less important than that of the President, there just happen to be 535 of
them. The members of the House of Representatives serve two-year terms, and all are
elected from geographically determined single-member districts, and these districts with
few exceptions are local districts (Gant and Luttbeg 155). The first step in deciding how
to investigate congressional vote choice is to decide what portion of the American
electorate can help to present a reasonable cross-section of voting behavior. There are
many different ways that this assessment can be done. Congressional vote choice can be
looked at by gender, income, race, education, and religion. I think that religion is an
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especially fascinating way to approach the question of Congressional vote choice.
People who attend church and are religiously active tend to be attentive towards politics
and have strong political opinions (Wald, Owen, and Hill 533). The churches are
contexts that provide many avenues for political cues and messages, by bringing church
members together on a regular basis for formal worship and promoting informal social
interaction among congregants (Wald, Owen, and Hill 533; Gilbert et al. 2001). Groups
like the ELCA Lutherans, the Episcopalians, and the Catholics have proven to have been
valuable in studying politically orientated religious denominations. I think that it is
against this framework that it is best to explore Congressional vote choice.
The research question that I have can be posed as this: What are the most
important factors that influence a respondent's (consisting of the ELCA, the
Episcopalians, and the Roman Catholics) vote for Congress in 1998? This is necessary
for a number of reasons. The first is that understanding the relationship between
constituents and a member of Congress can better help us comprehend the oftenoverlooked
organization of Congress and the actions of it. We can see that this type of
constituency that favors factors X, Y, and Z is selecting certain members of Congress.
The second reason that this is important to test is that we can better grasp the nature of
the political behavior of ELCA, Episcopal, and Catholic members. These churches
"function as political communities by promoting attitudinal consensus: the more
conservative the congregation theologically, the more strong the individuals within it
adopt conservative political positions" (Wald, Owen, and Hill 543). The third reason
why this test is so important is that over the last twenty years, there has been a modest
increase in Democratic adherence among faithful mainline Protestants. The mainline
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Protestants, like the Catholics, have become a swing constituency (Folwer, Hertzke, and
Olson 106). I hope to tease out certain tendencies like this that the regression models
might show to distinguish the political behavior of these denominations.
EXISTING RESEARCH
The prevailing theories that rest upon figuring out the determining factors that
influence the American vote for members of Congress have been well documented. Party
identification and political ideology are usually the most important cues in understanding
the nature of any vote, and this no different from that of a vote for a candidate in a
Congressional race (Gant and Luttbeg 166-172). Research has shown that partisans stay
partisan in the vote for Congress. The partisan voters have little information on
candidates and especially on challengers, so as a by-product of this connection;
incumbents are usually re-elected (Flanigan and Zingale 183). As these are important
variables in determining vote choice, I would naturally expect these to be a big part of the
regression models.
Throughout the last thirty years, a great deal of scholarly research has been
directed towards uncovering additional factors that drive the vote choice of an American
citizen. Many assertions and voting patterns can be drawn from voting in Presidential
races as they do indeed have correlation and parallels to Congressional races. The
additional social categories that were found to have significant influence on vote choice
for Presidential and Congressional elections are: race, gender, social class, education,
income, union membership, and Protestant and Catholic categories of religion
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(Abramson, Aldrich, and Rohde 238). I would expect that at a minimum, one of these
factors would show up in the models. Of course, the Protestant and Catholic categories
are the focus of my study, so I naturally hypothesize that personal and church-related
attributes of these denominations are going to be highly significant.
Findings in the past have shown that contextual church factors do affect
individual vote choice more than partisanship, and that the involvement in the church
through attendance or group activity increases the relevance of the church as factor that
influences individual political behavior (Gilbert 87). Summarily, these factors seem to be
a mechanism that works in all kinds of different congregations, as the data has appeared
consistent across a multitude of faith traditions and denominations (Gilbert 87-88).
Churches are a valuable context due to the fact that when the environment sends out
messages that are inclined to conflict with core theological assumptions, the tendency
among churchgoers bends to the political guidance offered by the congregational
environment (Wald, Owen, and Hill 546). It is safe to say that these churches are an
influencing force that helps to shape the views of these religious participants in the
political realm. A large factor that accurately demonstrates the effects of churches on
political behavior is church attendance. The more people attend church, they will tend be
more conservative in their political as well as their religious views. These people will
have had the propensity to be exposed to political communications within the church,
whether from the pulpit, fellow parishioners, or from casual conservations among like
minded congregants (Miller and Shanks 221).
David Leege has demonstrated in the past that there is a definite political
distinctiveness of Catholics and evangelical to mainline Protestants and I feel that their
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attributes lead to a flavor that helps us to better understand not only their political
behaviors, but also the voting behavior toward the vote for Congress. Leege has
documented the shift of some of the Catholic voters to the Republican Party ever since
the Reagan presidency (Leege 14 ).
Gant and Luttberg contend that local forces, the characteristics of the candidates,
and the characteristics of voters largely determine the outcome of congressional elections.
Local forces are an important predictor of voting behavior and at the heart of local forces
is issue voting. People pay attention to many issues that affect them personally and that
play a role in their communities (Gant and Luttberg 172-173). On examination of the
opposite side of the spectrum, those involved in Congressional races contend that issues
play a dominant role in determining vote choice. 47 percent of Congressional candidates
surveyed in a 1992 poll said that issues were the primary focus of their message and that
policy concerns definitely reciprocate a voter connection (Hermson 170-17 1). The issues
are important; they have to be. The issues separate candidates, distinguish challengers,
help gain media attention, and they ensure that political debate becomes more meaningful
(Hermson 172). I think that it is safe to say that specific issues are cues that people use
as determinant in vote choice. Topics like school prayer, abortion, and the economy are
hot-button topics that serve to incite the decisiveness of every American. I would expect
that issues would play a prominent role in my own regression models.
THE ELCA/EPISCOPAL CONGREGATIONS STUDY
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The nature of the information that I am testing comes from an ELCA and
Episcopal congregations study that was conducted by Dr. Chris Gilbert and Dr. Paul
Djupe at Gustavus Adolphus College in 1999 and 2000. This will consist of the first
section of my analysis, which will then be followed by the Catholic analysis of the NBS
data. Djupe and Gilbert conducted a member survey from 60 congregations, 38 ELCA
and 22 Episcopal, all of whom had clergy respond to a previous clergy study. The
churches were chosen due to fact that they had not been studied in recent times and these
two churches are significant actors in mainline Protestantism, with eight million members
combined (Gilbert et al. 2001). Approximately 1,050 ELCA and 550 Episcopal
congregation members answered the extensive survey. There were questions asked on
personal religious political beliefs, participation, and behavior, as well as questions about
the congregation, the minister's political activity, the denomination's political and
religious activities, and comparison questions about the respondent's community.
The survey also asked respondents about to name political discussion partners and
to identify the relationships between the respondent and discussant and the political
beliefs and behavior of the discussion partner. This type of data is not normally collected
in U.S. national surveys and helps to give us valuable information on an active subset of
the American electorate. The Gilber t-Djupe survey asks the typical questions that
incorporate the traditional seven-point party identification measure, a five-point measure
of political ideology, and the vote choice of the elections that survey post-dated- the
1998 congressional election and the 1996 presidential election. The respondents in the
ELCA/Episcopal study voted in overwhelming numbers in these elections, thus giving
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my examination a solid comparative base. The focus is the congressional elections of
1998, but the presidential election of 1996 provides a nice variable in the testing.
ELCA/EPISCOPAL 1998 CONGRESSIONAL VOTE MODELS
In testing the information from the ELCA and Episcopal members, I ran logit
regression models to predict a higher level of significance of the cases. Inside the
separate models for the ELCA and Episcopalian respondents, I used an analysis created
by Dr. Gilbert and others to better understand the information inside the regressions.
This makes the models much easier to comprehend and evaluate. The analysis of the
models will be done in terms of four sets of independent variables: discussion partner
factors; congregation factors; respondent religious attributes, and respondent other
attributes.
Methods
In addition to ELCNEpiscopal study by the Gustavus professors, I will also be
using the NES survey of 1998 in order to study the Congressional vote choice of
Catholics and the factors that influenced the vote, comparing it to that of the Lutherans
and the Episcopalians. Although the NES (which will be referred to later) does not ask
the specific religious questions to the depth that the Gilbert-Djupe survey does, I will
attempt to use the NES sample to make summary comparisons between the ELCA,
Episcopal, and Catholic members. All in all, these data sets will allow me to identify the
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most important factors that help to determine how these members voted for Congress in
1998, and then subsequently draw references and comparisons to how the specific factors
matter and make Congressional voting distinctive from Presidential in overall voting by
the American public.
H)!potheses
The ELCA and Episcopal member regression models should be very diverse. I
anticipate a wide array of many factors that should play important and significant roles.
As I have noted before, the variables concerning political ideology, vote choice, and party
identification I would expect to be very significant (a safe hypothesis). In the 1996
congressional elections, 72 percent of all "traditionalist" mainline Protestants (usually
associated towards the evangelical end of the mainliners) voted for Republican
congressional candidates. This was in contrast to the 46 percent of "modernist"
Protestants, including the ELCA and the Episcopalians, who voted for a Republican for
Congress in 1996 (Folwer, Hertzke, and Olson 106). As the ELCA and the Episcopals
are in the modernist camp, and the trend has them leaning towards the Democratic side of
the spectrum, I would expect this trend to continue in 1998 and show up my model.
I also expect that discussion partner factors, with regards to the specific issues, to
be highly significant inside the models. I would expect that most independent variables
would align in the same direction as the respondent's views and actions. This is where
the ideology and party identification indicators will show up and rest in the above
described relationship with that of the discussion partner's views.
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In connection with this aspect, the respondent's other attributes, specifically the
issues, should play a major and significant role in the models. Issues like school prayer,
abortion, the environment, social concerns, gay rights, and health care are important to
these denominations, and I expect to see many if not all of these issues playing a factor in
the models. I do not expect to find many demographic factors playing a big role in the
models.
I would expect the congregational factors to have a slight measure of importance
in the models, those being perceptions and influences of congregations having a
particular directional effect on the respondent. The congregations should have an
influence on issues and theological beliefs of the respondent. However, the frequency
and type of the message are important, and does vary from individual church to church.
Finally, I also hope to find that the religious attributes would play a large role in
determining Congressional vote choice for the respondents, especially for the Episcopal
respondents. The Episcopal Church has generally been much more politically engaged
than the ELCA Lutherans are thought to be (Djupe, Gilbert, and Moberg 7). The
politically orientated Episcopalians seem to be more comfortable with politics as the
Lutherans often shun political discourse and are apolitical (Djupe, Gilbert, Moberg 7). I
would think that if any religious factors appear in the models, they would show
significance on the Episcopal side of the realm.
Frequencies
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In examining the voting behavior of the Lutheran and the Episcopal Church
members in the 1998 Congressional election, it is extremely helpful to study the
frequencies of the dependent variable in order to view the overall picture. In the ELCA
(Table 1.1), 54.6 percent of the members surveyed voted Republican for Congress in
1998, while 44.6 percent of respondents voted for a Democrat. These numbers seem to
conform with the Republican affiliation and the conservative to moderate leaning of the
ELCA church members. In contrast to the vote for Congress for the Lutherans, 46.1
percent of ELCA church members voted for Bill Clinton in the 1996 Presidential
election, 45.3 percent voted for Bob Dole in 1996, and 8.6 percent voted for Ross Perot in
1996. These numbers don't conform to the typical attitudes of the ELCA Lutherans and
help to show why more attention to the specific study of the Congressional vote choice is
warranted.
ELCA Vote for Congress in 1998 Models
Out of the Episcopal members surveyed (Table 1.1), 50.6 percent voted for a
Republican in the 1998 Congressional elections, while 49.1 percent of the Episcopal
respondents voted for Democrat. This is not the trend for the Episcopalians in the 1996
Presidential election, as 53.1 percent of Episcopal members surveyed voted for Bill
Clinton, 38.2 percent voted for Bob Dole, and 8.7 percent chose Ross Perot. The
Episcopal respondents voted heavily Democrat in the Presidential election, yet
maintained a slight majority in the Congressional elections.
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The ELCA respondents had numerous independent variables that had significant
affects on the 1998 vote for Congress. In Table 1.2, the independent variables produced
spanned the entire range of the four categories. The regression model showed some clear
and positive relationships. As expected, the variables of party identification of the
respondent and the vote for President in 1996 by the respondent proved to be at the
highest level of significance, the 0.01 level. The nature of the relationship is as expected
as well. If an ELCA respondent voted for Bob Dole for President in 1996 or is a
Republican, then she/he was most likely to vote for a Republican for Congress in 1998.
Other positive relationships that proved to be significant from the regression models and
were also significant at the 0.01 level included the independent variables of ELCA
respondents who feel that their discussion partner voted Republican for Congress in 1998
and respondents who feel that their congregation is more religiously liberal than they are.
This trend of significance in the positive relationships continues as ELCA members that
feel that the whole of their congregation voted Republican for Congress in 1998 and
respondents that strongly agree with the statement that we need more spending for
defense also were at the 0.01 level of statistical significance. These relationships tell us
that if an ELCA church member feels that they strongly agree with more defense
spending or that if they feel that their discussion partner voted Republican for Congress
in 1998, then they themselves would be most likely to vote for a Republican for Congress
in 1998.
The only positive relationship that didn't maintain any level of statistical
significance was how satisfied the ELCA member is with the time that their clergy
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devotes to politics. This indicates that in this particular model, the respondent's religious
attribute was not as important towards the prediction of vote choice for Congress in 1998.
The regression model also provided me with many independent variables that had
a negative relationship, thus making the result focus towards the Democratic part of the
vote for Congress in 1998. Not as many of these variables showed to be significant, as
did most independent variables on the positive side for the ELCA church members.
ELCA members that felt that their congregation members are more politically
conservative than they are and members that feel that the environment is very important
are the variables on the negative side of the regression tables that had a statistical
significance at the 0.01 level. The variables of respondents that feel that the environment
is very important is an intriguing analysis. If an ELCA member feels that the
Evaluating the impact of vocabulary instruction on oral vocabulary, phonemic awareness and nonword reading
No full textVocabulary teaching has traditionally focused on word meanings to aid reading comprehension, however evidence also suggests that vocabulary knowledge influences phonemic awareness and word reading. Vocabulary instruction concentrating on the sound structure of new words alongside meaning (combined sound-meaning vocabulary instruction) improves vocabulary for learners with speech and language difficulties. Emerging research suggests it may deliver similar results as a classroom strategy for young children. Researchers have questioned whether combined instruction would additionally enhance phonemic awareness and phonic decoding. A teaching intervention with 273 children aged 5–6 in the United Kingdom compared meaning-based instruction, combined instruction and usual classroom instruction (age-matched controls) over 24 weeks with three testing points. A daily vocabulary lesson incorporating evidence-based principles was delivered by classroom teachers. After intervention both instructional groups performed significantly higher than controls on taught vocabulary, and all groups performed equally on phonemic awareness and nonword reading. Delayed post-test results require more cautious interpretation due to the lack of a hierarchical design. Combined instruction resulted in the highest taught vocabulary and phonic reading outcomes; phonemic awareness in the combined condition was significantly higher than controls. Results tentatively suggest that combined instruction is an inclusive approach for whole-class use in early schooling
Stressful Home Environment and the Child's Socio-Emotional Development
No full textChildren's early life socio-emotional skills predict long-run socio-economic outcomes, yet large disparities exist between these skills at early ages. In this paper, we study whether reducing home environmental stressors can reduce these early-life skill disparities, and how this depends on children’s pre-existing socio-emotional skills. To do so, we estimate a dynamic model of socio-emotional skill production that depends on parental investment, including the parent’s mental health and parenting style, and accounts for unobserved heterogeneity in child ability. Using the model, we find that improving sensitive parenting and mothers’ psychological well-being has a larger impact on children who have lower initial levels of socio-emotional skills. We also find that children’s pre-existing skills and parental inputs are substitutes, which has implications for which policies may best address later skill disparities
The structure of the Tad pilus alignment complex reveals a periplasmic conduit for pilus extension
No full textThe Tad (Tight adherence) pilus is a bacterial appendage implicated in virulence, cell-cell aggregation, and biofilm formation. Despite its homology to the well-characterised Type IV pilus, the structure and assembly mechanism of the Tad pilus are poorly understood. Here, we investigate the role of the Tad pilus protein RcpC from Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Our analyses reveal that RcpC forms a dodecameric periplasmic complex, anchored to the inner membrane by a transmembrane helix, and interacting with the outer membrane secretin RcpA. We use single-particle Cryo-EM to elucidate the structure of the RcpC dodecamer, and cell-based assays to demonstrate that the RcpC-RcpA complex is essential for Tad-mediated cell-cell aggregation. Collectively, these data demonstrate that RcpC forms the Tad pilus alignment complex, which provides a conduit across the periplasm for the Tad pilus filament to access the extracellular milieu. Our experimental data and structure-based model allow us to propose a mechanism for Tad plus assembly
Dominant end-tunneling effect in two distinct Luttinger liquids coexisting in one quantum wire
No full textLuttinger liquids occupy a notable place in physics as one of the most understood classes of quantum many-body systems. The experimental mission of measuring its main prediction, power laws in observable quantities, has already produced a body of exponents in different semiconductor and metallic structures. Here, we combine tunneling spectroscopy with density-dependent transport measurements in the same quantum wires over more than two orders of magnitude in temperature to very low electron temperatures down to ∼40 mK. This reveals that, when the second 1D subband becomes populated, the temperature dependence splits into two ranges with different exponents in the power-law dependence of the conductance, both dominated by the finite-size effect of the end-tunneling process. This result demonstrates the importance of measuring the Luttinger parameters as well as the number of modes independently through spectroscopy in addition to the transport exponent in the characterization of Luttinger liquids. This opens a pathway to unambiguous interpretation of the exponents observed in quantum wires
Enamel Proteins Reveal Biological Sex and Genetic Variability within Southern African Paranthropus
No full textParanthropus robustus is a morphologically well-documented Early Pleistocene hominin species from southern Africa with no genetic evidence reported so far. In this work, we describe the mass spectrometric sequencing of enamel peptides from four ~2 million–year-old dental specimens attributed morphologically to P. robustus from the site of Swartkrans in South Africa. The identification of AMELY-specific peptides enabled us to assign two specimens to male individuals, whereas semiquantitative mass spectrometric data analysis attributed the other two to females. A single amino acid polymorphism and the enamel-dentine junction shape variation indicated potential subgroups present within southern African Paranthropus. This study demonstrates how palaeoproteomics can help distinguish sexual dimorphism from other sources of variation in African Early Pleistocene hominins
Lymph node mapping-based optimal bowel-resection margin and central radicality in colon cancer surgery: an international, prospective, observational cohort study
No full textBackground
Substantial variations in the extent of lymphadenectomy are acknowledged internationally in colon cancer surgery because essential data for standardization, including the anatomical distribution of metastatic lymph nodes (LN), are lacking.
Materials and methods
Pre-specified LN mappings based on in vivo bowel measurements were conducted for stages I-III colon cancer patients treated at 31 leading hospitals in six countries. The extent of lymphadenectomy was classified from levels A (pericolic) to C (central LNs) according to the pre-specified anatomical landmarks. The primary outcome was the extent of pericolic lymphatic spread and the incidence of metastasis in central LNs, and secondary ones included the real-world status of central radicality and its association with short-term outcomes.
Results
Among 3647 patients, pericolic spread beyond 10 cm (0.2%) and absence of feeding arteries supplying the bowel within 10 cm from the primary tumor (0.3%) were rare, irrespective of nationality. The incidence of metastasis in central LNs was ∼3% (range: 0.2% in T1 to 7% in T4 tumors) and was lower in tumors located at the splenic flexure (0.5%). The proportion of patients with level C radicality was ∼76%, which was statistically significantly associated with T stage only in one country. A higher radicality level conferred no adverse impact on either the incidence of Clavien–Dindo grade ≥III or 30-day mortality.
Conclusions
The ‘10-cm rule’ could be an international criterion for determining the bowel-resection margin. Central lymphadenectomy is feasible internationally, though the indication should be selective, not routine, depending on the stage and location of the primary tumor