Research
Publications
How did firms adjust their corporate political activity (CPA) in response to the January 6th Capitol Insurrection? Through a longitudinal study of campaign contributions from Fortune 500 companies’ political action committees (PACs) to members of Congress (MCs), I estimate the size and duration of corporate penalties toward legislators who objected to the 2020 election results. Using a Difference-in-Differences (DID) design, I find a sharp but declining penalty against election deniers in the 2022 and 2024 election cycles. While firms that pledged to cut off their contributions did so to the greatest degree, I find evidence of this behavior across most large corporations. I suggest that corporate social responsibility (CSR) and concerns over public reputation shape corporate responsiveness to political shocks like January 6th, and show that more visible corporations were more likely to keep their distance from election deniers. These findings emphasize the important trade-off between access-seeking behavior and public reputation in the corporate response to political controversies, and in CPA more generally.
Working Papers
Well-resourced interest groups often have the upper hand in legislative processes. They have capacity to lobby, making routine contact with policymakers to share opinions and expertise. Yet interest groups that do not lobby have other less costly ways to communicate preferences to policymakers. We develop an index of interest group diversity and show that letters of support from smaller, less politically active groups increase the likelihood a bill passes committee, particularly when writers differ in their organizational profiles. Our investigation focuses on the struggle over policies that respond to the impacts of climate change—an issue mobilizing a huge range of organized interests and posing great risks to contemporary society. We leverage a unique opportunity to observe both lobbying and letter writing on bills introduced in the California legislature. Findings suggest that interest groups with fewer resources can be effective policy advocates in shifting policy landscapes, even when lobbying occurs.
This paper was developed in conjunction with UC Riverside’s Water Dialogue project.
It is almost impossible to change the United States Constitution, yet members of Congress (MCs) continue to introduce resolutions to do so. Why do they do this? I argue that the sponsorship of constitutional amendments in modern congressional politics is a unique form of low-cost position-taking. Examining the House of Representatives across four decades of constitutional stagnation, I use a two-stage approach to analyze which members engage in amendment sponsorship, and when they do so. First, I find that more ideologically marginalized members are more likely to sponsor amendments. Second, I show that MCs sponsor amendments when they are more electorally vulnerable and institutionally weak. I also find that the role of ideology is asymmetric and time-variant. Among MCs who entered Congress prior to 1997, more conservative members in each party were more likely to become amendment sponsors. Today, sponsorship is more closely related to ideological extremity among both Democrats and Republicans.
How, when, and why do candidates for Congress emphasize democracy as an important issue? Following the Supreme Court decisions in Citizens United v. FEC, Crawford v. Marion County Election Board, and Shelby County v. Holder, as well as the January 6th Capitol Insurrection and attempts to subvert the 2020 Presidential Election, issues surrounding democracy—voting rights, campaign finance reform, gerrymandering, and the stability of electoral institutions—have become highly salient in modern American politics. Numerous polls showed democracy as the top concern for many voters in the 2024 election. Each Democratic presidential candidate to run against Trump has emphasized this issue to some degree, but we know less about how this issue is framed and deployed in congressional campaigns. Is democracy “on the ballot” in these elections? In this paper, I study how Democratic House candidates discussed issues of democracy on their campaign websites in the 2024 general election. I scrape the issue pages on archived campaign websites from 392 Democratic House candidates in 2024, and study the determinants of democratic issue emphasis. I find a divergence between the kinds of incumbents and challengers who brand themselves as “protectors of democracy,” with initial suggestive evidence showing that challengers are more responsive to their district’s characteristics, while incumbents are more averse to this issue, especially in close races. I also show that a candidate’s focus on other key issues of the 2024 campaign—the economy, immigration, and abortion—are not predicted by these same characteristics. Finally, using early data from the 119th Congress, I show that adopting the brand of a democratic champion is also negatively correlated with voting alongside Republicans for more conservative and vulnerable members.
What does the American Civil Religion look like in a polarized country? Using data from the 2016 American National Election Study (ANES) on feelings towards the American flag—the most prominent symbol of our political religion—as a surrogate for civil religious sentiment, we first find a relatively positive affect towards the nation, with variation across partisan and religious groups. However, we demonstrate that certain groups—Christians, Republicans, and Trump supporters—connect their strong positive feelings toward the flag not (so much) through their attachment with American identity, but to a higher degree through their religious and partisan identities. These findings suggest that the symbol of the American flag is being co-opted by sectarian interests. While the American Civil Religion identified by Robert Bellah persists, our finding suggest that it is weakened by increasing attachment to particular group identities.
Public Writing
The 26th Amendment Turns 50 Amid Renewed Voter Suppression - Brennan Center Analysis, with Stuart Baum and Brianna Cea
Uncivil Religion in an Uncivil War - Newsweek
The 19th Amendment at 100 - Brennan Center Opinion
The Promise and Pitfalls of the 15th Amendment Over 150 Years - Brennan Center Analysis, with Wilfred U. Codrington III
The Equal Rights Amendment, Explained - Brennan Center Explainer, with Wilfred U. Codrington III
Is the GOP Warming Up to the Equal Rights Amendment? - Brennan Center Analysis, with John F. Kowal
The National Popular Vote Explained - Brennan Center Explainer
Continuing the Fight for Constitutional Equality - Ms. Magazine, with Wilfred U. Codrington III