United States--Congress--Voting

This thesis examines the impact of electoral forces on party unity scores among Florida's Democratic congressional delegation from 1972 to 1992. The impacts of in-migration of non-southern whites, immigration of Hispanics, realignment into the Republican Party, and the enfranchisement of Black voters were analyzed. The increased party unity scores among Florida's Democratic Representatives was determined to be primarily the result of in-migration and realignment which resulted in a smaller, but more homogeneous Democratic delegation, a trend likely to continue.

The relationship between New Right funding in the 1980 election
and conservative congressional voting by freshmen Republicans
in the 97th Congress is examined in a multi-stage
process. Chapter I briefly outlines the previous studies
dealing with congressional roll call voting. An examination
is then made in Chapter II to determine the issue positions
of the New Right and the movement's 1980 congressional election
funding activities. Chapter III uses these established
issue positions to determine conservative support scores
within three policy dimensions. An initial analysis of the
relationship is then made to determine if New Right funding
is a predictive variable within the roll call analysis. With
this established relationship Chapter IV uses regression
analysis to determine the predictive strength of the New
Right funding when it is compared with the factors most often
cited as roll call determinants.