JOHN M. WEGNER
Partisanship in the Ohio House of
Representatives, 1900-1911: An Analysis
of Roll-Call Voting
Students of legislative behavior have
long had a penchant for examining the
workings of the United States Congress,
foreign parliaments, and other na-
tional assemblies. They have paid less attention to
state legislatures.
Despite a growing interest in
subnational legislative bodies, research on state
legislatures is still in its infancy.1
Lack of attention by historians to this
area of research is particularly
surprising when one considers the pivotal posi-
tion occupied by these bodies in the
past. Until the 1930s, when the activist
programs of the New Deal tipped government's
"center of gravity" to
Washington, state legislatures exercised
a disproportionate amount of power
over the lives of citizens.2
Although systematic investigations of
legislative behavior at the state level
have taken a "back seat" to
national studies, one facet of research-that per-
taining to party voting-has not been so
sorely neglected.3 Beginning in the
1950s, numerous studies appeared which
assessed the nature and impact of
partisanship on the legislative process
in state assemblies.4 Historians, how-
ever, can take little comfort from these
studies since their ambit has been al-
John M. Wegner teaches American history
courses at colleges in northwest Ohio and south-
east Michigan. He would like to thank
Drs. James Q. Graham and Bernard Sternsher, emeriti
of the Department of History at Bowling
Green State University, and James Marshall, Donna
Christian and the staff of the Local
History and Genealogy Department of the Toledo-Lucas
County Public Libary for their help and
suggestions during the research process.
1. Ballard C. Campbell, Representative
Democracy: Public Policy and Midwestern
Legislatures in the Late Nineteenth
Century (Cambridge, Mass., 1980), 1;
Malcolm E. Jewell,
The State Legislature: Politics and
Practice, second ed., (New York,
1969), 3.
2. Campbell, 2; Philip R. VanderMeer, The
Hoosier Politician: Officeholding and Political
Culture in Indiana 1896-1920 (Urbana, 1985), 3.
3. Jonathan P. Euchner,
"Partisanship in the Iowa Legislature: 1945-1989," paper presented
at the Annual Meeting of the Midwest
Political Science Association, Chicago, Illinois, April 5-
7, 1990, 2.
4. As examples, see Malcolm E. Jewell,
"Party Voting in American State Legislatures," The
American Political Science Review, 49 (September, 1955), 773-91; William J. Keefe,
"Party
Government and Lawmaking in Illinois
General Assembly," Northwestern University Law
Review, 47 (March-April, 1952), 55-71; W. Duane Lockard,
"Legislative Politics in
Connecticut," The American
Political Science Review, 48 (March, 1954), 166-73; and Charles
W. Wiggins, "Party Politics in Iowa
Legislature," Midwest Journal of Political Science, 11
(February, 1967), 86-97.
Partisanship in the Ohio House of
Representatives 147
most exclusively within the recent
(i.e., post-World War II) past.
Notwithstanding a very few historical
studies on party voting, our knowledge
in this area is quite limited.5
It is the purpose of this study to
investigate the impact of party on roll-call
voting in the Ohio House of
Representatives during the early progressive pe-
riod. Time and place were selected so as
to provide a particularly rich setting
in which to examine this phenomenon.
During the first years of the twenti-
eth century, the so-called
"Progressive Era," existing political institutions
found themselves under increased
pressure to respond to vast changes in the
social and economic order.6 Old
political habits, including established forms
of partisanship, were subject to the
stresses accompanying these changes.
Ohio, a wealthy industrial state of
durable political traditions, occupied a key
position in a region acutely sensitive
to changes in the national polity.7 Its
institutions of government-including the
state legislature-were intimately
caught up in the struggle over the major
political issues of this period.8
This investigation will be concerned
first of all with answering three gen-
eral questions about the nature of party
voting. First, how frequently and to
what degree did the major political
parties divide during roll-call votes?
Second, did levels of party voting vary
noticeably throughout the period, and
further, do these variations appear
related to changes in the relative sizes of
party delegations or divided control of
executive and legislative branches of
government? Third, were certain public
policy issues more likely than others
to provoke partisan discord? In addition
to examining party voting (i.e., divi-
sions between the parties), this
study will also ascertain levels of party cohe-
sion (i.e., unity within the
parties) for all sessions in order to understand
more fully the dynamics of the party
factor in the legislative process.
Finally, an attempt will be made to
determine whether party voting reflected
randomized approaches to public policy
or whether it was rooted in substan-
tive differences between the parties.
This study will investigate partisanship
in the six regular sessions of the
Ohio House from 1900 to 1911.9
An essential prerequisite to any study of
5. Two of the best historical studies
which consider party voting in state legislatures are
Campbell, Representative Democracy; and
James Edward Wright, The Politics of Populism:
Dissent in Colorado (New Haven, 1974).
6. Jewell, State Legislature, 9;
VanderMeer, 2-3.
7. Graham Hutton, Midwest At Noon (Chicago,
1946), 294-95; also, as Meredith Nicholson
notes: "Outside of New York and
Pennsylvania, .. . here is no region where the cards are so
tirelessly shuffled as in the Middle
Western commonwealths, particularly in Ohio, Indiana,
Illinois, and Kansas, which no party can
pretend to carry jauntily in its pocket." The Valley of
Democracy (New York, 1918), 185-86.
8. Harlow Lindley, Ohio in the
Twentieth Century, 1900-1938, Vol. VI of The History of the
State of Ohio, ed. by Carl Wittke (Columbus, 1942), 4.
9. A total of nine sessions is actually
included in the analysis. In addition to six regular ses-
sions, several additional meetings of
the General Assembly were held between 1900 and 1911.
In 1902 a brief "special
session" of the Seventy-fifth General Assembly was held to consider a
148 OHIO HISTORY
legislative partisanship is the presence of a competitive two-party system, and Ohio in this regard certainly qualifies.10 By the turn of the century, the Buckeye State had developed a strong two- party system. Democrats and Republicans actively vied for supremacy, and victory margins were often extremely close.11 The durability of the two-party system is reflected in the composition of the House (Table 1). In all sessions |
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but one, minority party representation was substantial, ranging from 38 to 47 percent of the total. The lone exception was the Seventy-sixth General Assembly, where, emerging from an election campaign in which Mark Hanna's organizational skills had been finely honed, the Republicans out- numbered their Democratic opponents by a margin of four to one.
new municipal code. Also, a constitutional amendment passed in 1905 changed elections from odd to even-numbered years. As a result, members of the Seventy-seventh General Assembly had their terms extended an additional year, and a "second session" was held in 1908. Also, to accommodate the changes engendered by the amendment, the Seventy-eighth General Assembly held a brief "extraordinary session" in 1909 and returned for a second the following year. 10. Malcolm E. Jewell, and Samuel C. Patterson, The Legislative Process in the United States, first ed., (New York, 1966), 422. 11. Thomas A. Flinn, "The Outline of Ohio Politics," The Western Political Quarterly, 13 (September, 1960), 702; Jewell, "Party Voting," 779; Ohio Almanac 1973 (Lorain, Ohio, 1972), 19. |
Partisanship in the Ohio House of
Representatives 149
Association with the Democratic or
Republican party was virtually essential
if a candidate was to succeed in
election. In the sessions of 1900 to 1911 no
member of a minor party won a seat in
the House, and only seven members
out of a total of 687, or just over one
percent, did not claim regular affiliation
with the Democrats or Republicans.12
The first years of the twentieth century
were a time of political turbulence
in Ohio, and particularly vexing for the
established party organizations in the
state. Boss-domination of parties, a
traditional feature of 19th century poli-
tics, came increasingly under attack
following 1900.13 Groups of reformers,
the so-called "progressives,"
attempted to weed out the most pernicious
abuses of contemporary partisanship
(patronage, dealmaking between parties,
etc.), and a handful even went so far as
to call for the abolition of parties al-
together.14 Whether intended
or not, the progressive insurgency blurred party
lines and created shifting alliances among lawmakers.15 A resurgent
Democratic party, once dominated by
conservative interests and now inspired
by reformers like Tom Johnson of
Cleveland, threatened the traditional major-
ity of the Republican party, itself
increasingly fragmented by battles between
progressives and conservatives.
Selection of Roll Calls
Did these nascent challenges to the
existing party system translate into
shifts in party voting behavior among
state legislators? A detailed examina-
tion of roll calls is an obvious point
of departure. Including all roll calls
taken in the House during this period
would be a ponderous task, and would
even run the risk of producing
misleading results. Most legislative bodies
have a tendency to pass "hurrah
votes," roll calls on which nearly all mem-
bers are in agreement.16 The
inclusion of these unanimous (and nearly unan-
imous) roll calls tends to deflate
actual levels of party conflict. Accordingly,
many researchers have examined only
those votes producing certain minimum
levels of dissent.17
12. Due to their lack of party
affiliation and their very small numbers, these seven members
have been excluded from the analysis of
roll-call voting.
13. Frederic C. Howe, a Cleveland
progressive elected to the Ohio General Assembly in
1905, noted in his autobiography:
"Ohio at that time was managed like a private estate by
Senators Hanna and Foraker." The
Confessions of a Reformer (New York, 1925), 157; for a
brief look at bossism, see Ohio
Almanac 1973, 359-64; for a more extensive treatment, see
Philip D. Jordan, Ohio Comes of Age,
1873-1900, Vol. V of The History of the State of Ohio, ed.
by Carl Wittke (Columbus, 1942),
189-219.
14. Hoyt Landon Warner, Progressivism
in Ohio, 1897-1917 (Columbus, 1964), 32.
15. George W. Knepper, Ohio and Its
People (Kent, Ohio, 1989), 332; Ohio Almanac 1973,
359.
16. Julius Turner, Party and
Constituency: Pressures on Congress, rev. ed. by Edward V.
Schneier, Jr. (Baltimore, 1970), 18-19.
17. As examples, see Jewell, "Party
Voting," 773-91 and Wiggins, 86-97; in a notable ex-
150 OHIO
HISTORY
For purposes of this study a number of
criteria have been established to re-
duce the number of roll calls to
manageable proportions while retaining those
which provide the greatest insight into
the impact of partisanship. First,
only bills pertaining to statewide
policy were considered. Although special
acts of a purely local nature, county or
township for example, were elimi-
nated, all measures relating to general
oversight of municipalities were re-
tained. Second, only final votes on
bills were culled.18 Consideration of
these votes offers a way of studying
legislative behavior at a most crucial
stage in the policymaking process-after
the contents of bills had been final-
ized during amendatory skirmishes and
when these measures were on the verge
of becoming state law. Third, only House
bills and Senate bills considered
by the House were culled; House
resolutions, joint resolutions and memorials
to Congress were eliminated. Finally,
roll calls had to pass a quantitative test
for inclusion in this sample of
"contested votes." Only roll calls in which
two-thirds or more of the total House
membership voted were included in the
sample.19 In addition, a
"contested vote" was defined as one in which at least
15 percent of those voting dissented
from the majority position.20 Use of the
aforementioned criteria produces a pool
of 337 "contested votes." Only these
"contested votes" will be
analyzed during the course of this study.
Party Voting
Since there is no agreement as to just
what constitutes a "party vote," three
indices will be initially employed in
order to gain a broad perspective of the
impact of party on roll-call responses.21
The least stringent of these indices
counts as "party votes" those
roll calls on which a simple majority of the par-
ties have taken opposite sides.22 The
most severe index, propounded by A.
Lawrence Lowell, defines as "true
party votes" those roll calls in which at
least 90 percent of the members of one
party opposed 90 percent or more of
ception, Lockard analyzed party voting
in Connecticut's General Assembly over a twenty year
period and included all roll calls,
including unanimous ones.
18. Final dispensation votes included
passage, defeat, and successful motions to indefinitely
postpone.
19. Consideration of this "degree
of participation" is a good way to avoid sampling in the
selection process and helps insure that
research will be confined to the more strongly con-
tested issues. Lee F. Anderson, Meredith
W. Watts, Jr., and Allen R. Wilcox, Legislative Roll-
Call Analysis (Evanston, 1966), 78-80; use of the
"two-thirds" criterion for selecting roll calls
was adapted from Don S. Kirschner, City
and Country: Rural Responses to Urbanization in the
1920s (Westport, Conn., 1970), 262.
20. David R. Derge uses this "15
percent dissention" standard in studying the Illinois legisla-
ture. "Metropolitan and Outstate
Alignments in Illinois and Missouri Legislative Delegations,"
The American Political Science
Review, 52 (December, 1958), 1054;
Kirschner uses the same
criterion in studying the legislatures
of Illinois and Iowa. City and Country, 262.
21. Campbell, 83; Keefe, 57.
22. Turner, 16.
Partisanship in the Ohio House of Representatives 151
the other party.23 The third index, which sets a more exacting standard than the "simple majority" method, but less than that of the "Lowell index," re- quires a minimum of 60 percent disagreement between the parties. Specifically, the difference between the percentage of "yea" votes in one party and those of the other on a given vote must equal or exceed 60.24 As indicated in Table 2, party did not have an unusually strong impact on voting. No matter what index is employed, party divisions always occurred |
|
on less than half the contested roll calls. Just under 40 percent of the "contested votes" were "party votes" on the majority opposition index. Using the 60 percent disagreement index reduces the incidence of party voting to about 14 percent of the total. Finally, use of Lowell's highly stringent index requiring 90 percent of one party to vote in opposition to 90 percent of the other brings the level down to about two percent-only seven votes out of 337. Although there are no dramatic shifts from session to session,25 there is
23. A. Lawrence Lowell, "The Influence of Party Upon Legislation," Annual Report of the American Historical Association for 1901, 1,324. 24. Keefe uses a "60 percent disagreement" standard to define party votes in his study of the Illinois General Assembly. Both parties, however, must maintain at least 80 percent unity to qualify. "Government and Lawmaking," 58; Campbell also uses a 60 percent disagreement in- dex, but allows for greater proportional variations in the degree of party unity needed to meet this level of disagreement. Representative Democracy, 83. 25. The special session of 1902 was included with the regular one. The extraordinary ses- sion of the Seventy-eighth General Assembly (1909) and the regular session (1910) have been |
152 OHIO HISTORY
one trend which is readily apparent: the
level of party voting tends to decline
throughout the period. The most
significant decline occurs between the sec-
ond session of the Seventy-seventh
General Assembly (1908) and the
Seventy-eighth General Assembly
(1909-10). Using the majority opposition
index, one finds a decrease of nearly 11
percent occurs between these sessions.
In the former, just over 41 percent of
roll calls were party votes-fairly con-
sistent with previous sessions. In the
latter, however, less than one-third of
all roll calls fail to meet even this
most lenient definition of party voting.
Increased factionalism within Republican
ranks is probably the most likely
reason for this diminution in party
voting. During this decade a split had de-
veloped between conservative members of
the GOP (called "standpatters") and
progressives. The progressive faction, previously a minority among
Republicans, was strong enough to
organize the House in 1909.26
Progressive Republicans, who shared some
of the policy positions of Ohio
Democrats, no doubt found it expedient
to cross party lines on a greater num-
ber of votes than before, thereby
leading to an increase in GOP fragmentation
and a concomitant decline in party
voting.27 Ironically, while party voting
decreased on the majority opposition
index, a sudden upsurge is noted on
Lowell's 90 percent disagreement index
during the final session. No roll calls
registered as party votes on the Lowell
index during the Seventy-eighth
General Assembly while just over five
percent did so in the Seventy-ninth,
the highest in the period. The final
(Seventy-ninth General Assembly) ses-
sion marks the first time in twenty
years that Democrats had a majority in the
House and this change in party control
undoubtedly helped generate a new se-
ries of policy conflicts in which party
lines were most tightly drawn. An in-
crease in party voting at the highest
levels of opposition is a natural result.
It has sometimes been asserted that
fluctuations in the relative sizes of
party delegations will affect the level
of party voting. Although several stud-
ies have produced differing results, it
is usually theorized that the closer the
party balance, the greater will be the
incidence of party voting.28 This theory
is not valid for Ohio, and there is some
evidence that the opposite may be
true. Party balance held relatively
constant throughout the period, with one
exception. Republicans outnumbered
Democrats by a four-to-one margin dur-
ing the Seventy-sixth General Assembly
in 1904. Despite this enormous
imbalance, party voting occurred as
frequently-or even more so-than in
combined. In both cases, there was
little change in personnel and the party of the administra-
tion remained constant. The two sessions
of the Seventy-seventh General Assembly (1906 and
1908) are considered separately due to
slight attrition in membership and a change in the ad-
ministration party.
26. Warner, 226.
27. Ibid., 226-27.
28. Wiggins finds little relation
between party balance and party voting. "Party Politics," 86-
87; Campbell finds some relationship. Representative
Democracy, 83.
Partisanship in the Ohio House of
Representatives 153
other years. When measured by the
majority opposition index, party voting
occurred on about 44 percent of the
contested roll calls, the same as for the
immediately preceding and succeeding
sessions. More significantly, party
voting measured at the 60 percent level
of disagreement reached a high point
for the period during the Seventy-sixth
General Assembly, suggesting that
Democrats and Republicans were more
inclined to sharper divisions than in
other years-despite a very large
disparity in the size of the delegations.
Divided control of the executive and
legislative branches is also a poor pre-
dictor of party voting. In the
Seventy-fourth through the Seventy-sixth
General Assemblies, a Republican
governor faced a House of Representatives
controlled by his own party. Control was
divided between a Democratic gov-
ernor and a Republican-dominated House
in the first session of the Seventy-
seventh General Assembly. The ensuing
death of the Democratic governor
and succession of the Republican
lieutenant governor to this office meant that
control of both the House and the
administration reverted to the GOP for the
second session of this assembly (1908).
With the election of a Democrat as
governor in 1908, control was again
divided during the Seventy-eighth
General Assembly (1909 and 1910), while
Democrats took charge of both the
House and governorship during the
Seventy-ninth (1911). Levels of party
voting varied significantly in the two
sessions in which control of the two
branches was divided. Further, the
change from divided control in 1906 to
Republican domination in 1908 produced
only marginally lower rates of party
voting. Although barely significant, the
level of party voting increased from
the Seventy-eighth General Assembly
(divided control) to the Seventy-ninth
(Democratic governor and House).
Comparison of the data culled for this
study with that on other legislative
bodies amplifies the relatively low
level of party voting in the Buckeye State.
Comparisons between studies can be
difficult because of differing methods
used to select roll calls for analysis
as well as standards for defining a "party
vote." Nonetheless, several studies
exist which use methods similar to those
employed here. A. Lawrence Lowell's
study found that members of the lower
chambers of five states in the late 19th
century cast "true party" votes (90
percent opposition) on about 18 percent
of contested roll calls, nearly nine
times the rate of similar votes in Ohio
from 1900 to 1911. Ohio, one of the
states examined by Lowell, ranked third
among the five states in the incidence
of these "true party" votes.29
Lowell's data should be used with caution.
Although unanimous votes were eliminated
from the study, Lowell considered
many procedural motions and resolutions
unrelated to policymaking. As an
example, it was noted that in Ohio only
six of the 18 "true party" votes in
the House concerned legislative matters.
Elimination of all but these six
29. Percentage is derived from data in
Lowell, 541.
154 OHIO HISTORY
votes brings the level of "true
party" voting in Ohio to about three and one-
half percent of contested roll calls.30
In a study of the lower chambers of the
legislatures in three states (Illinois,
Iowa, and Wisconsin) in the 1880s and
1890s, Ballard C. Campbell found that
just over 65 percent of all significant,
non-unanimous votes were "party
votes" as measured by the majority opposi-
tion index. This far outdistanced Ohio
which had a comparable level of just
under 40 percent of the roll calls
studied. Employing the measure of 60 per-
cent disagreement, Campbell's study
found almost 31 percent of roll calls to
be party votes, a figure more than twice
that for Ohio. Using the rigid stan-
dards of Lowell's index, Campbell found
the three legislatures had an average
of 11 percent party voting, far in
excess of the two percent figure for Ohio.31
James Wright's study of the Colorado
House of Representatives in the 1880s
and 1890s generally shows similarly high
levels of partisanship. Although
limited to certain "significant
issues" selected by Wright, this inquiry ascer-
tained that a majority of the major
party delegations opposed each other on 55
percent of the roll calls in the 1887
session. This rate increased to nearly
three-quarters of the roll calls in the
sessions of 1893 and 1894. Using the 60
percent disagreement measurement, Wright
found no party voting in 1887.
There was, however, a dramatic upsurge
to more than one-third of all roll
calls in 1893 and 1894.32
It has generally been assumed that
partisanship is a less significant factor in
decisionmaking in state legislatures
than in the U.S. Congress.33 Two stud-
ies of party voting in Congress during
the early 20th century confirm this as-
sumption. If party voting occurred less
frequently in Ohio than in other state
legislatures of the period, then it was
dwarfed even more by levels in the
United States Congress. In an
examination of all roll call votes in the United
States Senate between 1909 and 1915,
Jerome Clubb and Howard Allen found
that 71 percent qualified as "party
votes" on the majority opposition index,
nearly one and three-quarter times the
number recorded in the Ohio House be-
tween 1900 and 1911.34
Applying Lowell's 90 percent index to all roll call
votes taken in the U. S. House, David
Brady and Phillip Althoff also found a
high level of partisanship. Just over 35
percent of the votes taken in the ses-
sions between 1901 and 1911 were party
votes when measured by this stan-
dard, seventeen times the rate for roll
calls taken in Ohio during the same pe-
riod.35
30. Ibid., 338-39.
31. Campbell, 81-83.
32. Wright, 94, 164, 178.
33. Belle Zeller, ed., American State
Legislatures: Report of the Committee on American
Legislatures, American Political
Science Association (New York, 1954),
189.
34. Jerome M. Clubb and Howard W. Allen,
"Party Loyalty in the Progressive Years: The
Senate, 1909-1915," The Journal
of Politics, 29 (August, 1967), 571-72.
35. David W. Brady and Phillip Althoff,
"Party Voting in the U.S. House of Representatives,
Partisanship in the Ohio House of Representatives 155 |
|
Malcolm Jewell' s study of party voting in the legislatures of eight states in the 1940s provides a means of comparing the frequency of this phenomenon in the early 20th century with that of a later period. Remarkably, levels of party voting had changed very little in the Ohio House. Jewell found that in the sessions of 1941 and 1945, 38 percent of all roll calls found majorities of both parties on opposite sides, a figure which approximates that of 39.8 per- cent for the period 1900 to 1911. Also significant is the fact that Ohio con- tinued to rank low relative to other states in party voting. Jewell found that approximately 56 percent of roll calls taken in the lower chambers of the eight states qualified as party votes, a figure about 18 points higher than that
1890-1910: Elements of a Responsible Party System," The Journal of Politics, 36 (August, 1974), 755-56. |
156 OHIO HISTORY
of the Ohio House alone. Ordinally, Ohio
tied for sixth place in levels of
party voting; five state Houses had
higher rates while only one had lower.36
The question remains whether certain
policy issues were more likely to lead
to party voting than others. In order to
answer this question it was necessary
to classify all contested roll calls
according to policy content. A two-tiered
classification scheme, originally
propounded by Ballard Campbell, was used
in this study.37 All
roll-call votes were assigned to one of five general
"policy spheres" with the roll
calls in each of these spheres subdivided into a
number of much more specific
"policy topics."
The percentage of "party
votes" (i.e., majorities of both major parties in
opposition) in each policy sphere/topic
is shown in Table 3. As indicated,
levels of party contentiousness varied
depending on the type of issue under
consideration. Among the five policy
spheres, roll calls dealing with the
structure of government (creation of
offices, oversight of municipalities,
composition of commissions, etc.) were
most likely to lead to party votes,
with just under half producing majority
opposition. Roll calls pertaining to
the state's fiscal policies were a close
second while those concerning com-
merce and community mores ranked third
and fourth, respectively. Public
services issues produced comparatively
few party votes; only one roll call in
four found majorities of Democrats and
Republicans on opposite sides of the
issue.
Variations in patterns of party voting
may be illustrated by comparing
these ordinal rankings of policy spheres
for Ohio with those obtained by
Ballard Campbell in his study of three
Midwestern legislatures in the late
19th century. Fairly similar rankings
were accorded to three policy spheres:
where government, fiscal policy, and
commerce ranked first, second, and third
(respectively) in producing party votes
in Ohio, these same spheres ranked
second, third, and fourth in levels of
party voting in the other states. The
most significant difference was in the
relative importance attached to mores
issues in producing partisan splits.
While legislators in the states studied by
Campbell were more likely to divide
along party lines in this sphere than any
other, those in Ohio found these issues
to be less a matter of party concern;
community mores ranked fourth among the
five policy spheres in levels of
party voting. Lack of party
contentiousness on public services issues, how-
ever, was consistent. This sphere was
least likely to find Democrats and
Republicans in opposition in Ohio as
well as in the states studied by
Campbell.38
36. Jewell, "Party Voting,"
784.
37. Campbell, 54-78.
38. Ibid., 88-91; ordinal rankings have
been used for comparative purposes because of dif-
ferences in the definition of a
"party vote." This study has analyzed "majority opposition"
votes while Campbell relies on a
"60 percent disagreement" index.
Partisanship in the Ohio House of Representatives 157 |
|
Party voting varied widely among the sixteen policy topics. Legislators voted much more often along party lines on bills relating to the collection of public funds (taxation) than they did on those dealing with spending them (expenditure). Tax bills, in fact, were the single most likely topic to produce opposition between Democrats and Republicans. Although fewer party votes were cast in the area of community mores than most other policy spheres, in- dividual topics varied greatly in degree of party contentiousness. Temperance was bound to be a volatile issue given the activism of various "dry" groups, such as the Anti-Saloon League, in the early 20th century. It is clear that parties in particular were sensitive to debate on these matters. Overall, liquor policy ranked third among the sixteen topics in producing party divisions. Nearly six out of ten roll calls taken on this subject found Democrats and Republicans in opposition. Criminal rights issues were only slightly less contentious, this topic ranking fourth in provoking partisan splits. By con- trast, very little party discord occurred on roll calls relating to school policy and social behavior. On roll calls in the commerce sphere, the parties tended to divide much more often on business and private finance (insurance, bank- |
158 OHIO HISTORY
ing, etc.) bills than on those
concerning agricultural and labor policy and
rights and/or conditions of property
ownership. Some disparity existed in
levels of party voting on topics in the
government sphere. While about four
out of ten roll calls dealing with
elections practices or oversight of the politi-
cal structure produced party splits,
nearly six out of ten roll calls pertaining to
personnel (such as specific issues
related to officeholding) did likewise.
Personnel, in fact, provoked more party
divisions than any other topic save
taxation. Democrats and Republicans
rarely disagreed on public services is-
sues. Roll calls on public health and
safety as well as those of a miscella-
neous nature (mostly fish and game
legislation), however, were almost twice
as likely to result in party opposition
than those concerning road policy-the
least contentious of all topics.
Party Cohesion
Studies examining the influence of party
on legislative voting are most
useful if they move beyond consideration
of divisions between parties to the
question of unity (cohesion) within them
as well. Fragmentation within par-
ties necessarily affects overall levels
of partisanship; consequently, calculation
of cohesion rates offers a good way to
determine reasons for advances or de
dines in party voting.
To what extent did Democrats and
Republicans in the Ohio House unite as
voting blocs? In order to answer this
question, Rice indices of cohesion have
been calculated for Democrats and
Republicans on all 337 "contested roll
calls." The Rice index was selected
primarily for its simplicity and ease of
operation. The index is derived from
converting the number of "yeas" and
"nays" into percentages of the
total number of party members voting. The
index is then expressed as the absolute
difference between the two percent-
ages.39
Democrats maintained slightly higher
levels of cohesion throughout the pe-
riod than Republicans (Table 4). Just
over 40 percent of all the roll calls
found 80 to 100 percent of the Democrats
voting as a bloc (60 or more on the
Rice index). By contrast, slightly less
than 35 percent of the roll calls found
Republicans unified to this degree. On
the other hand, Republicans main-
tained moderate levels of unity (60 to
79 percent of party members, or 20 to
59 on the Rice index) on a somewhat
larger share of roll calls than
Democrats. Both parties were evenly matched
at low cohesion rates (50 to 59
percent voting alike, or 0 to 19 on the
index), with less than one-fifth of all
roll calls appearing in this category.
39. For a concise explanation see
Anderson, Watts and Wilcox, 32-33.
Partisanship in the Ohio House of Representatives 159 |
|
Calculation of cohesion indices for party votes (those in which a majority of one party voted in opposition to the other party) separate from nonparty votes produces a somewhat different distribution. Generally, dissent from party ranks was more common among Republicans than among Democrats. Several other studies have suggested that a majority party is more likely to suffer internal factionalism than the minority.40 The lower cohesion rates observed in the Ohio GOP, which held about 59 percent of House seats in five of six assemblies, lend weight to this view. Significantly, however, high cohesion rates for Republicans declined only on nonparty votes. On roll calls in which the parties opposed each other, Democrats and Republicans were equally successful in maintaining high levels of unity, with at least 80 percent of partisans voting together on 45 percent of all roll calls. Thus, Democrats and Republicans had fairly similar cohesion rates on roll calls which found the parties on opposite sides. Roll calls which saw majorities of both parties on the same side produced a very different distribution. Generally, Democrats were able to maintain levels of unity similar to that ob- tained on party votes while their Republican counterparts were more seriously divided. As the minority party in all but one of the Assemblies, Democrats
40. Clubb and Allen, 580; Wiggins, 91. |
160 OHIO HISTORY |
|
had less chance to affect the final outcome on votes and were less likely to deviate in levels of unity on party and nonparty votes. Republicans, on the other hand, had to protect their margin of majority. On roll calls which found the parties on the same side, there could be greater freedom for members of the GOP to desert party ranks. With the parties going separate ways, how- |
Partisanship in the Ohio House of
Representatives 161
ever, Republican disaffection could
spell defeat. Greater unity was needed, and
(on party votes) Republicans were able
to maintain it.
Neither Democrats nor Republicans were
able to maintain high levels of
cohesion in all sessions (Table 5).
Instead, some rather abrupt shifts are ap-
parent. At the beginning of the period,
Republicans were in relative disarray;
less than one-quarter of the contested
roll calls in the Seventy-fourth General
Assembly found this party unified at an
index level of 60 or more. GOP co-
hesion rose noticeably in the following
session, however. Thirty-six percent
of roll calls in 1902 found Republicans
voting at the highest cohesion levels.
Party cohesiveness fluctuated
significantly in the three sessions from 1904 to
1908. Democrats, ironically, experienced
their greatest levels of unity in
1904, when their party's fortunes were
at their nadir. Outnumbered four to
one by Republicans during this session,
the Democrats achieved 80 percent
unity on over 55 percent of the votes.
Democratic unity suffered a serious
setback during the sessions of 1906 and
1908. Specifically, votes producing
a cohesion index of 60 or more reached a
low point during these sessions
while those engendering the least unity
(0 to 19 on the index) were propor-
tionately more numerous than in other
years. Although this study has not at-
tempted to analyze specific reasons for
party unity (or lack thereof), it may be
inferred that a lockhold of House seats
in the state's two largest counties
(Cuyahoga and Hamilton) by reform
Democrats during these years helped cre-
ate something of a progressive
"phalanx" which aroused the antipathy of more
conservative rural elements in the
party.41 While Democrats
were suffering
their most serious divisions, levels of
unity among Republicans were reach-
ing their highest levels. Exactly half
of all votes in 1906, and not quite half
in 1908, found 80 percent of GOP House
members voting together.
Republican cohesion tumbled late in the
period, with the most significant
decrease in high (60 percent plus) rates
occurring between 1908 and 1909-10.
Not too surprisingly, this decline took
place at the time when the party's
progressive faction first successfully
challenged conservatives in controlling
the Republican delegation in the House.
This factional strife between the
progressive and conservative elements of
the GOP thus appears to be the deci-
sive element in lowering rates of party
voting beginning in 1909.
Democrats, on the other hand,
experienced a rise in high cohesion rates during
the final sessions. In 1911, Democrats
achieved 80 percent unity on over
half the contested roll calls. Attaining
majority status in the House appears
to have been a strong-and
successful-inducement for getting Democrats to
vote together. Democratic unity, oddly
enough, seems related to extremes in
the party's fortunes. In only two
sessions during the period did 80 percent or
more of Democrats vote together on over
half the roll calls; in 1911, when
41. Warner, 175-76.
162 OHIO HISTORY
their party controlled the greatest
share of House seats, and in 1904, when
they controlled the least.
Policy Stances
Did Democrats and Republicans take a
wavering and randomized approach
to the issues which divided them, or did
the parties develop reasonably coher-
ent stances on public policy? In order
to answer this question the positions
the parties took on all bills producing
majority opposition votes have been
examined for the purpose of discerning
any common characteristics. The pro-
cess, while somewhat subjective,
provides a means for making some infer-
ences about the presence (or absence) of
a "guiding philosophy" on policy is-
sues among Ohio's major parties during
the Progressive Era.
Although community mores issues produced
fewer partisan divisions than
other policy spheres, the stances of
Democrats and Republicans were nowhere
as consistently opposed as on two
topics, liquor and social behavior, in this
area. Considering legislation concerning
liquor and social behavior, the most
important generalization is that
Republicans favored extending the powers of
the state to regulate stricter standards
of public morality.
Since at least the 1880s, Ohio
Republicans had been more receptive to
temperance legislation than their
opponents, and there is evidence that this
proclivity continued unabated into the
Progressive Era.42 Liquor was a par-
ticularly "hot" topic after
the founding of the Anti-Saloon League at Oberlin
in 1893,43 and the party
votes on the numerous measures concerning this
subject produced unilateral responses:
Republicans were "dry" and Democrats
were "wet." Consistent with
the League's strategy for drying up the state
piecemeal, Republican legislators backed
measures to extend local-option vot-
ing to residenctial districts,
municipalities, and eventually to entire coun-
ties.44 In 1911, with county
option an accomplished fact, Democrats sup-
ported legislation to loosen its
strictures by permitting "wet" urban centers to
retain their saloons in the event their
counties voted dry.45 Republican
sup-
port for the temperance cause was also
evident in GOP endorsement of mea-
42. Ohio Almanac 1973, 359.
43. For a detailed account of the
evolution of the League see, K. Austin Kerr, Organized for
Prohibition: A New History of the
Anti-Saloon League (New Haven, 1985),
66-114.
44. Lloyd Sponholtz, "The Politics
of Temperance in Ohio, 1880-1912," Ohio History, 85
(Winter, 1976), 8-13; see also Norman H.
Clark, Deliver Us From Evil: An Interpretation of
American Prohibition (New York, 1976), 95-97.
45. These bills were introduced after
residents of Newark, a "wet" center, harassed offi-
cials of the Anti-Saloon League,
eventually beating and lynching a young detective employed
by the League. For a detailed account of
this incident, see Charles E. Zartman, "The
Prohibition Question in Licking County,
1908-1912," (M.A. thesis, Ohio State University, 1938),
18-32.
Partisanship in the Ohio House of
Representatives 163
sures to permit women to vote in
local-option contests, to outlaw "treating"
in saloons, and to increase the state's
liquor tax. Although the last measure
seems, on its face, to grant a certain
imprimatur to the liquor industry, it
should be borne in mind that many
prominent "drys" considered tax increases
as part of an incremental strategy for
eliminating the saloon. GOP support,
under these circumstances, is easier to
comprehend.
Republican support for tighter
regulation of moral conduct extended beyond
liquor legislation to measures embracing
various facets of social behavior.
Championing the cause of "personal
liberty," Democrats supported several
bills to legalize Sunday baseball and
also attempted to block a Republican-
sponsored measure to prohibit the
manufacture and sale of cigarettes. Perhaps
because their party found increasing
favor with immigrants from eastern and
southern Europe, Democrats voted to
compensate a Catholic chaplain at the
state penitentiary, thereby transcending
the bounds of Ohio's Protestant estab-
lishment.
In contrast to bills concerning liquor
and social behavior, those pertaining
to education and rights produced fewer
distinctive patterns of partisanship. No
consistent trends were in evidence at
all on the latter topic while only one
rather generalized characteristic may be
observed about the former. By favor-
ing state action more consistently than
their opponents, Republicans were
more receptive to tailoring educational
policy to uniform standards rather than
allowing local communities to dictate
practices. For instance, a bill mandat-
ing the creation of pension funds for
custodians in city schools won the ap-
proval of House Republicans, as did
measures to expand the state's normal
college system and to regulate the
curriculum in most institutions of higher
education. Republicans did endorse a
bill allowing local school boards to dis-
pense with the election of a district
treasurer, having all financial duties de-
volve on the district clerk. This
concession to local autonomy was to be
granted, however, only if the districts
had designated a state-approved deposi-
tory for school funds.
While Democrats and Republicans
responded to two aspects of commercial
legislation, agriculture/labor and
property rights, inconsistently, they did pur-
sue coherent stances on bills in others
such as business and private finance.
With only a few exceptions, Democrats
favored using government to regulate
these two facets of commercial
enterprise while Republicans were hesitant to
endorse this action. Although the
platforms of both parties frequently found
it expedient to denounce the trusts and
other monopolies in restraint of trade,
the Republicans in one document
recognized the "right of both labor and capi-
tal to combine . ..for the general
good."46 This qualification underscores the
GOP's willingness to grant commercial
enterprise greater freedom from gov-
46. Toledo Blade, June 25, 1901.
164 OHIO HISTORY
ernment restraint and specifically
illustrates party alignments on a number of
votes related to business combinations.
Republicans, for example, approved
a bill legalizing the consolidation of
municipal water companies with street
railroad and electric light
corporations. On the other hand, Democrats sup-
ported two bills designed to expedite
antitrust cases: one which exempted
from prosecution those persons giving
incriminating evidence in trust inves-
tigations, and the other which required
all corporations to file lists of share-
holders with the state.
Beginning in 1901, the Democratic party
of Ohio fell increasingly under
the sway of municipal reformers, most
notably Mayor Tom Johnson of
Cleveland. Supremely important to
Johnson and his followers was the exten-
sion of government regulation of public
utilities, especially the granting of
street railroad franchises and
enlargement of public transportation systems.
Although Ohio Republicans were willing
to endorse formally the referendum
as a means of approving public
transportation grants in their 1908 platform (a
provision which Democrats had attached
to their platform seven years earlier),
party votes on bills which actually
attempted to impose tighter regulation of
the franchising process were
unilaterally supported by Democrats and opposed
by Republicans. As examples, Democrats
lined up in favor of measures
mandating use of the referendum in
franchise-granting procedures, enlarging
the scope of "eminent domain"
statutes along proposed street railroad routes,
granting municipalities the right to
award franchise renewals to companies
other than those holding original
grants, and-most radical of all-sanction-
ing municipal ownership of these
utilities. Consistent with their tradition of
favoring tighter regulation of business,
Democrats in 1900 approved a mea-
sure which divested all corporations
from availing themselves of "fellow ser-
vant" defenses in employer
liability lawsuits. This law had previously been
applied to railroads and now, over
Republican objections, Ohio Democrats
sought its enlargement to include nearly
all commercial enterprises.
Bills introduced in 1900 and 1902
provide the only exception to this pattern
of Democratic approval and Republican
hostility of measures imposing
tighter regulations on business.
Responding to the entreaties of Republican
governors, GOP legislators endorsed
bills during these sessions requiring
corporations doing business in Ohio to
file annual reports with the Secretary
of State. Democrats balked, apparently
less out of hostility to the principle
of these measures than to their
disappointment that they did not go further.47
As indicated, the Republican tendency to
favor a "hands off approach ex-
tended to private finance as well as
business. Specifically, bills expanding
the purview of and/or lifting
restrictions on the functioning of private finan-
cial institutions almost routinely
received the blessing of the GOP. House
47. Warner, 99.
Partisanship in the Ohio House of
Representatives 165
Republicans, for instance, backed
measures to restore guardianship privileges
to trust companies, to permit accident
and life insurance companies to write
health policies, and to allow
consolidation of savings and loans with safe de-
posit and trust companies. On the other
hand, bills designed to "cap" rates of
interest charged by pawnbrokers and to
impose a fee on banks to cover the
cost of annual examinations by state
inspectors won the approval of
Democrats while alienating the GOP. The
only major exception to the ten-
dency for Democrats to support, and
Republicans to balk, at increased gov-
ernmental regulation of financial
matters occurred in 1904, when GOP legis-
lators endorsed a bill creating a
three-member board to examine the records of
banks and to designate certain ones as
"official depositories" for state funds.
Votes on fiscal policy generally found
Republicans both more receptive to
levying new (or higher) taxes and
embracing a more liberal policy on expendi-
tures than their Democratic opponents.
Some caution should be observed,
however, in regard to the GOP tendency
to endorse tax increases. A majority
of tax measures were debated during
sessions in which a Republican occupied
the governor's chair, and many of these
bills were specifically earmarked as
"administration bills." The
desire to remain loyal to a GOP governor may
have won out over concomitant desires to
turn down increases on the part of
Republican legislators. Further, there
is evidence that Democrats opposed
such important bills as those creating
an inheritance tax and levying excise
taxes on insurance companies and
public-service corporations less out of the
desire to "pinch pennies" than
because they felt these measures were unjustly
construed and even offered tax breaks to
corporations and wealthy persons.48
In addition to favoring a greater number
of levies, Republicans also ap-
peared to endorse tighter state
regulation of the taxation process. As exam-
ples, GOP lawmakers favored bills to
create a state tax commission and to
transfer powers of appointment for local
assessment boards from municipal to
state authority, as well as mandating
that allowances be made to compensate
collectors
of delinquent taxes. On the other hand, Republicans also backed
two bills which loosened the reins of
state control somewhat, allowing mu-
nicipalities greater leverage in raising
funds to meet certain enumerated im-
provements. This seeming contradiction
in stances may be explained by the
fact that one of the principal goals of
the Ohio Democracy throughout this
period was the establishment of
municipal "home rule." Democratic opposi-
tion to these last two bills may have
been based on a desire to refrain from
endorsing measures which, while
increasing the purview of municipalities in
conducting their own financial matters,
stopped far short of granting them the
general independence desired by
"home rule" advocates. The Democrats' en-
thusiasm for granting greater autonomy
to municipalities was in evidence in
48. Ibid., 99-100, 147, 177.
166 OHIO HISTORY
1911, as members of this party endorsed
a bill which established at least
some hope of urban home rule by
abolishing existing city assessment boards,
whose members were appointed by state
rather than local officials.49
Democrats exhibited far more parsimony
in expending public funds than
their Republican colleagues. For
example, two general appropriations bills,
introduced in 1902, received the backing
of the GOP. While the Democrats'
opposition to these bills was initially
related to Republican attempts to rush
passage, the demand for specific
spending cuts was the principal reason for
their hostility.50 Moreover,
of eleven bills dealing with specific appropria-
tions (mostly for increases in
salaries), Republicans supported ten, the
Democrats only one. The lone bill
provoking Democratic support, further-
more, was introduced in 1911, the only
session in which Democrats con-
trolled both the executive and
legislative branches of government. The power
of patronage may have impelled otherwise
fiscally conservative Democrats to
toe the line on this bill.
With one qualification, Democrats and
Republicans exhibited no coherent
patterns in their responses to measures
concerning the operation of govern-
ment. The exception occurred in those
instances when proposed legislation
was seen to benefit, or strengthen, the
fortunes of a party organization. Not
surprisingly, when party interests were
at stake, legislators operated as parti-
sans.
Votes on elections policy sometimes
found the parties adopting inconsis-
tent-even contradictory-stances.
Nonetheless, several bills were closely
tied to specific party interests and
consequently evoked predictable responses
from representatives. In 1904,
Republicans strongly supported a bill to
change the time of municipal elections
from spring to fall. As Ohio's major-
ity party in 1904, the GOP was likely to
increase its strength in municipal
contests by requiring them to be held
concurrently with state and national
elections.51 On two
occasions, House Democrats unanimously backed a bill
to repeal a law prohibiting candidates'
names from appearing more than once
on a ballot. Repeal would likely have
enhanced Democratic prospects by al-
lowing coalitions of independent voters
in the state's urban areas-hitherto
having supported Democrats as
"fusion" candidates-to make a separate ballot
endorsement of these individuals.
Turnabout, however, became fair play after
repeal of the law became fact in 1906.
Four years later, Republicans backed a
bill to reinstate the old law barring
multiple listings of a candidate's name.
In addition to elections policy,
legislators found a number of measures per-
taining to other facets of government,
such as political structure and person-
nel, directly impinging on party
aggrandizement, and responded accordingly.
49. Ibid., 281.
50. Toledo News-Bee, April 18,
1902.
51. Tom L. Johnson, My Story (New
York, 1913), 206-07; Warner, 146.
Partisanship in the Ohio House of
Representatives 167
Redrawing congressional district
boundaries was a none too subtle technique
for advancing party prospects, and when
in the majority, Democrats and
Republicans alike backed bills designed
to hold the opposition at bay.
Legislation to guarantee minority-party
representation in various offices and
to divest opposition party officials of
appointive and/or supervisory powers
naturally received the endorsement of
representatives of the party benefiting
from such measures.
As indicated above, public services
issues rarely found Democrats opposing
Republicans. This was probably because
party organizations themselves
rarely devoted much attention to
articulating specific positions on these mat-
ters. A search of party platforms for
the period reveals that on only one occa-
sion, in 1905, did a party speak at any
length about a public services topic,
and that in this instance, it related to
singing the praises of legislation already
passed at the party's behest rather than
setting an agenda for the session to
come.52
Opinion concerning legislation relating
to public health/safety issues as
well as roads transcended party lines
since neither Democrats nor Republicans
displayed a consistent policy
orientation in opposition to the other party.
Nonetheless, one topic in this
sphere-that of miscellaneous legislation-
does show partisans moving in opposite
directions. Democrats' traditional
antipathy to extending government
control over matters that many regarded as
the province of "personal
liberty" may have been particularly manifest in
moving members of this party to adopt a
negative stance on miscellaneous
bills, most of which concerned fish and
game. For example, Republicans en-
dorsed measures to require the licensing
of nonresident hunters in Ohio and
also voted to grant authorities greater
leeway in seizing various hunting and
fishing paraphernalia which might have
been used illegally. Also, over
Democratic objections, members of the
GOP voted to augment the authority
of fish and game commissioners by
permitting them to authorize construction
of fish chutes around dams when county
authorities failed to take this action.
In 1909, however, Democrats voted to
ease restrictions on carp fishing by en-
larging the territory in which these
catches could be taken lawfully.
Conclusions
The preceding analysis indicates that
partisanship must not be dismissed as
a significant factor in influencing the
course of roll-call voting in the Ohio
House. On nearly two out of five
contested votes, a majority of Democrats
opposed a majority of Republicans.
Further, on more than one vote in ten,
80 percent of the members of the major
party delegations took an opposing
52. Toledo Blade, May 25, 1905.
168 OHIO HISTORY
stance. Nonetheless, the effects of
party on voting should not be overstated.
Seen from a slightly different
perspective, it is apparent that Democratic and
Republican delegations did not operate
consistently as highly disciplined
forces. The simple fact is that on over
half the roll calls more Democrats and
Republicans were in agreement than in
opposition. Also, compared with leg-
islative bodies of contemporaneous (and
near contemporaneous) periods, the
Ohio House of Representatives tended to
experience fewer party divisions.
Democrats maintained slightly higher
levels of cohesion throughout the pe-
riod than Republicans. Nonetheless, when
cohesion rates are considered sepa-
rately for party (i.e., majority of both
parties in opposition) votes and non-
party votes, the discrepancy between the
parties is found to be entirely due to
Republican disunity on nonparty votes.
Democrats and Republicans main-
tained similar levels of cohesion on
party votes.
There is some evidence that a general
assault on existing party structures by
progressives translated-however
slightly-into a reduction of voting align-
ments based on party. The most
noticeable decline in party voting occurred
beginning in 1909, the same year that
progressive Republicans (who sup-
ported much of the Democrats'
legislative agenda) captured control of the
House delegation. That disaffection in
Republican ranks was mostly respon-
sible for this situation is evident in a
sharp decline in GOP unity beginning
in 1909. Democrats, conversely, saw
their party cohesion increase signifi-
cantly at the close of the period.
Attainment of majority status in 1911, the
first time in twenty years, was
undoubtedly a factor in propelling Democratic
unity to particularly high levels. On
the other hand, Democrats do not appear
to have been immune to disaffection
resulting from progressive challenges.
Democrats experienced particularly low
levels of unity in 1906 and 1908,
when the representative delegations from
the state's two largest counties were
comprised entirely of Democrats with
strong progressive tendencies.
Although ideological battles, such as
progressive versus conservative, ap-
pear to have affected the incidence of
partisan discord, several other factors
seem to have had little, if any,
relationship to these divisions. Rates of con-
flict varied widely regardless of
divided or unified party control of the House
and governorship. Also, with perhaps one
exception, party voting seemed
unaffected by the relative sizes of
Democratic and Republican delegations.
The lone exception occurred in 1904 when
a vast disparity in party delega-
tions was coincident with fairly high
levels of party conflict. However, the
absence of any additional sessions in
which one party was overwhelmingly
outnumbered makes it impossible to
determine whether this phenomenon was
part of a pattern.
Rates of party conflict varied depending
on the type of issue under consider-
ation. Votes on bills relating to the
institution of government and the state's
fiscal policy were most likely to lead
to party splits while those dealing with
Partisanship in the Ohio House of
Representatives 169
various public services, such as public
health and roads, were the least con-
tentious. One facet of fiscal
policy-taxation-ranked as the single most
likely topic to find Democrats and
Republicans on opposite sides of the vote.
Perhaps the most surprising finding was
the somewhat modest level of party
divisions registered on bills concerning
moral issues. Slightly less than 40
percent of bills dealing with community
mores found a majority of
Democrats opposing a majority of
Republicans. The Ohio House ranked low
compared to the legislatures of three
other states in the degree of party opposi-
tion on these issues. Two topics within
the mores sphere, however, actually
precipitated a good deal of party
conflict. Temperance and liquor policy
ranked third among the sixteen policy
topics in pitting Democrats against
Republicans, while criminal rights
issues ranked fourth.
Given the somewhat low levels of party
voting, it does not appear that leg-
islators were bound by an
elaborately-defined program. Nonetheless, an ex-
amination of bills which found Democrats
opposing Republicans reveals that
the parties adopted reasonably distinct
positions on certain facets of public
policy.
Party stances were most consistent in
the area of public morality. Ohio
Republicans, who had a long tradition of
supporting the temperance cause,
continued to favor government
proscriptions on drinking as well as a gener-
ally stricter code of morality.
Democrats seemed ill at ease with government
intrusions in this area, even going so
far as to resist GOP attempts at
strengthening state authority in
educational matters.
Despite their "hands off' approach
to mores issues, Democrats were far
more receptive than Republicans to
increasing government oversight of
commercial enterprise. A much-debated
topic in Ohio during the Progressive
Era concerned the regulation of street
railroads and in this, as in other matters
related to business and private finance,
Democrats led the fight for expanded
state control while Republicans resisted
these attempts.
Although votes on taxation were more
likely than any other to produce par-
tisan divisions, it was difficult to
discern any clear-cut pattern in Democratic
and Republican positions. Generally, the
GOP seemed to be somewhat more
receptive to levying new taxes and
imposing stricter state control over the
taxation process, but the apparent
differences may be deceptive. There is evi-
dence that Democratic opposition was
rooted in the belief that Republican
measures were not stringent enough.
Another facet of fiscal policy, however,
reveals a fairly consistent pattern:
when it came to monetary outlays
(expenditures), Democrats were far more
likely than Republicans to embrace
fiscal conservatism.
Neither Democrats nor Republicans took a
clearcut position regarding gov-
ernment operations, except insofar as
bills directly impinged on party for-
tunes. Despite progressive attempts to
stanch excessive partisanship, there is
170 OHIO HISTORY
evidence that on such matters as
apportionment and patronage the parties were
quick to endorse bills which enhanced
their standing and oppose those which
detracted from it.
Two of the three topics comprising
public services issues (public
health/safety and roads) did not evoke
consistent policy stances from either
party. The remaining topic,
miscellaneous legislation, encompassed mostly
fish and game bills and found Democrats-perhaps
motivated by the same
spirit of "personal liberty"
displayed on mores measures-resisting GOP at-
tempts to enact stricter state control
over wildlife management.
JOHN M. WEGNER
Partisanship in the Ohio House of
Representatives, 1900-1911: An Analysis
of Roll-Call Voting
Students of legislative behavior have
long had a penchant for examining the
workings of the United States Congress,
foreign parliaments, and other na-
tional assemblies. They have paid less attention to
state legislatures.
Despite a growing interest in
subnational legislative bodies, research on state
legislatures is still in its infancy.1
Lack of attention by historians to this
area of research is particularly
surprising when one considers the pivotal posi-
tion occupied by these bodies in the
past. Until the 1930s, when the activist
programs of the New Deal tipped government's
"center of gravity" to
Washington, state legislatures exercised
a disproportionate amount of power
over the lives of citizens.2
Although systematic investigations of
legislative behavior at the state level
have taken a "back seat" to
national studies, one facet of research-that per-
taining to party voting-has not been so
sorely neglected.3 Beginning in the
1950s, numerous studies appeared which
assessed the nature and impact of
partisanship on the legislative process
in state assemblies.4 Historians, how-
ever, can take little comfort from these
studies since their ambit has been al-
John M. Wegner teaches American history
courses at colleges in northwest Ohio and south-
east Michigan. He would like to thank
Drs. James Q. Graham and Bernard Sternsher, emeriti
of the Department of History at Bowling
Green State University, and James Marshall, Donna
Christian and the staff of the Local
History and Genealogy Department of the Toledo-Lucas
County Public Libary for their help and
suggestions during the research process.
1. Ballard C. Campbell, Representative
Democracy: Public Policy and Midwestern
Legislatures in the Late Nineteenth
Century (Cambridge, Mass., 1980), 1;
Malcolm E. Jewell,
The State Legislature: Politics and
Practice, second ed., (New York,
1969), 3.
2. Campbell, 2; Philip R. VanderMeer, The
Hoosier Politician: Officeholding and Political
Culture in Indiana 1896-1920 (Urbana, 1985), 3.
3. Jonathan P. Euchner,
"Partisanship in the Iowa Legislature: 1945-1989," paper presented
at the Annual Meeting of the Midwest
Political Science Association, Chicago, Illinois, April 5-
7, 1990, 2.
4. As examples, see Malcolm E. Jewell,
"Party Voting in American State Legislatures," The
American Political Science Review, 49 (September, 1955), 773-91; William J. Keefe,
"Party
Government and Lawmaking in Illinois
General Assembly," Northwestern University Law
Review, 47 (March-April, 1952), 55-71; W. Duane Lockard,
"Legislative Politics in
Connecticut," The American
Political Science Review, 48 (March, 1954), 166-73; and Charles
W. Wiggins, "Party Politics in Iowa
Legislature," Midwest Journal of Political Science, 11
(February, 1967), 86-97.