Replication Data for: Crossing Over: Majority Party Control Affects Legislator Behavior and the Agenda

Does majority party control cause changes in legislative policymaking? We argue that majority party floor control affects legislator behavior and agenda control. Leveraging a natural experiment where nearly one-tenth of a legislature’s members died within the same legislative session, we are able to identify the effect of majority party floor control on the legislative agenda and on legislator choices. Previous correlational work has found mixed evidence of party effects, especially in the mid-20th century. In contrast, we find that majority party control leads to (1) changes in the agenda, and (2) changes in legislators’ revealed preferences. These effects are driven by changes in numerical party majorities on the legislative floor. The effects are strongest with Republican and nonsouthern Democratic legislators. The effects are also more pronounced on the first, economic dimension than the second, racial dimension. Additional correlational evidence across seventy-four years provides external validity to our exogenous evidence.