The California State Legislature Grooves to the Dulcet Tones of The Mamas and The Papas
Over at Enik Rising, Seth Masket posts a great video documenting the spatial location of California state legislators through the past century or so. If you’re not too distracted by the accompanying soundtrack, all kinds of interesting things are visible: the rise of the Progressives, the Democratic tide of 1932, and (to my eye at least) the growing polarization between Democrats and Republicans in the past 20 or so years.
(See also Seth’s post on whether the Democratic Party helps the poor.)
Comments
Anybody wanna explain how this works? I mean I get the axes, sorta, but why do only some Rs and Ds move?
Posted by: Sam Boyd | December 21, 2007 02:33 AM
The “movement” is created when a member serves in multiple successive sessions and her score changes over time. So if a legislature votes more conservatively in her second session than her first, her location on the graph will appear to drift rightward. Members do not move if they vote identically from year to year. Also, in the early part of the dataset and in the final decade (under term limits), there is a great deal of turnover in the chamber. Members who only serve one term obviously do not change their scores.
Posted by: Seth Masket | December 21, 2007 11:48 AM
I was able to upload the video to YouTube, so you no longer need to download the giant Quicktime file.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMxD_5ZTDTw
Posted by: Seth Masket | December 21, 2007 12:14 PM