Political Variables Sample Clauses

Political Variables. ‌ There are a large number of ways to measure political motivations. Including too many of them may result in multicollinearity and too few may understate the effect of political considerations on the inclination to join the compact. 1The purpose of voter ID laws may be debated in the public arena. But as Xxxxxxxx (2018, 2) argues, their real intent is to prevent “American citizens from having a say in their own democracy,” an outcome that disproportionately affects people of color. One key assumption in H3 is that state actors consider the electoral benefit to joining when making the decision to formally consider adopting the NPVC. Naturally, I expect that states whose populations are most underrepresented by the Electoral College are more likely to join. Thus, I include state population size in the model, data which come from the Census Bureau’s ACS One-Year Estimates. Similarly, I expect that states that voted for Xx Xxxx in 2000 and/or Xxxxxxx Xxxxxxx in 2016 are more likely to join the compact since they are the states that suffered from electoral misfires. Ideally, dummy variables for both would be included, but all current signatories cast their Electoral votes for Xxxxxxx Xxxxxxx in 2016, meaning that variable cannot be included without risking multicollinearity. A dummy for a Xxxx vote in 2000 is included, however, since Colorado voted for Xxxxxx X. Xxxx then. Third, and finally, so-called “red” states - those with a solidly Republican citizens and leadership - are less likely to join than are “blue” states. Since the Electoral College, in several presidential elections since 2000, has benefited Republicans at the expense of Democrats, H3 implicitly suggests that Democratic states are more likely to join the NPVC than Republican states. I have therefore included dummy variables to indicate whether or not a state has a democratic trifecta (control of the governorship and both houses of the state legislature, data courtesy of the National Council of State Legislatures) at the time of NPVC adoption. If the NPVC is merely another political front over which opposing politicians can battle, then one or more of these covariates should be significant in predicting NPVC membership.