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Economic Benefit, Ideology, and Senate Voting On the B-1 Bomber

Fordham University

Most previous studies of congressional voting on national defense have found that the level of economic benefit that a member's district receives is not related to his vote on national defense. Rather, many of these studies argue that voting on national defense is largely ideological. This article developed and tested an interactive model that predicts that (1) conservatives from both high and low benefit states would support higher defense budgets and (2) only liberals from high benefit states would support increased defense spending. Using data on the B-1 bomber, the results provide support for the first hypothesis but little support for the second proposition. Furthermore, it was found that ideology was strongly related to voting behavior even after controlling for level of economic benefit. Finally, the data indicate that ideology was less strongly related to vote choice after President Carter announced his opposition to the B-1 than was the case for the three votes that occurred prior to Carter's announcement. These results are discussed in the context of constituency influence and ideological models of roll call voting.

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