Political scientist Boris Shor has a blog post premiering results from a forthcoming paper (pdf) where he goes to town mapping the ideological distribution of state legislators from 1996-2006. The post is titled, provocatively, "Scozzafava is a Conservative Republican (in New York)", and his reasoning is fairly straightforward: although the right is so upset with Scozzafava for being far too liberal that they may well be handing NY 23 to a Democrat, they aren't looking at the context:
Despite the laundry list of liberal issue positions held by Scozzafava, my research with Princeton's Nolan McCarty on ideology in American state legislatures shows that the Assemblywoman is actually a conservative Republican. Wait for it. Wait for it... In New York.
Her ideological "common space" score is 0.02. These scores, similar but far superior to interest group ratings, put state legislators around the country on the same scale with each other, as well as with members of Congress. Liberals have lower scores; conservatives higher ones....
Scozzafava's score puts her in the 58th percentile of her party, which makes her slightly more conservative than the average Republican legislator in Albany, so she's a conservative in her party. For example, she's more conservative than James Tedisco, who lost a special election to succeed Kirsten Gillenbrand in the 20th District (score: -.22 and in the most liberal fifth of the party). In the legislature as a whole, she's in the 83rd percentile, which makes her a conservative in Albany in general
Here's his chart of all the partisan state legislatures (Nebraska is officially non-partisan):
However, in the comments someone manages to throw some serious water on the claim, given that it appears Scozzafava has shifted ideologically while in office--a relatively rare phenomena in politics. So maybe the diary title is not really on the mark after all--but the larger point remains: there's an enormous difference in where Republicans and Democrats fall ideologically depending on the stat that they're from. You can see it simply by noting the lack of overlap between the bulk of Democrats to the left of the left-hand vertical grey line in states like California, New York, Washington, Wisconsin and Utah, and the bulk of Democrats to the right of that same line in state like West Virginia, Nevada, South Carolina, Arkansas, etc. A similar visual comparison can be made for Republicans as well.
There are actually two comments questioning the conclusion that I found particularly salient. First:
David Ditch Says:
October 22, 2009 at 9:00 am
An interesting line of thinking, but the proper context is upstate politics/voting patterns, not New York State. Downstate is dark blue, while upstate (depending on where you draw the line) is either 50/50 or very very light blue. Upstate Republicans are almost never liberal, and upstate Democrats are more likely to be moderate. Scozzafava would make sense as a Republican running in Long Island or Westchester, but not in the Adirondacks.
And second:
Izengabe Says:
October 22, 2009 at 9:42 am
The problem with your ideological "common space" score is that it looks at the year 1996-2003. (In fact the Senator you mention as the most conservative Robert DiCarlo hasn't been in office since he lost re-election in 1996!)
A lot has changed since the years you look at.
Her years in Albany has moved Ms. Scozzafava to the left. In 2003 she got a 46 rating from the Conservative Party of NY (meaning she voted against them 54% of the time). By 2008 her Conservative Party rating was down to 15%. That 15% score is by the way is the same score they gave Rosie O'Donnell's brother Daniel O'Donnell in 2008.
For further comparison sake Assemblyman Tedisco got a 55% score, Sen Morahan who you called the most Liberal Republican got a 50% (although in fairness he is a Senator not an Assemblyman and not voting on the same bills as Ass. Scozzafava).
Why the drop? Why the move to the left? Well since 2003 Ms. Scozzafava has been willing to get into bed with organized labor and the Working Families Party. They endorsed her in 2004 and 2008. So stricky looking at her record from 6 years ago and saying she was a conservative is really not fair.
You need to look at where she is now and what she has voted for lately. She has voted for raising taxes, supported the stimulus bill, supports pro-card check and hasn't said a word about foreign policy (her web site doesn't even have a foreign policy section so we have no idea how she feels about Iraq, Afghanistan or the War on Terror).
To which the author replied:
bshor Says:
October 22, 2009 at 11:03 am
Izengabe - I wouldn't put too much stock in interest group ratings. They've got really well known problems that I explore in my latest paper draft.
But still, it's quite possible things have changed since 2003. Nearly all the time, politicians remain consistent in terms of issue positions, but some do change (party switchers especially - but getting crosslisted with a new party like the WFP might be similar). Luckily, we're getting new data on New York state through 2008 shortly, which I'll use to update this post.
My observation is that while Shor is certainly correct about interest group ratings, ideological parties are likely to be a more reliable indicator. What's more the shift from being cross-endorsed by the Conservative Party to being cross-endorsed by the Working Families Party strikes me as pretty damn significant. It's not the same as Jeffords leaving the GOP, but it's probably at least somewhat like that.
Still, this is hardly the main point of this post. Scozzafava is just a handy example for driving the main point home: we may be one nation, but there are still fifty state parties for both the Democrats and the Republicans, and those parties matter, no matter what anyone in Versailles may think.
Do you remember the 2008 primary, when all of the nation's media was in love with talking about how California's Republicans were sooooo liberal. And remember how us Democrats here in California laughed at that notion? Well, here's some proof....
As you can see California's legislative Dems are amongst the most liberal, and are about the same as several other states that you'd expect to see us tied with: New York and Washington, and some that you wouldn't Utah and Arizona. But to those who say that you'd expect California Republicans to be moderate: hear me now and believe me later: They are as wingnut as you get.
No other state is even close to our wingnut Republicans. They are waaaay to the right of even states like Georgia and Wyoming. No other state is really even close.
This is really not news at all to Democratic activists in the state. But a whole lot of other people have long been in denial about it. I'm sure that 99% of them will stay that way. But at least we'll have a fancy graphic to rub their noses in.
