Congressmen's Voting Decisions

Kingdon argues that congressional voting is best understood through the 'consensus mode of decision.' When constituents, fellow congressmen, and the member's own attitudes point in the same direction—which is most of the time—voting is straightforward and conflict is minimal. Party leaders, interest groups, and the executive branch have far less direct influence than commonly assumed; they matter mainly by shaping constituent and colleague opinion. Kingdon's method was to interview congressmen immediately after floor votes, asking why they voted as they did, rather than correlating roll-call data with district characteristics .

Kingdon interviewed a stratified sample of U.S. representatives from the 91st Congress (1969) about fifteen different issues across foreign policy, economic, social welfare, and civil rights domains . Rather than asking general questions about decision-making, he asked members why they voted as they did on specific recent votes, conducting interviews as soon as possible after the floor vote. This open-ended approach was more revealing than previous studies that treated the voting act as a dependent variable, because it captured the congressman's own reasoning and information sources .

The consensus mode describes how congressmen usually decide: when all or most potential sources of influence—constituents, fellow members, their own policy views—point in the same direction, the member follows that direction. This is what typically happens. Kingdon's model emphasizes not individual actors but the decisional process itself, including 'preconsensus processes' where selective perception and committee conflict avoidance create an apparently consensual environment in harmony with the member's predispositions . A reviewer called this model 'the most important aspect of this study' and 'must reading' .

Fenno's Power of the Purse examined committee decision-making processes, particularly in the appropriations committees. Kingdon's focus is on the final act—the decision to vote a particular way on the floor . Where Fenno analyzed how committees deliberate and reach recommendations, Kingdon asks individual members why they voted as they did after the vote occurred. The two studies are complementary: Fenno illuminates committee dynamics, while Kingdon captures the member's perspective on floor voting.

Harold Lasswell's review in the American Political Science Review called Kingdon 'a reasonable man' whose work risks being 'forgettable,' finding little that contradicted or departed from existing legislative research traditions . Bruce Haston's review in the Western Political Quarterly was more positive, calling it 'a significant addition' that 'may become a seminal work' . Haston noted that some findings merely reaffirmed earlier studies, but others—particularly the low importance of party leadership and the executive branch—directly challenged widely-held notions .