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The level of competition in House elections has been shown to result primarily from the quality of the challenger. In this paper. I demonstrate that the same dynamic functions in Senate elections. The quality of Senate challengers varies, and the higher the quality of a challenger the more votes he or she receives and the more likely the challenger is to defeat an incumbent. Higher quality challengers are more likely to run in states where the pool of such candidates is large; their appearance in a contest is not due to any personal or political characteristics of the incumbent. Challenger quality matters, in part, because higher levels translate into more campaign money, but quality also indicates other skills that produce additional votes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most theories of democracy assume that voters are offered parties, candidates, or issue positions among which to choose in an election. Between 1978 and 1988, 14% of races for the U.S. House of Representatives were uncontested. Although this number represents a drop from the higher figures of two decades ago, it still suggests a significant violation of democratic principles. Probit analysis of data collected on the 1978 to 1984 elections reveals that uncontested races are more likely to occur in districts where the incumbent received a high percentage of the vote in the previous election, where the incurnbent is a Democrat, and in the South. A majority of representatives who are unchallenged in one election, however, are opposed in the next campaign. Because the vast majority of House members will face a challenger in some future election, the incentive for representation provided by potential opposition and defeat is maintained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This note assesses whether partisan redistricting plans passed after the 1970 census affected the next five elections. Overall, in the seven states examined here, parties which controlled the redistricting process won 74 percent of the elections for seats whose district lies they had drawn to their advantage. At the level of the individual state, however, redistricting plans were not a political success; the advantaged parties did not gain ore seats than they held before redistricting nor win more than the percentage of seats to which the vote would entitle them. Any advantage to these parties appears to have been washed out over the 10 years examined here. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses various reports published within the issue including one by Nicholas Carnes on how members' social class backgrounds are related to their legislative voting behavior and another by John D. Griffin and colleagues on understanding of fundamental relationships.

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports within the issue on topics including legislative theories, voting studies, and political party influence.

Presents articles related to politics and government in the U.S. published in the November 1999 issue of "Legislative Studies Quarterly." Characteristic of the U.S. Congress; Importance of party and policy preferences in determining the voting behavior of members; Influence of campaign finance.

The article reports that voter turnout in the U.S. is much lower than in almost all other democratic countries. This has been interpreted as a symptom of popular alienation from the political system, suspicion of politicians, and pessimism about consequences of political activity. When these perspectives are measured directly, however, it is clear that the U.S. citizens score very low on almost every item. Indeed, there is no relationship between political contentment and turnout.