Inquiring Minds: Wendy Schiller on midterm elections

On Tuesday, Nov. 5, voters will head to the polls. The George Street Journal's Kristen Cole spoke with Wendy J. Schiller, left, associate professor of political science and public policy, about what is at stake on Election Day. Schiller wrote about the U.S. Senate in "Partners and Rivals," and is researching how industries choose coalition partners when lobbying Congress and the administration on import and export trade policy.

The House and Senate are closely divided. What is riding on the outcome of this election?

This election holds the most serious implications for the courts and judicial appointments. The House is controlled by the Republicans, and may stay that way with a similarly close margin. The Senate is more important in that if control switches back to the Republicans, then the committee system will be run by Republicans and a lot of judicial and executive nominations that Bush has sent up to the Senate will move forward. Some of these nominees are quite conservative, so their appointment will have a long-lasting effect on the federal court system. There are less dramatic overall policy implications that would stem from a switch in control of the Senate because at the current time, the Republicans dominate the policy process with control of the presidency and the House of Representatives.

One thing to consider from the president’s perspective is that if his party, the Republican party, takes control of both chambers he may experience the Clinton problem of 1994, which is to stay any problems that come to the surface within the party in Congress will reflect on the president. Moreover, the president and the dominant majority within the congressional Republican party are more conservative than the average voter. If they produce overly conservative policies that are too far to the right of most voters' preferences they may inadvertently give a boost to any Democratic challenger in the 2004 presidential contest.

I've read that the party out of the White House traditionally picks up a few seats in a midterm election. Do you think that will happen this year?

The political science literature has always claimed that the president’s party loses House seats in the midterm elections, for a number of reasons. Some of these reasons include a decreased voter turnout and the possibility that voters send a collective message to the president to adjust his policy course. The 1994 elections that swept the Republicans into power were atypical in the number of seats that the president’s party lost.

This year the midterm elections seem unusually locally focused – inasmuch as the parties have tried to bring national issues to the local level, voters seem to be resistant to judging their local representatives based on these larger national issues. Party will play a role, but other factors, such as incumbency, redistricting and actual turnout, will likely decide the local congressional races.

What have emerged as the defining issues to voters? Iraq, Enron, the war on terror – none, all, or any of these? Additionally, do you think the legacy of Sept. 11 will affect the outcome on election night?

I do not think there is a defining issue in this election that supercedes any other issue. The economy would be the issue that we would have expected to dominate the campaigns, but the Democrats have failed to make it a real issue. The White House on the other hand has tried to focus a lot of attention on security and Iraq but they too have failed to make it a defining issue, especially since a number of Democrats in both chambers voted for the resolution to allow the use of force. With respect to Sept. 11, the White House also has a problem in that they have yet to locate Osama Bin Laden, and there continue to be terrorist cells operating all over the world. The president does not want to make these elections a referendum on the success of the war on terrorism because the results are inconclusive on that score right now.

What do you think is most unusual or exciting about this election?

I do think it is unusual that the economy is not more of an issue. It is clear that the U.S. economy is in some serious difficulty. Typically voters expect candidates to talk about solutions but this year there seems to be a lot less attention on what the government might do to bolster the economy. It is a bit reminiscent of the 1990 elections, when the war on Iraq was looming and the economy was beginning to sag – neither issue was dominant in the 1990 election, but became major issues two years later.