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Congressional Racial Solidarity

The Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), a racially based national constituency informal organization within the House of Representatives, promotes and attempts to preserve legislation salient to the African American populace (Barnett, 1977a). The performance of this critical task is aided when the CBC membership votes as a unified bloc. Congressional scholars have shown that informal organizations maximize their bargaining leverage through cohesive voting behavior (Ferber, 1971; Kofmehl, 1964; Stevens, Miller, & Mann, 1974), as group voting solidarity provides "a measure of influence out of proportion to the number of its members" (Fiellin, 1962, p. 85). The capacity to furnish a dependable bloc of votes is important political capital in the decentralized and obstructionist arena of the postreform Congress. Unity in roll call voting enhances "the impact of the Caucus to bargain on the policy-making process, and more importantly may permit the Caucus to bargain and negotiate more effectively with other blocs in the House" (Levy & Stoudinger, 1976, p. 43). This study seeks to ascertain the extent to which the CBC has voted as a cohesive unit over the course of a 20-year period