A Bridge to Somewhere: Mapping State and Congressional Ideology on a Cross-Institutional Common Space
There are two major problems in applying ideal point estimation techniques to state legislatures. First, there has been a scarcity of longitudinal roll call data. Second, even where such data exist, scaling ideal points within a single state is inadequate. No comparisons can be made across institutions, whether to other state legislatures or to the US Congress. Our project suggests a solution to both of these problems. We use a new comparative data set of state legislative roll calls beginning in the mid-1990s to generate ideal points for legislators. We take advantage of the fact that state legislators sometimes go on to serve in Congress to create a common ideological scale between Congress and the various legislatures. These "bridge actors" are similar to members of the House who go on to serve in the Senate, thereby providing the glue necessary to scale the House and Senate together. We use this approach for California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. Using these bridge actors, we create a new state-federal congressional common space ideological scores. We conclude by illustrating how these common space scores can be used to address important topics in legislative politics.
