The Effects of Political and Demographic Variables on Christian Coalition Scores :: Christianity Christian Religion Essays Research

The Effects of Political and Demographic Variables on Christian Coalition Scores One of the most interesting phenomena in American politics is the recent rise of the Christian right. First termed the "Moral Majority" by Jerry Falwell in the late 1970s, the Christian Right has undergone a name and a leader change. The Christian Coalition is currently led by Pat Robertson who seeks to continue much of the early work pioneered by the Moral Majority. The Moral Majority sought to reintroduce Christian principles into the political sphere. The Christian Coalition focuses on continuing these efforts in an attempt to reverse "the moral decay that threatens our great nation" (Christian Coalition, 1996). The purpose of this research is to measure the political and demographic variables on House representatives' frequency of voting with the Christian Coalition agenda. This is measured by the Christian Coalition's Congressional Scorecard as the percentage a representative supports the position held by the Coalition. The independent variables used in this research include: party affiliation of the representative, how the district voted in the 1988 presidential election, the percent minority in the district of voting age, percentage of district who had attended some college, and the median household income of the district. These are examined to analyze their independent and collective effect on the representative's frequency of supporting the Christian Coalition (CC) agenda. The following hypotheses are the expected empirical patterns based upon logic and conventional wisdom. It is expected that party affiliation will be a major factor in the frequency of a representative voting with the CC agenda, regardless of the non-partisan claim made by the CC organization. Specifically, if a representative were a Republican, she or he would vote more consistently with the CC agenda than a Democrat. Additionally, it is hypothesized that the greater a district's vote for Republican George Bush in the 1988 presidential election, the higher their representative's support for the CC agenda. This assumption is based on the belief that a Republican vote for president would generally translate into the election of a Republican or at the least, a conservative Democrat representative. With regard to the percent minorities in a district, it is hypothesized that because high concentrations of minorities tend to live in urban areas, which tend to receive a large portion of social services and entitlements, the elected representative would not vote in favor of the CC agenda which often seeks to limit federal spending in these areas.