EXPLAINING CONGRESSIONAL APPROVAL

Theory: Aggregate public approval of the United States Congress declin es when Congress acts as required by its institutional role as both a representative and legislative body. Hypothesis: The passage of major legislation, veto overrides, and internal discord are all anticipated to drive downward public support of Congress. Methods: While previous analyses of Congressional approval have relied on annual time series, we employ a measurement strategy that permits us to tap into over 40 d ifferent survey items administered nearly 300 times to produce a quart erly measure of approval, extending from the first quarter of 1974 thr ough the fourth quarter of 1993. A distributed-lag time series regress ion model is estimated to test our hypotheses. Results: The analysis p resented below supports the hypothesis that citizens' attitudes toward Congress respond in the aggregate to veto overrides, intra-Congress c onflict, and the passage of major bills. As such, our results stand in contrast to those of earlier studies of Congressional approval, which have typically relied on explanatory variables that are beyond the co ntrol of Congress. Approval is also shown to be a function of both eco nomic expectations and New York Times' coverage of Congress.