THE DIMENSIONS OF CUE-TAKING IN THE HOUSE-OF-REPRESENTATIVES - VARIATION BY ISSUE AREA

In this article, we test the thesis that legislators' cue-taking varie s by policy area, using data collected in interviews with 99 members o f the House of Representatives in the fall of 1987. They were asked to rate the importance of 11 different cue-givers-staff, party leaders, committee chairs, ranking minority members, state party delegation, ot her party colleagues, media, organized groups, constituents, president , and bureaucracy-in six different policy areas-agricultural, foreign, defense, social welfare, budget and economics, and civil rights. Oper ationalizing cue-taking differences by comparing legislators' mean rat ings across both cue-givers and policy areas, we use analysis of varia nce techniques to find significant differences by both policy area and cue-givers. The pattern of differences varies for Democrats and Repub licans.