Religion and the Representation of African American Interests in the Senate

• In Event: Intersectionality: Religion and Cross-Cutting Cleavages

Abstract

While descriptive representation has been separately studied with regard to race and religion, very little research explores the connections between the two. This paper examines the relationship between U.S. senators’ personal religious affiliations and their representation of African American interests since the 1960s. With very few non-white members historically, the descriptive representation of African American interests in the Senate is largely a story of variation among white senators. The findings show that evangelical Protestants and members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are significantly less supportive of African American interests, while Jewish senators are significantly more supportive. This implies that the present-day entrenchment of white evangelical Protestants in the Republican Party is not merely a function of longstanding conservative Christian goals on issues such as abortion, but is also highly compatible with a politics that is opposed to the representation of African American policy priorities. Our results therefore suggest that the respective partisan realignments of recent decades along racial and religious cleavages are closely related. They also speak to the more contemporary question of why there is such a close relationship between white evangelical Protestants and President Trump, despite his lack of personal religiosity, due to his activation of a populist politics of white racial resentment. We interpret our findings by building a theory rooted in theological, cultural, institutional, and partisan dynamics.

Authors

• John McTague, Towson University

• Shanna Pearson-Merkowitz, University of Rhode Island