When Local Politics Go National: Policymaking and Compromise in a Polarized Era

• In Event: School Politics at the Nexus of Race, Criminal Justice, and Segregation

Abstract

Book Project Overview:
For voters and politicians alike, political debates are increasingly perceived through a national lens. From school curriculum choices to the crime in "our streets," the public discourse around policy issues increasingly turns on national political frames. This book examines the consequences of this nationalization for members of Congress and the public they represent. Constituents, nested within larger party coalitions, have come to evaluate their elected representatives on the basis of their national policy records. During campaigns, candidates reflect these expectations back to voters by emphasizing national policy matters that are largely divorced from local conditions. Yet, while voters expect their government to tackle important problems, many of the most engaged constituents are also the most uncompromising, a fact that carries important legislative implications. On Capitol Hill, officeholders exhibit extreme caution on legislative matters that may provoke a response from national policy activists in and outside their district. Taken together, this book shows how the nationalization of US politics creates a legislative conundrum for Congress. The simultaneous impulse to focus on national policy, while refusing to compromise one's "values," are often incompatible, and encourage not only legislative gridlock but loftier and often contradictory expectations that Congress cannot fully satisfy.

Chapter for Presentation:
In Chapter 6, the final empirical chapter of the book, I adopt a mixed-methods approach to evaluate how members of Congress are driven by the need to satisfy or avoid rebuke from national policy activists. The chapter develops two case studies on education reform and criminal justice, respectively, to demonstrate how officeholders respond to the pressures of policy demanders to lead or obstruct legislative action. In the past decade, both education and criminal justice reform have seen significant legislative debate and, ultimately, change. Moreover, the two cases represent policy areas that have primarily rested with state actors and in which policy solutions were shaped by local conditions. Similarly, both curricular decisions and crime reduction strategies exemplify issue areas that have become the terrain on which national political debates are fought. In the education case study, the chapter details how organized interest groups and engaged "local" activists drove a swift reversal on whether to adopt the Common Core curriculum standards. Initially championed by states rights advocates, the standards became synonymous with the national government's takeover of local matters. Indeed, some opponents dubbed the policy as "Obamacore" despite there being no explicit ties to the president. Education reform, like criminal justice policy from 2018-2020, began with widespread bipartisan support and witnessed severe backlash as local discussions were consumed by national political frames. The second case study explores how discussions around rising crime rates, a common refrain among the conservative base, propelled a sudden reversal on criminal justice reform, a signature policy achievement from President Trump's first two years in office. Together, the case studies show how the nationalization of policy discourages officeholders from pursuing broadly popular policies out of fear of provoking an activist revolt.

Author

• Travis Johnston, University of Massachusetts, Boston