Journalists make choices about how to cover lawmaking, and these choices are guided by the norms of their profession and the need to attract attention. Health care reform, for instance, is a multifaceted issue that could have been covered from a variety of angles, in- cluding a focus on the political aspects of the debate, the substance of the proposals, the effect of the economic downturn on health coverage, and the workings (and failures) of the health care system itself (Pew 2010a). In choosing to focus on politics, partisanship, and the horse race, journalists framed the issue in a way that was consequential for public policy attitudes. Such coverage highlighted the aspects of lawmaking that many Americans view as a sign of dysfunction. Further, those negative conceptions of the process of lawmak- ing became part of the mix of information that was aggregated when individuals formed opinions about the Affordable Care Act. As a result, a law with many popular provisions became widely unpopular.
Due to the incentives that lead journalists to focus on conflict and the widespread aver- sion to partisan debate that exists among members of the public, we should find that bills with popular provisions fail to attain public support time and again. The longer a partisan debate drags on, the more heated the rhetoric becomes, and the greater the media focus on the conflict, the more public opposition should be generated.
This implication is somewhat troubling from a normative perspective. The process of lawmaking is inherently political. It involves debate, disagreement, and conflict. In fact,
debate and deliberation are cornerstones of the democratic process. And yet many mem- bers of the public are faulting elected officials for engaging in debate and rejecting the policies associated with it. For this reason, lawmakers—and particularly those in the ma- jority party—are “damned if they do and damned if they don’t.” The failure to act on issues of societal concern will surely generate public criticism, but just a surely, proposing solu- tions that generate debate will also produce public disapproval. Realizing this, members of the minority party have every incentive to argue, obstruct, battle, and brawl over the proposals put forward by those in the majority. In doing so, they signal the extreme nature of the legislation (whether or not the provisions of the bill warrant such a label) and turn off those who become disgusted by the tenor of the debate.
As a result of this dynamic between the majority party and the minority party, a cyclical pattern of public opinion emerges. Individuals want more government services and more federal spending in areas like health care, education, and public welfare until proposals are put forward that would provide them. Once a reform plan is introduced, the debate begins and is quickly picked up by the press. As the rhetoric becomes increasingly heated, public opposition to the controversial plan mounts and public demand for increased spending and services decreases. Eventually, the pendulum of public opinion swings firmly toward the minority party, and it seizes power. Using the election as a mandate for smaller government, the new majority party proposes plans to reduce government spending and cut government services. Yet these proposals ultimately suffer the same fate as the liberal policies that came before them, and public demand for increased spending and services again begins to swell. The fourth chapter explores these macro-level implications of the micro-level theory developed here. Before turning to the macro-level data, the third chapter offers an addi- tional test of the micro-level theory.
3 STATE LEVEL CONFLICT AND SUPPORT FOR THE FMA
The substantive elements of policies (such as their provisions and costs) are generally thought to be the primary factors that shape public attitudes toward them. In contrast to this wisdom, I argue that non-substantive considerations also shape public policy attitudes in predictable and important ways. In particular, the tenor of a policy debate—which is often highlighted by the news media and characterized by them as combative—is also a powerful signal that shapes public policy opinion. Due to a commonly held belief that heated debate signifies dysfunction in government, the association of a given policy with partisan conflict can dampen public support for it.
I use a natural experiment to test this hypothesis, focusing specifically on the effects of exposure to debate over same-sex marriage on levels of support for the Federal Mar- riage Amendment (FMA) during 2004 and 2005. During this period, 14 states considered ballot measures on constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage. Additionally, the courts and state legislature in Massachusetts took numerous actions on the issue dur- ing 2004. Residents of 15 of the nation’s states were exposed to high levels of conflict over the issue of gay marriage in 2004 due to the news coverage and campaigns that sur- rounded these state-level actions. This case, therefore, provides a novel opportunity to compare changes in policy attitudes between individuals exposed to high levels of conflict and individuals exposed to relatively lower levels of conflict. Further, attitudes toward the substantive elements of the FMA are easily measured. Unlike complex policies with nu- merous provisions, the sole purpose of the FMA was to ensure that gay marriage would be prohibited nationwide. The unidimentional nature of the policy allows me to cleanly measure and model support for the FMA as a function of both exposure to debate and as a
function of support for the policy’s substantive elements—that is, support for the prohibi- tion of same-sex marriages and civil unions.
I find that between the spring of 2004 and 2005, the average level of support for the FMA decreased by 12 percentage points among residents of “high conflict” states, while opposition remained unchanged among residents of other states.1 This change in attitudes is not the result of a persuasion effect—support for the legalization of gay marriages and civil unions did not increase during the period studied. Rather, the findings support the hypothesis that the conflict surrounding the referendums dampened support the FMA in the states that considered them. I subject these findings to a number of robustness tests and find that they are insensitive to model specification.
In the section that follows, I briefly review the literature on the effects of exposure to conflict on political attitudes, and the literature on cognition and attitude formation. I then turn to my theory, data, and analysis.