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Polarization without Parties: Term Limits and Legislative Partisanship in Nebraska's Unicameral Legislature

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2021

Seth Masket  and
Boris Shor
Seth Masket*
Affiliation:
University of Denver, Denver, CO, USA
Boris Shor
Affiliation:
Georgetown University, Washington, DC, USA
*
Seth Masket, University of Denver, 469 Sturm Hall, 2000 E. Asbury Ave., Denver, CO 80208, USA. Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

Despite a long history of nonpartisanship, the Nebraska state legislature has polarized rapidly within the past decade. Using interviews and campaign finance records, we examine politics in the modern Unicam to investigate nonpartisan polarization. We find that newly instituted term limits created opportunities for the state's political parties to recruit and finance candidates in an increasingly partisan fashion. Social network analysis suggests that there is a growing level of structure to campaign donations, with political elites increasingly less likely to contribute across party lines. The results offer a compelling example of parties overcoming institutions designed to eliminate them.

Keywords

party organizationsparties and interest groupsparties in legislatureslegislative behaviorlegislative politicslegislative electionsroll call votingterm limits
Type
Research Article
Information
State Politics & Policy Quarterly , Volume 15 , Issue 1 , March 2015 , pp. 67 - 90
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2014

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