Joshua Carstens Huder
Ph.D Candidate
006 Anderson Hall
huder@ufl.edu

Office hours
Tuesdays: 2:00-3:00
Thursdays: 3:00-4:00
And by appointment

Joshua Carstens Huder

Ph.D Candidate, Department of Political Science

News

Spring 2010 - I will be teaching Congress (POS 4424).

Fall 2009 - I will be teaching American Federal Government.

Current Research

"Presidential Autonomy and Congressional Development: Legislative Constraint on Executive Orders, 1939-2008."

Much of the literature in American political development highlights the rise of the presidency over the past seventy years. Examining interbranch relations throughout the ascendency of the executive has been the focus of several studies. Despite growing attention to this question, congressional development is largely missing from this scholarship. This research illustrates that Congress’s institutional development has substantial influence on the executives' ability to enact policy change. Examining different types of executive orders, this research illustrates that the frequency of executive orders has not declined, but the types of orders issued has changed substantially. Highlighting the impact of congressional development on the nation’s political environment, the results show that major congressional reforms have altered the policy domains presidents are willing to approach via executive order. Modern legislative procedures transferred institutional power toward the party leadership ultimately influencing politics within Congress and the dynamics between branches of government. Not only are changes to Congress’s legislative organization important to understanding legislative operation but they are similarly important for understanding the development of the separation of powers.

With Jordan Ragusa and Daniel Smith, "The Initiative to Shirk? Statewide Ballot Measures and Congressional Voting Behavior," Presented at the Annual State Politics and Policy Conference (Under Review)

For over a century, the federal government has responded, either directly or indirectly, to the passage of statewide ballot measures. But do statewide ballot measures affect congressional voting behavior? Drawing on an original dataset, we investigate whether successful statewide ballot measures might inform the legislative behavior of members of Congress, specifically if the passage of gay marriage, campaign finance, and minimum wage initiatives indirectly influence members’ floor votes on similar pieces of legislation. Theoretically, we are interested in whether ballot measures—which provide precise information about the median preferences of a member’s constituency—help reduce policy “shirking” by members of Congress. Our findings across three issues in both chambers of Congress indicate that the passage of ballot measures by a member’s constituency may alter a member’s floor vote in the House on parallel legislation, reducing legislative shirking, but that such an effect is attenuated in the Senate by other factors.

Dissertation

Cycles of Opposition: Reform Politics and Congressional Development, 1878-2008.

The legislative organization of Congress has dire consequences for the kinds of relationships and policies fostered within its walls. Attempts to alter the legislative rules and norms of Congress are the result of several interacting dynamics. Underlying processes, diverse member goals, and historical trends complicate and inherently flaw Congress's procedural development. In many ways, each attempt to alter its procedures is unique to the institutional, historical, and political settings of the time. However, aggregate trends of congressional development renders a more interdependent relationship between reforms. Procedural reforms are far from isolated events. Rather, they are apart of a larger congressional narrative that defines, and redefines, legitimate political authority across history. Rules, norms, and processes that disperse institutional power are altered as competing factions gain the political edge. Using a content analysis of newspaper aricles, this dissertation examines aggregate trends of congressional development through the public sphere. Evolving across history, conceptions of institutional legitimacy have defined eras of congressional politics and operation. As members debate and articulate legitimate procedures to represent their constituents, the changes enacted from those debates form the outlines of institutional stability and upheaval.