Sharp Decline Of Veterans In Congress Had Little Effect On Voting Patterns

January 25, 2002

University Park, Pa. -- The dramatic decline in the number of veterans in Congress over the past generation has not significantly affected how legislators vote, even in regard to military matters, a Penn State political scientist says.

"In both the Senate and House of Representatives, veteran status has little impact on how veterans cast their votes as compared with non-veterans," says Dr. William Bianco, associate professor of political science. "Veterans are much more likely to be influenced by party affiliation, personal policy preferences and constituent demands than by time spent in the armed forces."

Once factors such as ideology and constituency were accounted for, veterans and non-veterans during the 1990s demonstrated roughly similar voting patterns on such issues as the Gulf War, authorizations to intervene in Somalia and Bosnia, veterans' benefits, draft legislation, gays in the military and repeal of the War Powers Act, he added.

Bianco is co-author with Jamie Markham, a 1998 Harvard University graduate and second lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force, of "The Decline of Military Experience in the Contemporary U.S. Congress," a chapter in the recent book, "Soldiers and Civilians: The Civil-Military Gap and American National Security," published by MIT Press.

The researchers' study examines 33 House and Senate defense votes taken in the early 1990s (102nd-104th Congresses) on issues ranging from interventions in the Persian Gulf, Somalia and Bosnia to procurement, veterans' benefits and draft registration. Their analysis reveals similar results in the 91st and 92nd House, during the peak years of veteran membership in Congress in the early 1970s.

The percentage of veterans in Congress in the 1970s was the highest in American history, Bianco says. Those veterans, for the most part, belonged to "the Greatest Generation," which served in World War II and, to a lesser degree, in the Korean conflict. Because males in the World War II and Korean War generation lived in a time of universal conscription, they were far more likely to be veterans. In 1969, for instance, 9 out of 10 members of Congress eligible for service in World War II and Korea were veterans.

"With the end of conscription in 1973 and the creation of an all-volunteer army, the pool has become increasingly smaller, with the result that there are far fewer veterans in Congress today. At the current time, the percentage of veterans in the U.S. Congress has dropped from more than 70 percent in the early 1970s to less than 30 percent in the contemporary House and Senate," says the Penn State researcher.

Citing his additional research, Bianco notes, "During the House vote authorizing Desert Storm in early 1991, the percentage of representatives voting in favor of the resolution was 57.9 percent. My logistic analysis shows that, if every representative had been a veteran with all other factors held constant, the percentage would still have been only 59.0. If everyone had been a non-veteran, the percentage would have been 56.9."

The same situation was roughly true in the Senate, where 52 percent of the lawmakers voted in favor of entering the Gulf War. With ideology and other factors controlled, a hypothetical all-veteran Senate would have voted 49 percent; a hypothetical non-veteran Senate would have voted 56.1 percent.

**pab**

Contacts:

Paul Blaum (814) 865-9481 pab15@psu.edu

Vicki Fong (814) 865-9481 vfong@psu.edu

EDITORS: Dr. Bianco is at (814) 865-9215 or wtb3@psu.edu by email.