ABSTRACT
Using statistics from Congressional Quarterly (CQ) Almanacs, this chapter finds that the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) is less oppositional and more supportive of a Democratic president and the Democratic Party than during the Jimmy Carter administration. It develops a new measure of Black legislative effectiveness using CQ data, namely, CBC members' votes for key legislation that the House majority approves or rejects in a given year as a percentage. The CQ lists about a dozen key bills annually that are matters of great controversy, reflect presidential politics, or potentially impact many Americans. In the Carter administration under a Democratically controlled House, Black legislators voted with the House majority 45–61 percent of the time. Armed with different and new statistical measures beyond the standard roll-call ideological or interest group summaries, the chapter also finds that studying the legislative behavior of African Americans over time is fascinating.
