ABSTRACT
The period since World War I has been marked by a dramatic shift, as evidenced by congressional roll call voting, in the liberal/conservative preferences of the regions of the United States. This dramatic shift in the party balance, and the massive member replacement that accompanied it, produced a marked change in the type of policies enacted by Congress. In terms of a spatial theory of realignment, the clear implication is that the cross-cutting issues organize voting along new spatial axes both in Congress and in the mass public. The great changes in the type of policies enacted by Congress beginning in the early 1930s were due to the massive member replacement during those years which shifted the center of gravity on the liberal-conservative dimension sharply to the left. The Northeast has undergone a dramatic change in the character of its congressional delegation since World War I.
