ABSTRACT
Legislatures are where the demands and supports generated by society are finally hammered into formal public policy. From a wide variety of research on the US Congress and legislatures in the American states, it has been concluded that the best single predictor of roll call voting responses is the political party. In other urban states such as Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Ohio partisanship has been demonstrated to be the most important predictor of legislators’ voting behavior. The Rice index is calculated by subtracting the percentage of a group voting in that group’s minority from the percentage voting in the majority. Mississippi ought to be a prime hunting ground for rural-urban legislative conflict. Although the Delta-Hills conflict was clearly on the wane in both houses between 1964 and 1977, the picture regarding rural-urban voting is more cloudy. Understanding voting in the Montana legislature is made less difficult by the consistent importance of the political parties.
