Political Sentinel

“I’m Not the President of Black America”: Rhetorical versus Policy Representation

Abstract

A key question in the study of minority representation is whether descriptive representatives provide superior substantive representation. Neglected in this literature is the distinction between two forms of substantive representation: rhetoric versus policy. We provide a systematic comparison of presidential minority representation along these two dimensions. Barack Obama was the first African American president, yet his substantive representation of African Americans has not been fully evaluated. Using speech and budget data, we find that relative to comparable presidents, Obama offered weaker rhetorical representation, but stronger policy representation, on race and poverty. While we cannot rule out non-racial explanations, Obama’s policy proposals are consistent with minority representation. His actions also suggest that descriptive representatives may provide relatively better policy representation but worse rhetorical representation, at least when the constituency is a numerical minority. We thus highlight an understudied tension between rhetoric and policy in theories of minority representation.

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Perspectives on Politics , Volume 17 , Issue 4 , December 2019 , pp. 1038 - 1058

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537592719000963[Opens in a new window]

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President Barack Obama’s election was heralded as a breakthrough that implied more equitable political representation for African Americans. Nearly 80% of African Americans surveyed at the time regarded Obama’s 2008 victory as a “dream come true” (Steinhauser Reference Steinhauser2008). How well was this expectation met? Did the first African American president act as a representative for African Americans?

There is reason to expect an affirmative answer. The concept of descriptive representation suggests that a disadvantaged constituency may be best represented by its own members. Normative theories of descriptive representation posit that representatives should resemble the people they represent, sharing similar characteristics, experiences, and perspectives (Mansbridge Reference Mansbridge1999; Williams Reference Williams1998). These similarities are expected to result in improved substantive representation, defined as actions taken for the constituency (Pitkin 1967). The question of descriptive representation is particularly pressing when it comes to African Americans, as African American interests and preferences are far from equitably represented in policy outcomes (Griffin and Newman Reference Griffin and Newman2008; Hajnal and Horowitz Reference Hajnal and Horowitz2014; Schaffner, Rhodes, and La Raja Reference Schaffner, Rhodes and La Raja2016). In line with theories of descriptive representation, African American officeholders often do attempt to change policy in the direction preferred by African Americans, at least under some conditions (Browning, Marshall, and Tabb Reference Browning, Marshall and Tabb1984; Griffin and Keane Reference Griffin and Keane2006; Griffin and Newman Reference Griffin and Newman2008; Haynie Reference Haynie2001; Minta Reference Minta2011; Preuhs Reference Preuhs2006; Shah and Marschall Reference Shah, Marschall, Mossberger, Clarke and John2012; Tate Reference Tate2003; Whitby Reference Whitby2000). If these theories are correct, then African Americans should have seen an increase in presidential representation during the Obama administration.

On the other hand, many empirical studies in the literature on political incorporation in local or legislative representation point to considerable limitations constraining minority officeholders (Hajnal Reference Hajnal2006; Haynie Reference Haynie2001; Hopkins and McCabe Reference Hopkins and McCabe2012; Pelissero, Holian, and Tomaka Reference Pelissero, Holian and Tomaka2000). African Americans governing majority-white electorates have strong incentives to represent that majority, and are electorally accountable to it. These representatives may face pressures to avoid focusing on race—to deracialize their governance (Clayton Reference Clayton2010; Gillespie Reference Gillespie2012; Nelson, Sanbonmatsu, and McClerking Reference Nelson, Sanbonmatsu and McClerking2007). In trying to avoid the perception of racial favoritism, these representatives may end up representing minorities no better (or perhaps even worse) than a comparable white representative (Hajnal Reference Hajnal2006; Harris Reference Harris2012). As Obama put it, “I’m not the president of black America. I’m the president of the United States of America” (Dingle Reference Dingle2012).

However, this literature has not considered the possibility that in majority-white constituencies, African American representatives may provide worse rhetorical representation, but nonetheless offer better policy representation, than their white counterparts. We develop this conceptual distinction using the case of Barack Obama. While Obama’s rhetoric on race has been analyzed (Gillion Reference Gillion2016), there has been no systematic assessment of his policy actions on race and race-related issues. More generally, no study has systematically compared presidents’ policy action on issues of particular concern to African Americans or disadvantaged minorities (for partial exceptions, see: Gillion 2016; Hajnal and Horowitz Reference Hajnal and Horowitz2014; Nteta, Rhodes, and Tarsi Reference Nteta, Rhodes and Tarsi2016). Most importantly for the concept of substantive representation, there has been no systematic effort to compare rhetorical versus policy representation of an identity group.

We attempt such an analysis using a specific set of metrics. First, unlike existing studies, we operationalize representation along two distinct dimensions: words and deeds. Specifically, we analyze speeches separately from the concrete amounts presidents propose for relevant programs. Presidential budget proposals are one of the ways that presidency scholars measure presidents’ efforts to implement their policy priorities (Berman Reference Berman1979; Berry, Burden, and Howell Reference Berry, Burden and Howell2010; Canes-Wrone Reference Canes-Wrone2001, Reference Canes-Wrone2006; Clarke Reference Clarke1998; Dearden and Husted Reference Dearden and Husted1990; Howell, Jackman, and Rogowski Reference Howell, Jackman and Rogowski2013; Kamlet and Mowery Reference Kamlet and Mowery1987; Kiewiet and Krehbiel Reference Kiewiet and Krehbiel2000; Kiewiet and McCubbins Reference Kiewiet and McCubbins1988, Reference Kiewiet and McCubbins1991; Krause and Cook Reference Krause and Cook2015; Rossiter Reference Rossiter1960; Whittington and Carpenter Reference Whittington and Carpenter2003). We find that representation cannot be accurately evaluated unless speeches and policy proposals are conceptually and empirically disentangled. Second, the baseline against which scholars have evaluated the quality of Obama’s representation of African Americans is unclear (Rudalevige Reference Rudalevige2013, 1130). We offer a specific baseline: other presidents, including those governing under similar circumstances. Third, building on and extending the urban political incorporation literature, we systematically classify programs as serving the needs of a constituency based on the proportion of recipients they serve (Browning, Marshall, and Tabb Reference Browning, Marshall and Tabb1984). We conducted a comprehensive assessment of all federal programs and agencies and collected information on the proportion of their benefits that go to lower-income or African American people. We are unaware of studies of federal representation that have used a precise measure to select programs based on their actual benefit to the descriptive group to generate a systematic list of the relevant programs. This quantifiable standard thus offers an additional advance. These constitute the central contributions of this article.

In keeping with previous studies of Obama’s rhetoric, we find that Obama gave no more attention to race in his major speeches than his predecessors (Gillion Reference Gillion2016). In addition, he gave substantially less attention than other presidents to poverty, which disproportionately affects African Americans. However, by the yardstick of presidential spending proposals, Obama exceeds every president since Nixon. These findings hold when controlling for economic and political conditions. They are also supported by a robustness check using presidential DW-Nominate scores related to poverty and civil rights. Obama provided weaker rhetorical representation but stronger policy action on behalf of African Americans.

These findings highlight a tension between rhetorical and policy representation, casting descriptive representation as a trade-off between the two. This conclusion is a departure from the theoretical and empirical literature on descriptive representation, which has not investigated when and why major speeches and policy proposals may diverge. Still, the findings are consistent with theories of minority incorporation: in order to enact policies that benefit a disadvantaged group, elected officials in majority-white jurisdictions may need to frame them as a universal benefit, to avoid a backlash (Browning, Marshall, and Tabb Reference Browning, Marshall and Tabb1984; Nteta, Rhodes, and Tarsi Reference Nteta, Rhodes and Tarsi2016; Wilson Reference Wilson1987). The potential for backlash may be even stronger when descriptive representatives advocate for their own group, as their efforts are likely to be perceived as favoritism (Hajnal Reference Hajnal2006; Nelson, Sanbonmatsu, and McClerking Reference Nelson, Sanbonmatsu and McClerking2007; Tesler Reference Tesler2016). Thus, Obama may have eschewed racialized rhetoric to avoid activating the racial concerns of the majority-white electorate. Such considerations underscore the utility of disentangling rhetoric and policy efforts, revealing that descriptive representatives may provide representation that is weaker in one sense but stronger in another. Of course, Obama’s emphasis on policy proposals over rhetoric may be due to reasons other than the dilemmas of minority incorporation. It is impossible to definitively eliminate alternative explanations for Obama’s difference from other presidents, given the existence of only one African American president. Nevertheless, the Obama difference remains after accounting for the main non-racial explanations for presidential behavior. These findings suggest the need to sharpen a neglected theoretical contrast between rhetorical and policy representation in studies of representation more generally. This attention to rhetoric versus policy may provide a useful direction for future research concerned generally with executive behavior in majority-white jurisdictions.

Literature

Obama’s presidency has prompted numerous studies by political scientists (Crotty Reference Crotty2012; Liu Reference Liu2010; Skocpol Reference Skocpol2012). However, most of these studies do not examine Obama’s efforts to represent African Americans. Instead, they focus on Obama’s handling of the economic crisis, his use of presidential power, his struggles with partisan polarization, or his foreign policy efforts. His role as the nation’s first African American president has received surprisingly little attention given its historic nature.

The few existing studies of Obama’s descriptive representation have reached mostly negative conclusions. For example, The Obama Phenomena, a multi-author volume that includes contributions from more than twenty scholars, contains no overall positive assessments of Obama’s efforts on behalf of African Americans (Henry, Allen, and Chrisman Reference Henry, Allen and Chrisman2011). Such works tend to characterize Obama as “constrained from promoting policies that would aid racial minorities” (Rudalevige Reference Rudalevige2013, 1129). Numerous scholars argue that Obama failed to lead a national conversation on race, abdicating his power as an agenda-setter for racial equality (Gillion Reference Gillion2016; Harris Reference Harris2012; King and Smith Reference King and Smith2011). They conclude that Obama’s silence on race and poverty reflected the low priority he placed on these groups (Gillion Reference Gillion2016; Harris Reference Harris2012).

These negative verdicts treat rhetorical and policy representation as a package. They assume that if Obama was weak on rhetorical representation, his policy efforts on behalf of African Americans were also lacking. However, they do not systematically examine those policy efforts. In addition, the scholarship on Obama’s policy activities has not focused on policies relevant to his role as a descriptive representative. Thus, there is little evidence to support conclusions about the nature of Obama’s descriptive policy representation. More generally, there are no systematic studies of presidential policy representation of specific social groups.

Obama’s historic presidency presents the opportunity for a key test of minority representation. The literature on race and descriptive representation poses a simple question: do blacks represent blacks better than whites do (Whitby Reference Whitby2000)? More specifically, do descriptive representatives provide better substantive representation by making a greater effort to enact policy for their descriptive constituency? These important questions have yet to be applied to the most powerful office in the American political system. Answering them requires attending to the distinction between rhetorical and policy representation. To be sure, the analysis cannot rule out non-racial causes for Obama’s behavior. The best we can do is control for non-racial covariates and use placebo tests with other presidents. We hope our study is useful in doing so and in developing specific, quantitative, and systematic measures of representation that apply to every president in every year. In that sense, we are comparing presidents’ substantive representation of African Americans in a much more systematic way than has been done to date.

Substantive Representation: Saying versus Doing

There are at least two dimensions of substantive representation by which representatives can be evaluated: what they say and what they do. When a member of a disadvantaged social category gains office, one way they can raise the level of representation for their group is through their speech. As public awareness of an issue rises, elected officials may face increased pressure to address it (Gillion Reference Gillion2016; Hutchings, McClerking, and Charles Reference Hutchings, McClerking and Charles2004). A descriptive representative seeking to provide substantive representation may thus speak more often about the needs of their descriptive constituents.

Moreover, the bully pulpit seems to be a power that presidents in particular can use. A distinctive power of the presidency is access to the public. When presidents make public appeals on behalf of a social group or policy area, they set the agenda by raising public concern about these issues (Cohen Reference Cohen1997; Kernell Reference Kernell2006; but see Nteta, Rhodes, and Tarsi Reference Nteta, Rhodes and Tarsi2016). For instance, Cohen (Reference Cohen1993) argues that presidential rhetoric on civil rights has been instrumental in establishing it as part of the public agenda. Presidents can thereby indirectly encourage Congress to enact policy that aligns with their own preferences. Given this, the frequency of public references to a particular issue can be taken as an indicator of the president’s issue priorities (Cohen Reference Cohen1997). It follows that a descriptive representative seeking to provide substantive representation would use the special rhetorical power of the presidency to raise issues of concern for their descriptive constituency. By this standard, Obama provided superior representation to African Americans if he talked about issues distinctively relevant to African Americans more often than his white predecessors did (Gillion Reference Gillion2016).

However, public utterances are not necessarily the most reliable indicator of efforts to provide substantive representation. If their goal is to enact policy, presidents should only speak out when the public supports their position or can plausibly be persuaded to do so (Canes-Wrone Reference Canes-Wrone2001). If the public is opposed to the president’s position, raising the salience of the issue could backfire by generating public resistance. When the public is unlikely to embrace the president’s preferences, it is more effective to use backdoor methods, such as private negotiation with members of Congress. In fact, presidents may strategically avoid public discourse to avoid mobilizing opposition (Covington Reference Covington1987). Thus, the notion that public appeals are a reliable indicator of policy representation must be tempered with two caveats: First, presidential rhetoric may be more reflective of the chances of policy success from going public than of true policy priorities (Canes-Wrone Reference Canes-Wrone2001); second, public speech on a policy is not an accurate indicator of substantive policy representation.

In addition to the standard considerations faced by any president, a descriptive representative faces additional constraints. As Gillion (2016, 47) notes, “Herein lies the paradox of a black president . . . an unprecedented effort to be viewed as a president for all people.” A representative from a numerical minority may trigger significant opposition by advocating for their own group (Hajnal Reference Hajnal2006; Nelson, Sanbonmatsu, and McClerking Reference Nelson, Sanbonmatsu and McClerking2007). The less a descriptive president says, the more effective they could be in enacting policies that benefit minorities. As such, Obama’s silence on race and poverty cannot be regarded as sufficient evidence of a weak effort to provide substantive representation for African Americans.

Along with rhetoric, a second way that officials can provide substantive representation is by making policy proposals. This is a more accurate indicator of priorities, and arguably a more important form of substantive representation. First, policy proposals are a direct causal step in the presidential drive to enact policy, while speech is an indirect step (Canes-Wrone Reference Canes-Wrone2001). Second, while the intent behind rhetoric is unclear, policy proposals indicate a concrete commitment to act. While the clearest evidence for Obama’s success as a descriptive representative would be relatively greater attention to African Americans’ interests in both his rhetoric and policy proposals, policy proposals represent the most critical test.Footnote1

Data and Methods

To test for substantive representation of African Americans, we first identified the distinctive preferences and interests of African Americans. African Americans and white Americans tend to express divergent preferences on civil rights and anti-poverty policy. A larger proportion of African Americans than whites believe that not enough progress has been made toward racial equality or civil rights (Hutchings Reference Hutchings2009). African Americans are also much more likely to support anti-poverty efforts (Griffin and Newman Reference Griffin and Newman2008; Haynie Reference Haynie2001; Whitby Reference Whitby2000).

We also examined the policy literature to identify areas that tend to disproportionately impact African Americans. The same policy areas came up: poverty and civil rights. We take up poverty first. While Americans of all racial groups experience poverty, African Americans have historically experienced greater and more pervasive socioeconomic disadvantages (Harris and Lieberman Reference Harris and Lieberman2013; Haynie Reference Haynie2001; Macartney, Bishaw, and Fontenot Reference Macartney, Bishaw and Fontenot2013). When Obama took office, nearly 26% of African Americans lived below the poverty line, compared with only 12% of white Americans. The poverty rate of African Americans has been approximately double that of whites since before 1970 (Gilens Reference Gilens1999). Accordingly, African Americans make up a disproportionately large number of beneficiaries of anti-poverty programs. In a recent survey, 31% of African Americans had received food stamps, nearly double the percentage of whites (Morin Reference Morin2013). Anti-poverty programs have been essential in improving the life chances of African Americans. Thus, efforts to boost spending on anti-poverty programs are a form of substantive representation of African Americans.

The second policy area is civil rights (Haynie Reference Haynie2001). Agencies and programs intended to promote civil rights continue to handle a substantial number of complaints related specifically to race. For instance, in 2015, a plurality (35%) of complaints investigated by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission were about racial discrimination.Footnote2 As such, efforts to spend on these programs are an indicator of representation of African Americans.

Measuring Presidential Rhetoric

To quantify presidential rhetoric on these issues, we analyze the content of State of the Union speeches from 1965 to 2016.Footnote3 We start with 1965 because it marks the beginning of the modern era of federal anti-poverty and civil rights policy, including the Voting Rights Act and the War on Poverty. Presidents in office from 1965 on are thus all operating under a broadly similar set of policy conditions. While we could go back further, doing so would offer little additional insight into how Obama’s representation of African Americans compares to the relevant baseline—presidents operating in the same historical era. The State of the Union is particularly useful for our research question, because it is an institutionalized, routine activity of the presidency, rendering speeches in some sense comparable (Cohen Reference Cohen1997). This allows us to construct a time series of presidents’ rhetoric on poverty and race in their most public speeches. We developed a list of keywords and counted the number of times a president referenced them. Examples of poverty words are “hungry” and “poor.” Examples of race words are “African Americans” and “discrimination.” The full list is in section A of the online appendix.Footnote4

Each occurrence of a keyword was coded as being either neutral/positive or negative in tone. A word was coded as negative if it (1) called into question the utility of anti-poverty or civil rights programs; (2) called for the reduction or elimination of an anti-poverty or civil rights program; or (3) invoked negative stereotypes of the poor or African Americans. For instance, if a poverty word was used in the context of an exhortation for low-income Americans to work harder, it was coded as negative (refer to online appendix B and C for details and inter-coder reliability).

Presidential mentions of poverty and civil rights may be influenced by three confounding factors. First, Obama’s speeches could generally be less focused on social groups and domestic issues compared to other presidents, giving the false impression that he specifically neglects poverty and civil rights. To evaluate this possibility, we examine mentions of the middle class as a placebo test. If the alternative hypothesis is true, then Obama would also talk about the middle class less than other presidents. Given that there are a growing number of African Americans joining the middle class, rhetoric about this group may also have value for black citizens. However, because the middle class is primarily white, we treat it mostly as a placebo, with the appropriate caveat. Second, to account for the fact that some presidents are more talkative than others, we divide the number of keywords used by the total number of words in each speech. Finally, Obama’s rhetoric could be characteristic of any president facing similar economic and political conditions. We therefore control for those conditions in our analyses.

Measuring Presidential Policy Efforts

To examine each president’s policy representation of African Americans, we use their yearly federal budget proposals from 1970 to 2017.Footnote5 Specifically, we use their proposed spending totals for existing discretionary programs, and their proposed spending changes to discretionary programs, mandatory programs, and tax expenditures. These are the elements of the budget that presidents can directly attempt to alter (refer to online appendix D for details). Total non-discretionary spending estimates for entitlement programs are not included in the analysis. We begin with the 1970 budget proposal for two reasons. First, the contemporary American welfare state did not exist until the late 1960s. The programs that existed prior to that were decidedly different from those inherited by Obama. Second, prior to administrative reforms in the early 1970s, presidents did not include as much detail about the allocation of funds, making it difficult to isolate proposed spending for the specific programs of theoretical interest here (Tomkin Reference Tomkin1998).

Following Canes-Wrone (Reference Canes-Wrone2001), we note that budget proposals have important advantages over other measures of presidential policy preferences. The main alternative measures of presidential priorities are Congressional Quarterly’s rating of presidential positions on bills and DW-Nominate scores. These measures rely on publicly stated presidential positions on bills, making them less suitable than spending proposals for at least three reasons. First, the president must provide a budget every year, but they are not obligated to speak on every bill. In fact, some presidents speak on few bills, generating sparse data. Public positions on specific bills are likely less accurate for Obama, who took far fewer positions than previous presidents (refer to online appendix E) (Klein Reference Klein2012). Additionally, the public positions that a president takes may not accurately reflect their policy priorities. The president can only take a formal public position after Congress has initiated a roll call vote. In some of the years in our dataset, the president had prohibitively limited opportunities to take a position on legislation related to poverty or civil rights. Finally, while standard DW-Nominate scores capture overall ideology, they are not necessarily an accurate indicator of presidential positions on minority-related policy.

Using budget proposals as our primary measure of policy effort circumvents each of these issues. Budget proposals correspond to the same types of spending categories across years, standardizing the measure of policy preference across presidents. Since our aim is to see how Obama’s representation of African Americans compares to his predecessors’, comparability of measures across time is a necessity. Additionally, whereas position statements do not reflect intensity of preference, proposed spending does. Dollars are a continuous scale and therefore vary more than simple endorsement or opposition. Finally, whereas position statements require public speech, the details of budget proposals are hammered out behind the scenes and receive relatively less publicity.

In addition, budget proposals avoid the problems associated with using other types of presidential action. Vetoes are less useful than budget proposals for measuring presidential efforts to affect poverty and civil rights. Obama only issued 12 vetoes. Of those, only one might be considered at all related to poverty and none were clearly related to civil rights (refer to online appendix E). Additionally, vetoes are subject to congressional action in that presidents cannot veto policies that never reach their desk. The president may want to enact or reject a particular policy but can only do so if Congress initiates. As a result, they may have relatively few opportunities to formally react to bills related to poverty or civil rights. Moreover, vetoes capture presidential preferences only in simple binary terms. They convey little information about how closely the bills that reach the president’s desk match presidential preferences.

As to executive orders, scholars point to considerable limitations regarding their scope and impact (Chiou and Rothenberg Reference Chiou and Rothenberg2013; Deering and Maltzman Reference Deering and Maltzman1999; Peterson Reference Peterson1990). While presidents can use executive orders to influence the bureaucratic management of existing programs, they cannot commit additional resources to meaningfully expand benefits without securing the necessary funding from Congress. Consistent with this, Obama issued only four executive orders that could be reasonably described as related to poverty or civil rights, and these were minor in scope (refer to online appendix E). This is on par with other presidents. In sum, executive actions related to the policy areas of theoretical interest here are too scarce and inconsistent for systematic comparison across presidents.

In contrast, while Congress is under no obligation to act on the president’s budget proposals, it is one of the only means by which the president can formally exert meaningful, positive influence in the areas of poverty relief and civil rights. An abundance of research suggests that the executive branch exerts disproportionate influence over the budgetary process (Berman Reference Berman1979; Berry, Burden, and Howell Reference Berry, Burden and Howell2010; Cameron and McCarty Reference Cameron and McCarty2004; Canes-Wrone Reference Canes-Wrone2006; Clarke Reference Clarke1998; Dearden and Husted Reference Dearden and Husted1990; Howell, Jackman, and Rogowski Reference Howell, Jackman and Rogowski2013; Kamlet and Mowery Reference Kamlet and Mowery1987; Kiewiet and Krehbiel Reference Kiewiet and Krehbiel2000; Kiewiet and McCubbins Reference Kiewiet and McCubbins1988, Reference Kiewiet and McCubbins1991; Krause and Cook Reference Krause and Cook2015; Pack Reference Pack1987; Rossiter Reference Rossiter1960; Whittington and Carpenter Reference Whittington and Carpenter2003). The president and executive Office of Management and Budget have substantially more information than Congress about the funding required to sustain existing bureaucratic programs. This informational asymmetry means that the president’s budget carries considerable weight during congressional deliberations (Berman Reference Berman1979; Kiewiet and McCubbins Reference Kiewiet and McCubbins1991). It also sends a clear message to Congress about the sort of appropriations bills it may pass before being subject to presidential override. The president’s veto power means that presidents can exert negative influence over the final budget, incentivizing Congress to heed his proposals (Dearden and Husted Reference Dearden and Husted1990; Kiewiet and McCubbins Reference Kiewiet and McCubbins1988; Pack Reference Pack1987). Thus, while presidents are unlikely to have their budget perfectly enacted, they have every reason to assume their proposed spending for each program will carry weight in the final legislation and they do little to tailor them to congressional preferences (Kiewiet and Krehbiel Reference Kiewiet and Krehbiel2000; Kiewiet and McCubbins Reference Kiewiet and McCubbins1988; Krause and Cook Reference Krause and Cook2015). Supporting this, Krause and Cook (2015, 243-244) conclude that “modern presidents’ formal prerogative to propose budgets not only serves as a critical element of executive authority . . . it also shapes budgetary outcomes . . . net of external political and policy considerations.” They further note (262) that “presidential influence over congressional appropriation decisions is comparatively stronger than the impact of executive acquiescence reflected as a result of the budgetary process.” This complements Kiewiet and Krehbiel’s (Reference Kiewiet and Krehbiel2000) finding that presidential characteristics, such as partisanship, exert a sizable and stable impact on appropriations, more so than partisan control of Congress. Most importantly, it strengthens and extends Kiewiet and McCubbins’ (Reference Kiewiet and McCubbins1988) finding that presidential budget requests for agency funding have a significant impact on congressional appropriations decisions. As a whole, this literature strongly supports the notion that presidential budget proposals indeed represent an important, concrete step in policy-making.

While we do not claim that the president’s budget proposals represent a unilateral form of policy-making, they nonetheless provide a relatively good measure of presidential efforts to enact policy across time and in specific domains. Unlike alternative measures, the president’s budget offers an annual, precise quantity as a signal of their preferences for specific policy areas. Most importantly for the purposes of this paper, budget proposals allow us to systematically compare presidential policy efforts related to poverty relief and civil rights.

Still, it is reasonable to expect that alternative measures of minority policy efforts—despite severe limitations in the frequency and comparability of observations—should mirror presidential budget proposals. To this end, as a robustness check, we examine presidential DW-Nominate scores in the same policy areas (refer to online appendix F).Footnote6

We define anti-poverty programs as those that disproportionately benefit, either by law or in practice, low-income Americans. At least one of the following criteria had to be met for a program to be coded as anti-poverty: (1) at least 30% of beneficiaries or recipients had to belong to the bottom income quintile; or (2) at least 50% of beneficiaries or recipients had to belong to the bottom two income quintiles; or (3) it reduced the poverty rate by upwards of 5%, as demonstrated by previous scholarly research. The first two requirements are similar to Iversen and Soskice’s (Reference Iversen and Soskice2006) poverty threshold. Data on benefits by income level was acquired from the Congressional Budget Office and other relevant agencies. Where raw data was not available, we relied on eligibility requirements and scholarly analyses. The 103 programs identified are consistent with programs listed in the literature on anti-poverty policy (Ben-Shalom, Moffitt, and Scholz Reference Ben-Shalom, Karl Scholz and Jefferson2012; Irving and Loveless Reference Irving and Loveless2015; Palumbo Reference Palumbo2010; Spar and Falk Reference Spar and Falk2015). Examples include WIC (Women, Infants, and Children), Head Start, Section 8 Housing, and Pell Grants (refer to online appendix G for a complete list of programs; refer to online appendix H for details on how housing programs were standardized across years).

To identify civil rights programs, we examined the legislative history of civil rights laws and programs intended to ensure greater equity for African Americans and other racial minority groups (Donohue and Heckman Reference Donohue and Heckman1991; King and Smith Reference King and Smith2011; Laney