Religious Identification and Legislative Voting

While religion has profound effects on political behavior in mass publics, less is known about the effect of religion on political elites. This article considers the extent to which religious identification influences the roll-call voting behavior of Mormon members of the U.S. House of Representatives. While some aspects of Mormonism make it seem like a likely case for religious influence, the literature on legislative decision making provides no theoretical rationale for religious influence on legislative roll-call voting. A simple empirical test finds that Mormon representatives are no more unified in their voting behavior than are randomly selected sets of legislators.