Political Drivers and Signaling in Independent Agency Voting: Evidence from the FCC

We develop a model for commissioner voting at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Our model relates the costs faced by FCC Chairs (and by extension by presidents) of effecting their agenda to commissioner voting. The model shows that divided government, with its increased cost of legislative achievement, increases partisan commissioner voting. To test the model, we use a unique and comprehensive data set, spanning 9,151 orders and 35,194 individual commissioner votes over 35 years to examine the factors driving commissioner voting. Employing logit choice models, we find significant evidence that periods of split government are correlated with more partisan voting. We also find significant evidence of signaling by commissioner voting. Specifically, the partisan composition of the D.C. Circuit drives dissenting, suggesting that commissioners use dissenting to signal sympathetic judges reviewing those orders.