Previous models of sequential veto bargaining in the United States do not include public opinion as a significant predictor of policy outcomes, yet work on presidential agenda setting (Kernell 1993; Canes-Wrone 2001a) suggests that public opinion can be an important factor in determining policy...

Recent quantitative evidence indicates that higher-income Americans have considerably more influence than lower-income citizens on national policy decisions. But the implications of these findings depend on what the affluent want from politics. If their policy preferences closely resemble those...