Legislators as Lobbyists

Public policy is produced by elected and unelected officials and through the interactions of branches of government. We consider how such interactions affect policy implementation and representation. We argue that legislators try to influence bureaucratic decisions through direct communication with federal agencies, and that such contact is effective and has consequences for policy outcomes. We provide empirical evidence of this argument using original data about direct communication between members of Congress and the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) along with decisions made by the DOL regarding trade and redistributive policies. We find that direct contacts influence DOL decisions, and the agency is more likely to reverse previous decisions when requested to do so by legislators. Our results challenge key assumptions and findings in the previous literature and have important implications for interbranch relations and informal means of control over the implementation of national policy.     

Doubling Down: Inequality in Responsiveness and the Policy Preferences of Elected Officials

Is bias in responsiveness to constituents conditional on the policy preferences of elected officials? The scholarly conventional wisdom is that constituency groups who do not receive policy representation still obtain some level of responsiveness by legislators outside of the policy realm. In contrast, we present a theory of preference‐induced responsiveness bias where constituency responsiveness by legislators is associated with legislator policy preferences. Elected officials who favor laws that could disproportionately impact minority groups are also less likely to engage in nonpolicy responsiveness to minority groups. We conducted a field experiment in 28 US legislative chambers. Legislators were randomly assigned to receive messages from Latino and white constituents. If legislators supported voter identification laws, Latino constituents were less likely to receive constituency communications from their legislators. There are significant implications regarding fairness in the democratic process when elected officials fail to represent disadvantaged constituency groups in both policy and nonpolicy realms.     

Enforcement Principles and Environmental Agencies: Principal-Agent Relationships in a Delegated Environmental Program

This article examines whether states shirked enforcement responsibilities in their principal-agent relationship with the federal government when implementing a delegated environmental program. It evaluates determinants of environmental enforcement stringency, particularly whether penalties were less when imposed by states than by the federal government. It analyzes 6,048 hazardous waste administrative penalties across 32 states and all U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Regions over 14 years. It finds that state penalties are typically substantially lower than federal penalties, and that penalty amounts are typically also related to the partisan composition of elected officials and the characteristics of enforcement actions, such as the type, seriousness, and number of violations. Factors such as the influence of organized interest groups, agency sensitivity to economic conditions or the economic importance of regulated industries, and environmentalist preferences of elected officials and the public are typically unrelated to enforcement stringency.     

The Politics of Racial Disparity Reform: Racial Inequality and Criminal Justice Policymaking in the States

Racial inequalities in criminal justice are pressing problems for policymakers. Prior literature suggests elected officials promulgate punitive, racially disparate criminal justice policies due to partisanship and racial fears, but scholarship has yet to explain how and why elected officials address racial problems in criminal processing. This article introduces the framework of racial disparity reform policymaking. A racial disparity reform is a policy that seeks to reduce distinctions in criminal justice institutions’ treatment of racial groups. Elected officials pursue these policies due to ideological beliefs in civil rights ideals and political interests in appearing to solve social problems. Using an original database of policy enactments, this article first presents the distribution and types of reform measures adopted by elected officials in all 50 states between 1998 and 2011. It then examines social and political explanations for when state legislatures and executives adopt racial disparity reforms. Policy enactment is predicted by worsening problems of racial disproportion in criminal processing, Democratic control of elected branches, and the absence of judicial efforts to improve racial fairness within a state’s criminal justice system. Similar dynamics encourage the development of different measures types within policies. Such ideological and problem-solving explanations for racial disparity reform show a potential for elected officials to forge more racially just criminal justice practices.     

A Field Experiment on the Effects of Ethnicity and Socioeconomic Status on the Quality of Representation

The principle of equal representation is the cornerstone of modern democracy, yet there have been concerns that the benefits of representation can be skewed, advantaging some over others. We argue that elected officials will be more responsive to constituents whom they perceive as more like themselves and more likely to be politically active. We examine inequalities in representation in a parliamentary democracy where, intrinsic to the institutional framework, there is a long‐standing reputation for serving constituent needs: the United Kingdom. We also advance the literature by focusing on the expediency of responsiveness and the helpfulness of response. Drawing on a field experiment, we find both an overall high level of responsiveness and helpfulness but also biases affecting MP's responsiveness. Our findings raise important questions about equal access to representation, even in a political system where constituency service is the norm and expectation.     

The political development of the Hill-Burton program: a case study in distributive policy

The Hill-Burton program offers a rare opportunity to study a distributive health policy from its adoption to its elimination. This study reveals that the political dynamics of the policy changed over time. It concludes by observing that interest group influence on distributive health policies may only be decisive when circumstances permit. Those circumstances include the involvement of powerful elected officials and the degree of consensus among policy experts about the need for the policy and the appropriateness of its objectives.     

Campaigning for the Bench: The Corrosive Effects of Campaign Speech?

A new era has emerged in the ways in which candidates for state judicial office campaign. In the past, judicial elections were largely devoid of policy content, with candidates typically touting their judicial experience and other preparation for serving as a judge. Today, in many if not most states, such campaigns are relics of the past. Modern judicial campaigns have adopted many of the practices of candidates for other types of political office, including soliciting campaign contributions, using attack ads, and even making promises about how they will decide issues if elected to the bench. Not surprisingly, this new style of judicial campaigning has caused considerable consternation among observers of the courts, with many fearing that such activity will undermine the very legitimacy of legal institutions. Such fears, however, are grounded in practically no rigorous empirical evidence on the effects of campaign activity on public evaluations of judicial institutions. The purpose of this article is to investigate the effects of campaign activity on the perceived legitimacy of courts. Using survey data drawn from Kentucky, I use both post hoc and experimental methods to assess whether public perceptions of courts are influenced by various sorts of campaign activity. In general, my findings are that different types of campaign activity have quite different consequences. For instance, policy pronouncements by candidates do not undermine judicial legitimacy, whereas policy promises do. Throughout the analysis, I compare perceptions of courts and legislatures, and often find that courts are far less unique than many ordinarily assume. I conclude this article with a discussion of the implications of the findings for the contemporary debate over the use of elections to select judges to the high courts of many of the American states.     

Policy Innovation or Vertical Integration? A View of Immigration Federalism from the States

Since 2005, state legislatures have passed hundreds of immigration bills, and state officials have argued that their efforts attempt to solve immigration crises caused by federal inaction. The state–federal clash over immigration seems to confirm scholarship suggesting deepening lines of conflict in the federal system since the 1990s. The question remains, however, whether this explosion in state immigration laws signifies a move by states to tailor their own solutions to immigration issues. This article explores whether states are serving as laboratories of innovation for immigration policy. The study analyzes over five hundred immigration bills passed between January 2006 and December 2008, and engages in a comparative analysis of three immigration policy areas (immigration law enforcement, employment regulations, and drivers' licenses) where there exist varying degrees of state autonomy from national policy and thus distinctive possibilities for states to offer creative approaches to immigration issues. The findings suggest little evidence of policy innovation at the state level, although a handful of states are challenging federal supremacy in immigration matters.     

Adjudicating Executive Privilege: Federal Administrative Agencies and Deliberative Process Privilege Claims in U.S. District Courts

Government transparency is a key component of democratic accountability. The U.S. Congress and the president have created multiple legislative avenues to facilitate executive branch transparency with the public. However, when the executive branch withholds requested information from the public, the federal judiciary has the power to determine whether agencies must release documents and information to requestors. When enforcing standards of executive branch transparency, judges must balance concerns of executive autonomy and judicial intrusion into administrative decisionmaking. While much judicial scholarship focuses on the decisionmaking on high courts, in the U.S. context, federal district courts play a key role in adjudicating transparency disputes. In this article, I examine case outcomes in disputes involving agency claims of deliberative process privilege over internal agency documents litigated between 1994 and 2004. I find that U.S. federal district courts largely defer to administrative agencies in transparency disputes. However, factors such as agency structure and the congruence between judicial and administrative agency policy preferences influence whether federal judges require executive branch officials to release requested information.     

Re-election isn't everything: legislators’ goal-seeking and committee activity in Japan

A number of political scientists have explained legislators’ behaviour as a function of their re-election, influence, and policy goals, but these goals are sometimes incompatible. This study seeks to explain under what conditions legislators emphasise the goals of building influence or shaping policy over re-election. The study focuses on Japanese legislators’ Diet committee attendance as a proxy for their attention to an influence or policy goal. It shows that legislators elected from an open-list proportional representation seat are most likely to emphasise building influence or shaping policy, while legislators elected from a district using a single non-transferable vote system are least likely to do so. Legislators are more likely to do so in a non-election year than in an election year. In addition, electorally stronger legislators are more likely to focus on influence or policy goals in an election year, while electorally weaker legislators are more likely to do so in a non-election year.     

Antitrust Law and Distributive Politics in the American States

State enforcement by state attorneys general (AGs) has become a major component of American antitrust law. Much has been written about state antitrust enforcement, but existing accounts of AG incentives and behavior are incomplete. As elected officials in forty‐three states, AGs must represent their constituents and, therefore, will be drawn to cases that maximize the level of settlement reward—cases with large, wealthy defendants. I hypothesize and find that state AGs represent their constituents along ideological lines, but this relationship is conditioned by case characteristics that involve the potential settlement reward. Moreover, incentives to participate are likely to be higher when there are clear violations of the law, as in price‐fixing cases, rather than in merger cases, where no wrongdoing has necessarily been established. The study adds to our understanding of antitrust law but also has implications for how distributive politics shapes political responsiveness to the electorate.     

Speed Bumps On The Information Superhighway: A Study Of Federal Agency Compliance With The Electronic Freedom Of Information Act Of 1996

The Electronic Freedom of Information Act of 1996 amended the Freedom of Information Act of 1966 to clarify that computerized agency records are subject to disclosure under the FOIA. Congress passed the 1996 amendments because federal agencies for many years had been withholding computerized records and databases from the public. Another feature of the EFOIA requires agencies to publish their policies and rules on the Internet. The rationale behind this provision was to guard against the development of "secret law" known only to agency officials, but not to members of the public who deal with the agencies. The purpose of this article is to examine how federal agencies have complied with the EFOIA in its first few years of implementation. A look at the documented early history of EFOIA compliance reveals agency performance has been marked by slow starts, missed deadlines and general confusion over exactly what kinds of records qualify as disclosable records under the statute.     

Bonding in Pursuit of Policy Goals: How MPs Choose Political Parties in the Legislative State of Nature

How do MPs in nascent legislatures choose a political party? We argue that MPs self‐select into groups of like‐minded colleagues to achieve favored policy outputs. MPs identify colleagues with similar preferences based on observed behavior and informative signals such as socioeconomic status, cultural background, and previous political experience. We test this explanation in the first democratically elected German parliament, the Frankfurt Assembly of 1848, that developed a differentiated party system in the absence of electoral and career incentives. Our statistical analysis shows that MPs were significantly more likely to join parties that were similar to them with regard to ideology, age, regional provenance, confession, noble status, and previous parliamentary experience. Qualitative evidence suggests that major changes in the party system were driven by disputes over policy. Our findings are particularly important for countries with more turbulent paths towards parliamentarization than those witnessed by archetypical cases like Britain or the United States.     

Casework,issues and voting in state legislative elections: a district analysis

Congressional research has addressed questions regarding the electoral consequences of service and policy responsiveness, as well as whether service responsiveness eliminates the need for policy responsiveness. However, less is known about the criteria by which constituents reward their state representatives. Part of the problem with resolving these questions at the state level has been the absence of data, since individual-level data on state legislative districts are hard to find and are unlikely to combine measures of both kinds of responsiveness. This study utilises data gathered in a particular state legislator's district (both data on actual member–constituent contacts and survey data) to discern more explicitly whether ombudsman service and constituent issue proximity to the incumbent affects vote choice. Our findings support the proposition that like their counterparts in Congress, state representatives prosper when paying attention to both service and policy responsiveness; however, we find convincing evidence that casework enables state legislators to gain support from constituents who otherwise would not vote for them.     

Socio-Economic Composition and Pay and Resources in Second Chambers

In conjunction with the gradual empowerment of the European Parliament, interest in its internal politics and in particular its committee system has increased considerably. While much has been learned about the influence of parliamentarians, little is known of the role of their unelected supporters. Although the literature indicates that officials are involved in the policy process, it remains open to question whether their work is fundamentally technical or of relevance to public policy. In a first step towards closing this gap in the literature, this paper explores the role of officials working in the secretariats of European Parliament committees. Although officials are involved in both secretarial and political work, their role is constrained by their position in the parliamentary hierarchy. This supports a cautious understanding of the autonomy and influence of bureaucracy in the Parliament and in the European Union's main institutions.     

Making sense of the global health crisis: policy narratives, conflict, and global health governance

Health has become a policy issue of global concern. Worried that the unstructured, polycentric, and pluralist nature of global health governance is undermining the ability to serve emergent global public health interests, some commentators are calling for a more systematic institutional response to the "global health crisis." Yet global health is a complex and uncertain policy issue. This article uses narrative analysis to explore how actors deal with these complexities and how uncertainties affect global health governance. By comparing three narratives in terms of their basic assumptions, the way they define problems as well as the solutions they propose, the analysis shows how the unstructured pluralism of global health policy making creates a wide scope of policy conflict over the global health crisis. This wide scope of conflict enables effective policy-oriented learning about global health issues. The article also shows how exclusionary patterns of cooperation and competition are emerging in health policy making at the global level. These patterns threaten effective learning by risking both polarization of the policy debate and unanticipated consequences of health policy. Avoiding these pitfalls, the analysis suggests, means creating global health governance regimes that promote openness and responsiveness in deliberation about the global health crisis.     

Agency in international climate negotiations: the case of indigenous peoples and avoided deforestation

This article examines the agency of indigenous peoples in designing a mechanism for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) under the emerging post-2012 agreement to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. It investigates whether indigenous peoples have agency in international negotiations and specifically the REDD design process and if so, how they have obtained it. Agency refers to the ability of actors to prescribe behaviour and to substantively participate in and/or set their own rules related to the interactions between humans and their natural environment. The aim of this study is to gain understanding of what role non-nation state actors, particularly indigenous peoples, play in shaping the REDD design process under the climate convention and what is shaping their agency. A special emphasis is placed on indigenous peoples as they may be highly vulnerable to the impacts from both climate change and certain policy responses. The article finds that, through REDD, indigenous peoples and forest community alliances are emerging in the climate regime but their agency in designing a mechanism on forest protection in a post-2012 climate regime remains indirect and weak. They are being consulted and invited to provide input, but they are not able to directly participate and ensure that their views and concerns are reflected in the outcome on REDD.     

Lawyers,Justices, and Issue Salience: When and How Do Legal Arguments Affect the U.S. Supreme Court?

A good deal of scholarly evidence suggests that the decisionmaking of the U.S. Supreme Court is affected by legal argument. At the same time, it seems clear that in a great many cases the justices have enduring, strongly held views. In such cases, they should be impervious to the effects of advocacy. When are the justices apt to be influenced by the Court's legal community, and when will lawyers be less relevant? The answer, we think, has to do with the salience of the issue before the Court. We suspect that in nonsalient cases the justices have less‐intense preferences and therefore are open to the persuasion of lawyers. In salient cases, by contrast, the content of legal policy matters much more to the justices. As a result, they are less amenable to legal argument and adhere more strictly to their personal policy preferences. Our empirical tests support this orientation.     

Judicial Responsiveness to Valence Issues: An Event History Analysis of the Initial Sex Offender Registration and Notification (SORN) Laws

Under what conditions does judicial responsiveness to the public's policy preferences compromise the court's role as a countermajoritarian institution? Scholars have yet to examine whether and how quickly state appellate court justices respond to valence issues. This study investigates the relationship between retention elections and judicial responsiveness to the initial sex offender registration and notification (SORN) laws popularized in the 1990s. Findings show that judges who participated in nonpartisan retention elections exhibited greater democratic accountability by engaging in judicial review of SORN laws earlier than judges in other retention election systems. Valence issues create political challenges for nonpartisan judges who, like their counterparts in other retention systems, are expected to balance majoritarian interests with minority rights.     

The Effects of Term Limits on State Legislatures: A New Survey of the 50 States

Term limits on legislators were adopted in 21 states during the early 1990s. Beginning in 1996, the limits legally barred incumbents from reelection in 11 states, and they will do so in four more by 2010. In 2002, we conducted the only survey of legislators in all 50 states aimed at assessing the impact of term limits on state legislative representation. We found that term limits have virtually no effect on the types of people elected to office—whether measured by a range of demographic characteristics or by ideological predisposition—but they do have measurable impact on certain behaviors and priorities reported by legislators in the survey, and on the balance of power among various institutional actors in the arena of state politics. We characterize the biggest impact on behavior and priorities as a “Burkean shift,” whereby term‐limited legislators become less beholden to the constituents in their geographical districts and more attentive to other concerns. The reform also increases the power of the executive branch (governors and the bureaucracy) over legislative outcomes and weakens the influence of majority party leaders and committee chairs, albeit for different reasons.