Does Lobbying Affect Bill Advancement? Evidence from Three State Legislatures

2021 ◽  
pp. 106591292110124
Author(s):  
Daniel M. Butler ◽  
David R. Miller
Keyword(s):  
State Legislatures ◽  
Legislative Process ◽  
Vote Buying ◽  
Agenda Control ◽  
Data Scarcity ◽  
Organized Interests ◽  
Using Data

Many studies consider the effect of lobbying on the behavior of individual legislators, but few studies demonstrate a relationship between lobbying and the ultimate dispositions of bills by the legislature. One challenge to establishing this latter relationship is data scarcity, as few legislatures systematically collect and publish information on organized interests’ lobbying activities on each bill. We provide new insights on lobbying by using data from Colorado, Nebraska, and Wisconsin that records the positions organized interests take on proposals in those states’ legislatures. We find that organized interests’ lobbying predicts outcomes, especially when lobbying is directed against a proposal. We also use our data to test whether lobbying succeeds by building support among legislators (i.e., vote buying) or by affecting a proposal’s advancement through the legislative process (i.e., agenda control). We find that lobbying does not buy the votes of legislators on the committees of jurisdiction for each bill, but lobbying does strongly predict what bills make it onto the agenda. Our findings contribute to ongoing discussions about money and politics, bias in representation, and legislator behavior.

Buying Time: Moneyed Interests and the Mobilization of Bias in Congressional Committees

1990 ◽  
Vol 84 (3) ◽  
pp. 797-820 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard L. Hall ◽  
Frank W. Wayman
Keyword(s):  
Interest Groups ◽  
Solid Support ◽  
Campaign Contributions ◽  
Systematic Research ◽  
Legislative Process ◽  
Supporting Evidence ◽  
Vote Buying ◽  
Business Interests ◽  
Congressional Committees ◽  
Using Data

Over the last two decades institutional critics have increasingly charged that moneyed interests dominate the legislative process in Congress. Systematic research on campaign contributions and members' floor voting, however, provides little supporting evidence. We develop a view of the member-donor relationship that questions the theoretical underpinnings of the vote-buying hypothesis itself and suggests two alternative claims: (1) the effects of group expenditures are more likely to appear in committee than on the floor; and (2) the behavior most likely to be affected is members' legislative involvement, not their votes. In order to test this account, we specify a model of committee participation and estimate it using data from three House committees. In contrast to the substantial literature on contributions and roll calls, our analysis provides solid support for the importance of moneyed interests in the legislative process. We also find evidence that members are more responsive to organized business interests within their districts than to unorganized voters even when voters have strong preferences and the issue at stake is salient. Such findings suggest several important implications for our understanding of political money, interest groups, and the representativeness of legislative deliberations.

Citizen Approval of Monetary- vs Goods-For-Votes Exchanges

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-5
Author(s):  
Mollie J. Cohen
Keyword(s):  
Representative Sample ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Need For Care ◽  
Vote Buying ◽  
Question Wording ◽  
Nationally Representative ◽  
Using Data

Abstract Does citizen approval of vote buying depend on the type of benefit being offered? I answer this question using data from a survey experiment conducted on a nationally representative sample of Nicaraguans in 2017. Nicaraguans report significantly lower approval of money-for votes exchanges compared to goods-for-votes exchanges. Furthermore, reported rates of vote buying are lower in the money condition (4.8%) than in the goods-for-votes condition (7.8%), even though the posttreatment question assessing vote buying experience was identical across conditions. This study echoes other work suggesting the need for care in designing questions about vote buying, as slight changes in question wording that prime participants to think about goods versus monetary exchanges can affect both citizen approval of the behavior and the reported prevalence of vote buying.

Do More Professionalized Legislatures Discriminate Less? The Role of Staffers in Constituency Service

2020 ◽  
Vol 48 (5) ◽  
pp. 571-578
Author(s):  
Michelangelo Landgrave ◽  
Nicholas Weller
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Structure ◽  
State Legislatures ◽  
Racial Minorities ◽  
Research Note ◽  
Legislative Process ◽  
Multiple Measures ◽  
Constituency Service

Research suggests that organizational structure can influence the ability of actors to discriminate. In this research note, we examine whether the structure of state legislatures affects observed discrimination in correspondent audit studies. We find that increased legislative professionalization is associated with reduced discrimination against racial minorities. By analyzing thousands of emails collected in a prior study, we find that legislative professionalization is related to a higher likelihood that staffers respond to email contacts and staffers are less likely to discriminate against racial minorities across multiple measures of discrimination. Our findings emphasize the importance of substantively relevant heterogeneity in audit studies and identify a potential mitigator of discrimination—legislative professionalism. Our results also highlight the importance of staffers in representation and the legislative process.

scholarly journals Measuring Vote-Selling: Field Evidence from the Philippines

2015 ◽  
Vol 105 (5) ◽  
pp. 352-356 ◽  
Author(s):  
Allen Hicken ◽  
Stephen Leider ◽  
Nico Ravanilla ◽  
Dean Yang
Keyword(s):  
Field Experiment ◽  
Companion Paper ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Vote Buying ◽  
Voter Preferences ◽  
Field Evidence ◽  
Initial Preference ◽  
Proxy Measure ◽  
Using Data

Using data from an anti-vote-buying field experiment we conducted in the Philippines, we report and validate a proxy measure for vote-selling. We demonstrate that our proxy measure, vote-switching, changes as expected with voter preferences and monetary offers from candidates. Voters are less likely to vote for someone different than their initial preference the larger the favorability rating difference between the preferred and alternative candidates. Similarly, vote-switching increases the more money the alternative candidate offers compared to the preferred candidates. We also describe the effects of the promise-based interventions on vote-switching, reported in full in a companion paper.

Uncovering Evidence of Conditional Party Government: Reassessing Majority Party Influence in Congress and State Legislatures

2005 ◽  
Vol 99 (3) ◽  
pp. 361-371 ◽  
Author(s):  
WILLIAM T. BIANCO ◽  
ITAI SENED
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Models ◽  
State Legislatures ◽  
Legislative Process ◽  
Real World Data ◽  
Majority Party ◽  
Party Government ◽  
One Dimensional ◽  
Uncovered Set ◽  
Dimensional Version ◽  
Search Program

This paper aims at enriching the debate over the measurement of majority party influence in contemporary American legislatures. Our use of a new analytic technique, a grid-search program for characterizing the uncovered set, enables us to begin with a better model of legislative proceedings that abandons the simple one-dimensional spatial models in favor of the more realistic two-dimensional version. Our conclusions are based on the analysis of real-world data rather than on arguments about the relative merits of different theoretic assumptions. Our analysis confirms that when legislators' preferences are polarized, outcomes will generally be closer to the majority party's wishes, even if the majority-party leadership does nothing to influence the legislative process. This conclusion notwithstanding, our analysis also shows that at the margin of the majority party's natural advantage, agenda setting by the majority party remains a viable and efficacious strategy.

Organized Interests and Agenda Setting in the U.S. Supreme Court

1988 ◽  
Vol 82 (4) ◽  
pp. 1109-1127 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregory A. Caldeira ◽  
John R. Wright
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
United States Supreme Court ◽  
The United States ◽  
United States Supreme ◽  
Amicus Curiae ◽  
Organized Interests ◽  
Using Data ◽  
The U.S ◽  
Selection Of

Participation as amicus curiae has long been an important tactic of organized interests in litigation before the U.S. Supreme Court. We analyze amicus curiae briefs filed before the decision on certiorari and assess their impact on the Court's selection of a plenary docket. We hypothesize that one or more briefs advocating or opposing certiorari increase the likelihood of its being granted. We test this hypothesis using data from the United States Reports and Briefs and Records of the United States Supreme Court for the 1982 term. The statistical analysis demonstrates that the presence of amicus curiae briefs filed prior to the decision on certiorari significantly and positively increases the chances of the justices' binding of a case over for full treatment—even after we take into account the full array of variables other scholars have hypothesized or shown to be substantial influences on the decision to grant or deny.

Review of Distribution Network Phase Unbalance: Scale, Causes, Consequences, Solutions, and Future Research Direction

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kang Ma ◽  
Lurui Fang ◽  
Wangwei Kong
Keyword(s):  
System Analysis ◽  
Distribution Networks ◽  
Research Direction ◽  
Mass Scale ◽  
Optimal Placement ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Data Scarcity ◽  
Three Phase ◽  
Using Data ◽  
The Uk

Phase unbalance is widespread in the distribution networks in the UK, continental Europe, US, China, and other countries. First, this paper reviews the mass scale of phase unbalance and its causes and consequences. Three challenges arise from phase rebalancing: the scalability, data scarcity, and adaptability (towards changing unbalance over time) challenges. Solutions to address the challenges are: 1) using retrofit-able, maintenance-free, automatic solutions to overcome the scalability challenge; 2) using data analytics to overcome the data-scarcity challenge; and 3) using phase balancers or other online phase rebalancing solutions to overcome the adaptability challenge. This paper categorizes existing phase rebalancing solutions into three classes: 1) load/lateral re-phasing; 2) using phase balancers; 3) controlling energy storage, electric vehicles, distributed generation, and micro-grids for phase rebalancing. Their advantages and limitations are analyzed and ways to overcome the limitations are recommended. Finally, this paper suggests future research topics: 1) long-term forecast of phase unbalance; 2) whole-system analysis of the unbalance-induced costs; 3) phase unbalance diagnosis for data-scarce LV networks; 4) techno-commercial solutions to exploit the flexibility from large three-phase customers for phase balancing; 5) the optimal placement of phase balancers; 6) the transition from single-phase customers to three-phase customers. <br>

U.S. State Legislative Committee Assignments and Encouragement of Party Loyalty: An Exploratory Analysis

2009 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 284-303 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristin Kanthak
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
State Legislatures ◽  
Exploratory Analysis ◽  
Policy Outcomes ◽  
Legislative Behavior ◽  
Party Leaders ◽  
Party Loyalty ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Committee Assignments ◽  
State Legislative

Although political parties in U.S. legislatures cannot compel discipline with the threat of expulsion from the legislature, they can encourage greater party loyalty by strategically bestowing benefits upon favored members. This article explores the use of plum committee assignments to encourage legislators' loyalty to their parties. I outline a theory of how party leaders can use committee assignments strategically to encourage more loyal legislative behavior. This occurs when legislative rules meet two criteria: (1) parties and their leaders can determine who serves on committees and (2) committees have real authority over policy outcomes. I test the theory using data from five state legislatures that differ on the relevant set of legislative rules, finding more party loyalty shown by legislators who receive plum committee assignments when rules meet both criteria and no effect when they do not.

Visible States and Invisible Nation: Newspaper Coverage of Nineteenth-Century Lawmaking

2019 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 354-381
Author(s):  
Emily Pears
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
South Carolina ◽  
State Legislatures ◽  
Public Perceptions ◽  
Newspaper Coverage ◽  
Democratic Legitimacy ◽  
Legislative Process ◽  
Qualitative And Quantitative Analysis ◽  
The Public ◽  
Qualitative And Quantitative

Abstract:Researchers and the public alike have long recognized that in American politics visibility matters. To claim credit for policies, to recruit supporters, and to maintain democratic legitimacy, the lawmaking process must be visible to the American public. Yet little is known about how the public perceived the legislative process during the nineteenth century. This article uses systematic qualitative and quantitative analysis of newspapers in Baltimore, Maryland, Portland, Maine, and Charleston, South Carolina, to measure the comparative visibility of lawmaking at the state and federal levels between 1830 and 1880. The research demonstrates how analysis of newspaper coverage can be used to better understand public perceptions of state and federal lawmaking during time periods without polling data. The visibility of congressional lawmaking varied greatly from one state to the next, and competition for coverage between state legislatures and Congress remained strong across the country throughout the studied period.

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