Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-995ml Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-28T04:13:19.843Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Broad Bills or Particularistic Policy? Historical Patterns in American State Legislatures

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 January 2010

GERALD GAMM*
Affiliation:
University of Rochester
THAD KOUSSER*
Affiliation:
University of California at San Diego
*
Gerald Gamm is Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Rochester, Harkness Hall 331, Rochester, NY 14627-0146 (gerald.gamm@rochester.edu).
Thad Kousser is Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, University of California at San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92093 (tkousser@ucsd.edu). During the 2009–2010 academic year, Thad Kousser is a Campbell National Fellow at the Hoover Institution and a Visiting Associate Professor at Bill Lane Center for the American West, Stanford University.

Abstract

When do lawmakers craft broad policies, and when do they focus on narrow legislation tailored to a local interest? We investigate this question by exploring historical variation in the types of bills produced by American state legislatures. Drawing on a new database of 165,000 bills—covering sessions over 120 years in thirteen different states—we demonstrate the surprising prominence of particularistic bills affecting a specific legislator's district. We then develop and test a theory linking the goals of legislators to their propensity to introduce district bills rather than broad legislation. We find that, consistent with our predictions, politicians are more likely to craft policies targeted to a particular local interest when a legislature is dominated by one party or when it pays its members relatively high salaries. These findings provide empirical support for Key's (1949) thesis that one-party politics descends into factionalism and undermines the making of broad public policy.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Ansolabehere, Stephen, and Snyder, James M. Jr., 2008. The End of Inequality: One Person, One Vote and the Transformation of American Politics. New York: Norton.Google Scholar
Baker v. Carr. 1962. 369 U.S. 186.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Banfield, Edward C., and Wilson, James Q.. 1963. City Politics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Battaglini, Marco, and Coate, Stephen. 2005. “Inefficiency in Legislative Policy-Making: A Dynamic Analysis.” Unpublished manuscript, Princeton University.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berry, William D., Berkman, Michael B., and Schneiderman, Stuart, 2000. “Legislative Professionalism and Incumbent Reelection: The Development of Institutional Boundaries.” American Political Science Review 94: 859–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bureau of Economic Analysis. 2006. “State Annual Personal Income.” http://www.bea.gov/bea/regional/spi/ (Accessed November 12, 2009).Google Scholar
Burnham, Walter Dean. 1970. Critical Elections and the Mainsprings of American Politics. New York: W.W. Norton.Google Scholar
Burns, Nancy, Evans, Laura, Gamm, Gerald, and McConnaughy, Corrine. 2008. “Pockets of Expertise: Institutional Capacity in 20th-Century State Legislatures.” Studies in American Political Development 22: 229–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burns, Nancy, Evans, Laura, Gamm, Gerald, and McConnaughy, Corrine. 2009. “Urban Politics in the State Arena.” Studies in American Political Development 23: 122.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burns, Nancy, and Gamm, Gerald. 1997. “Creatures of the State: State Politics and Local Government, 1871–1921.” Urban Affairs Review 33: 5996.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carey, John M., Niemi, Richard G., Powell, Lynda W., and Moncrief, Gary F.. 2006. “The Effects of Term Limits on State Legislatures: A New Survey of the 50 States.” Legislative Studies Quarterly 31: 105–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carmines, Edward. 1974. “The Mediating Influence of State Legislatures on the Linkage Between Interparty Competition and Welfare Policies.” American Political Science Review 68: 1118–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, Jacob. 1960. “A Coefficient of Agreement for Nominal Scales,” Educational and Psychological Measurement 20 (1): 3746.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cox, Gary W., and McCubbins, Mathew D.. 1993. Legislative Leviathan: Party Government in the House. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Crisp, Brian F., Escobar-Lemmon, Maria C., Jones, Bradford S., Jones, Mark P., and Taylor-Robinson, Michelle M.. 2004. “Vote-Seeking Incentives and Legislative Representation in Six Presidential Democracies.” Journal of Politics 66: 823–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dauer, Manning J., and Kelsay, Robert G.. 1955. “Unrepresentative States.” National Municipal Review 46: 571–5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dawson, Richard E., and Robinson, James. 1963. “Inter-Party Competition, Economic Variables, and Welfare Policies in the American States.” Journal of Politics 25: 265–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Desposato, Scott W. 2001. Institutional Theories, Social Realities, and Party Politics in Brazil. Ph.D. diss., University of California–Los Angeles.Google Scholar
Dubin, Michael J. 2007. Party Affiliations in the State Legislatures: A Year by Year Summary, 1796–2006. Jefferson, NC: McFarland.Google Scholar
Dye, Thomas R. 1966. Politics, Economics, and the Public: Policy Outcomes in the American States. Chicago: Rand McNally.Google Scholar
Easterlin, Richard A. 1957. “State Income Estimates.” In Population Redistribution and Economic Growth: United States, 1870–1950, Vol. 1, eds. Kuznets, Simon and Thomas, Dorothy Swaine. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 703–59.Google Scholar
Elazar, Daniel J., Gray, Virginia, and Spano, Wyman. 1999. Minnesota Politics and Government. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.Google Scholar
Erie, Steven P. 1988. Rainbow's End: Irish-Americans and the Dilemmas of Urban Machine Politics, 1840–1985. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Evans, Diana. 1994. “Policy and Pork: The Use of Pork Barrel Projects To Build Policy Coalitions in the House of Representatives.” American Journal of Political Science 38: 894917.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fenno, Richard F. Jr. 1973. Congressmen in Committees. Boston: Little, Brown.Google Scholar
Fenno, Richard F. Jr. 1978. Home Style: House Members in Their Districts. Boston: Little, Brown.Google Scholar
Frug, Gerald E. 1980. “The City as a Legal Concept.” Harvard Law Review 93: 10571154.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frug, Gerald E. 1999. City Making: Building Communities without Building Walls. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Gamm, Gerald, and Kousser, Thad. 2007a. “Broad Bills or Particularistic Policy: Historical Patterns in American State Legislatures.” Presented at the annual meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago.Google Scholar
Gamm, Gerald, and Kousser, Thad. 2007b. “Diversity and the Breakdown of Deference: Evidence from District Bills in State Legislatures.” Presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Chicago.Google Scholar
Gibson, Campbell, and Jung, Kay. 2005. “Historical Census Statistics on Population Totals by Race, 1790 to 1990, and by Hispanic Origin, 1790 to 1990, for Large Cities and Other Urban Places in the United States.” Population Division Working Paper No. 76. Washington, DC: U.S. Census Bureau. http://www.census.gov/population/www/documentation/twps0076.html (Accessed November 12, 2009).Google Scholar
Griffith, Ernest S. 1974. A History of American City Government: The Conspicuous Failure, 1870–1900. New York: Praeger.Google Scholar
Haines, Michael R. 2006. “State Populations.” In Historical Statistics of the United States, Earliest Times to the Present, Millennial Edition. Vol. 1, eds. Carter, Susan B., Gartner, Scott Sigmund, Haines, Michael R., Olmstead, Alan L., Sutch, Richard, and Wright, Gavin. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1-180–1-379.Google Scholar
Hanson, Russell L., ed. 1998. Governing Partners: State–Local Relations in the United States. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Herron, Michael C., and Shotts, Kenneth W.. 2006. “Term Limits and Pork.” Legislative Studies Quarterly 31 (3): 383403.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hofferbert, Richard I. 1966. “The Relation between Public Policy and Some Structural and Environmental Variables in the American States.” American Political Science Review 60: 7382.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hogan, Robert E., and Hamm, Keith. 1998. “Variations in District-Level Campaign Spending in State Legislatures.” In Campaign Finance in State Legislative Elections, eds. Thompson, Joel A. and Moncrief, Gary F.. Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly Press, 5979.Google Scholar
Jacoby, William G., and Schneider, Saundra K.. 2001. “Variability in State Policy Priorities: An Empirical Analysis.” Journal of Politics 63: 544–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Karnig, Albert K., and Sigelman, Lee. 1975. “State Legislative Reform and Public Policy: Another Look.” Western Political Quarterly 28: 548–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Key, V. O. Jr. 1949. Southern Politics in State and Nation. New York: Knopf.Google Scholar
King, James D. 2000. “Changes in Professionalism in U.S. State Legislatures.” Legislative Studies Quarterly 25: 327–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kousser, Thad. 2005. Term Limits and the Dismantling of State Legislative Professionalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Krane, Dale, Rigos, Platon N., and Hill, Melvin B. Jr., 2001. Home Rule in America: A Fifty-State Handbook. Washington, DC: CQ Press.Google Scholar
Landis, J. Richard, and Koch, Gary G.. 1977. “The Measurement of Observer Agreement for Categorical Data.” Biometrics 33: 159–74.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Leblanc, William, Snyder, James M. Jr., and Tripathi, Micky. 2000. “Majority-Rule Bargaining and the Under Provision of Public Investment Goods.” Journal of Public Economics 75: 2147.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
LeLoup, Lance T. 1978. “Reassessing the Mediating Impact of Legislative Capability.” American Political Science Review 72: 616–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lizzeri, Alessandro, and Persico, Nicola. 2001. “The Provision of Public Goods under Alternative Electoral Incentives.” American Economic Review 91: 225–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lombard, Matthew, Snyder-Duch, Jennifer, and Bracken, Cheryl Campanella. 2002. “Content Analysis in Mass Communication: Assessment and Reporting of Intercoder Reliability.” Human Communication Research 28: 587604.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lowi, Theodore J. 1964. “American Business, Public Policy, Case-Studies, and Political Theory.” World Politics 16: 677715.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mayhew, David R. 1974. Congress: The Electoral Connection. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
McBain, Howard L. 1916. The Law and the Practice of Municipal Home Rule. New York: Columbia University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moncrief, Gary F., Niemi, Richard G., and Powell, Lynda W.. 2004. “Time, Term Limits, and Turnover: Trends in Membership Stability in U.S. State Legislatures.” Legislative Studies Quarterly 29: 357–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moncrief, Gary, Thompson, Joel A., and Cassie, William. 1996. “Revisiting the State of U.S. State Legislative Research.” Legislative Studies Quarterly 21: 301–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Niemi, Richard G., and Winsky, Laura R.. 1987. “Membership Turnover in U.S. State Legislatures: Trends and Effects of Districting.” Legislative Studies Quarterly 12: 115–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ogg, Frederic A., and Ray, P. Orman. 1922. Introduction to American Government. New York: Century.Google Scholar
Polsby, Nelson W. 1968. “The Institutionalization of the U.S. House of Representatives.” American Political Science Review 62: 144–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ritt, Leonard. 1973. “State Legislative Reform: Does It Matter?American Politics Quarterly 1: 499510.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ritt, Leonard. 1977. “The Policy Impact of Legislative Reform: A 50-State Analysis.” In Legislative Reform and Public Policy, eds. Welch, Susan and Peters, John G.. New York: Praeger, 189200.Google Scholar
Roeder, Phillip W. 1979. “State Legislative Reform: Determinants and Policy Consequences.” American Politics Quarterly 7: 5170.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schattschneider, E. E. 1956. “United States: The Functional Approach to Party Government.” In Modern Political Parties: Approaches to Comparative Politics, ed. Neumann, Sigmund. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 194215.Google Scholar
Sensenbrenner, F. James Jr., “The History of the Private Calendar and the Consideration of Private Bills.” Extensions of Remarks by the Honorable F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr., of Wisconsin in the House of Representatives, Wednesday, April 21, 1999. http://rules.house.gov/archives/consid_priv_bill.htm (Accessed November 12, 2009).Google Scholar
Squire, Peverill. 1992. “The Theory of Legislative Institutionalization and the California Assembly.”Journal of Politics 54: 1026–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Squire, Peverill. 1993. “Professionalization and Public Opinion of State Legislatures.” Journal of Politics 55: 479–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Squire, Peverill, and Hamm, Keith E.. 2005. 101 Chambers: Congress, State Legislatures, and the Future of Legislative Studies. Columbus: Ohio State University Press.Google Scholar
Teaford, Jon C. 1984. The Unheralded Triumph: City Government in America, 1870–1900. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Teaford, Jon C. 2002. The Rise of the States: Evolution of American State Government. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Thompson, Joel A. 1986. “State Legislative Reform: Another Look, One More Time, Again.” Polity 19: 2741.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Trochim, William, and Donnelly, James P.. 2007. The Research Methods Knowledge Base. 3rd ed.Cincinnati, OH: Atomic Dog.Google Scholar
U.S. Department of Labor. 2006. Consumer Price Index, All Urban Consumers—(CPI-U), U.S. City Average, All Items. ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/special.requests/cpi/cpiai.txt (Accessed August 2006).Google Scholar
Volden, Craig, and Wiseman, Alan E.. 2007. “Bargaining in Legislatures over Particularistic and Collective Goods.” American Political Science Review 101: 7992.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weingast, Barry R. 1979. “A Rational Choice Perspective on Congressional Norms.” American Journal of Political Science 23: 245–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weingast, Barry R. 1994. “Reflections on Distributive Politics and Universalism.” Political Research Quarterly 47: 319–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilson, James Q. 1980. The Politics of Regulation. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Wiltsee, Herbert. 1956. “Recent Trends in Strengthening State Legislatures.” In Streamlining State Legislatures: Report of a Conference Held at the University of California, Berkeley, October 27–29, 1955, ed. Scott, Stanley. Berkeley, CA: Howell-North Press, 1525.Google Scholar
Winters, Richard F. 1976. “Party Control and Policy Change.” American Journal of Political Science 20: 597636.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wright, Gerald C., and Schaffner, Brian F.. 2002. “The Influence of Party: Evidence from the State Legislatures.” American Political Science Review 96: 367–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar