Discussion Post/ and student response

State Legislatures

(Part I)

POLS 2212

Legislatures, Policy-Making, and Political Science

• Legislative process is only one part of policy-making

• States are better venue for understanding policy-making process overall

• Interactions between components are more transparent

• Less ‘political theater’ than national level

• More cases, more variation, more data

• What role do legislatures play in the overall policy-making process??

• How do legislative-executive relations affect policy outcomes??

Agenda Setting

Formulation /

Negotiation

Adoption /

Enactment

Implementation

Evaluation

Revision /

Termination

• Public attention is focused on an issue

• Collective recognition of problem

Agenda Setting

• Potential solutions are offered

• Some public discourse over options

Formulation / Negotiation

• Solution is agreed upon and made into official policy /

law

Adoption / Enactment

• Policy is converted into actionable rules

Implementation

• Fairness, effectiveness, efficiency of policy and rules are

evaluated

Evaluation

• Improvements or changes to policy are made

Revision / Termination

Agenda Setting

• Parties

• Public opinion

• Advocacy groups /

entrepreneurs

Formulation /

Negotiation

• Party leadership

• Interest groups

• Legislature type

• Legislative-executive

relations

Adoption / Enactment

• Legislative-executive

relations

Implementation

• Type of executive

• Bureaucracy

Evaluation

• Social scientists

• Advocacy groups

• Legislative

committees

• State courts

Revision / Termination

• State courts

• Federal courts

‘Professional’

Model

‘Citizen-

Legislator’

Model

Work Load

Nearly full-

time

Part-time

Session

Year-round,

annual

Short-term,

possibly

biannual

Compensation

Medium-high

(over median

for state

employees)

Fairly low

Staff

Large, semi-

permanent

Small, likely

shared

Conceptualizing State Legislatures

Professional Hybrid / Mixture Citizen

State Legislatures

• GA Legislature

• $17k base +per diem

• $22k – $24k total

Discussion Question

• What are some of the potential benefits / drawbacks of each of these two models??

State Legislatures and Political Careers (Peverill Squire)

• ‘Career’ Legislatures (Congress)

• Sufficiently high pay

• Minimal incentive to ‘move up’

• Expectation of long tenure

• Heavy time commitment

• ‘Springboard’ Legislatures

• Other positions have higher pay, more prestige

• Expectation of limited tenure

• May be term limited

• High turnover

• ‘Dead-End’ Legislatures

• Not financially viable for main occupation

• Few positions for advancement

• High turnover

State Legislatures

(Part II)

POLS 2212

Demographics and Diversity in State Legislatures

• Descriptive representation: representatives should have same demographic characteristics as constituency

• State legislatures are not descriptively representative

• Over-representation of professional white males

• States are more descriptively representative than Congress

Legislator Demographics: Occupation

Occupation 2007 Data

Full-Time Legislator 16.4%

Attorney / Legal Professional 15.2%

Retiree 11.7%

Business: Owner 9.2%

Business: Executive / Managerial 8.7%

Other Professional / Consultant 8.4%

Agriculture 5.3%

Education: K-12 3.9%

Medical 3.6

Legislator Demographics: Gender

Legislator Demographics: Race

Legislator Demographics: Ethnicity

Diversity and Term Limits

Would term limits for state legislators create more opportunities for women and minorities to run for office??

Not really…

No real effect on who wins elections.

Legislative Process

• Process is generally same in all states

• Process itself is similar to Congress

• Identical bills in both houses necessary

• Division of labor between committees and full chamber

Legislative Process

• ‘Long’ process

• Lots of opportunity for debate, input

• Lots of opportunity for obstruction

• Generally difficult to get legislation passed

• Which type of legislature (citizen or professional) do you expect to get more bills passed? Why?

Structural Factors and Legislative Success

• Citizen-legislatures have a higher bill passage rate

• What might explain this??

• Time constraint: need to get things done in shorter session encourages more compromise, less obstructionism

• ‘Pragmatic’ culture: voter expectation for legislative efficiency discourages ideological clashes

State Legislatures

(Part III)

POLS 2212

Legislative Leadership

• Legislative activities are highly structured by legislative leaders

• ‘Speaker of the House’

• Legislative leadership powers are determined by

• State Constitution

• Legislators can propose amendments

• Internal rules of legislature

• Legislators can change rules with procedural voting

Institutional Power Index (Richard Clucas)

• Types of legislative leadership power

• Appointment power: ability to appoint legislative leadership positions and/or committee chairs

• Committee power: ability to restructure committee membership

• Resource power: ability to control house resources, employees, legislative staff

• Procedural power: ability to control legislative process

• Referral of bills, scheduling of bills, floor debate

• Tenure power: limits on years in leadership position

Clucas, 2001

Legislative Leadership Power

• Explaining variations in leadership power • Strong legislative leaders can better advance party interests

• Weaker leadership allows legislators to be more independent

• Career legislatures (with dominant party in state) • Legislators have high incentive for re-election

• Strong leader  strong party performance  effective mobilization of party base

• Career legislatures (without party dominance in state) • Legislators need autonomy from leadership in order to be bipartisan

• Weak leader  bipartisanship  effective mobilization of independent voters

• Springboard legislatures • Legislators want autonomy from leadership in order to stand out

• Weak leader  strong individual legislators  increased individual achievement