Hacks
Zephyr Teachout
Election Law Journal, March 2014, Pages 4-26
Abstract:
For most of American history, until the 1950s, courts treated paid lobbying as a civic wrong, not a protected First Amendment right. Lobbying was presumptively against public policy, and lobbying contracts were not enforced. Paid lobbying threatened the integrity of individuals, legislators, lobbyists, and the integrity of society as a whole. Inasmuch as there was a personal right to either petition the government, or share views with officers of the government, this right was not something one could sell - it was not, in the term used by one court, a "vendible." Line-drawing between illegitimate paid lobbying and legitimate legal services was not easy, but in general courts enforced contracts where the thing being sold was expertise to be shared in a public forum, while refusing to enforce contracts where the thing being sold was personal influence to be shared in private meetings. This article tells the history of this earlier approach toward lobbying. It explores the lobbying cases of the nineteenth and early twentieth century courts, looking at the logic underpinning them and how courts distinguished between illegitimate lobbying and legitimate hiring of professional lawyers.
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Brendan Nyhan
British Journal of Political Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Despite its importance in contemporary American politics, presidential scandal is poorly understood within political science. Scholars typically interpret scandals as resulting from the disclosure of official misbehavior, but the likelihood and intensity of media scandals is also influenced by the political and news context. This article provides a theoretical argument for two independent factors that should increase the president's vulnerability to scandal: low approval among opposition party identifiers and a lack of congestion in the news agenda. Using new data and statistical approaches, I find strong support for both claims. These results suggest that contextual factors shape the occurrence of political events and how such events are interpreted.
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Surviving Scandal: The Institutional and Political Dynamics of National and State Executive Scandals
Brandon Rottinghaus
PS: Political Science & Politics, January 2014, Pages 131-140
Abstract:
Which factors shorten or lengthen the survival of a scandal involving a chief executive? Using new data tracking scandals involving presidents and governors from 1972 to 2011, I chart the duration of each political, personal, and financial scandal faced by an elected official, their staff, or nominees. I specifically examine institutional, political, and economic factors to investigate what factors quicken a "negative" end to a scandal. National chief executives and their staff are more likely to survive a scandal when they have more partisans in the legislature but are less likely when there is greater political opposition, however there is no comparative effect at the state level. Positive economic growth and public approval have no effect on survival of a scandal at either the national or state levels. These findings clarify how the political environment shapes the duration of executive scandal.
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Tyler Page & Ed Adams
Public Relations Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
Traditional public relations histories begin in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This study expands public relations history to the early 1800s by analyzing the use of public relations methods and tactics in an American anti-slavery movement, The American Colonization Society. In focusing on the American Colonization Society and backlash against it from abolitionist groups, this paper finds the use of newspapers to promote a cause, promotion of high profile endorsements, attempts to persuade a key public, creation of publications, efforts to lobby legislatures, and hired agents to found auxiliaries, all beginning in the early 1800s.
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Optimal Agency Bias and Regulatory Review
Ryan Bubb & Patrick Warren
Journal of Legal Studies, January 2014, Pages 95-135
Abstract:
Why do bureaucratic principals appoint agents who hold different policy views from themselves? We posit an explanation based on the interplay between two types of agency costs: shirking on information production and policy bias. Principals employ biased agents because they shirk less. This creates an incentive for the principal to use review mechanisms that mitigate the resulting bias in the agents' decisions. The availability of such review mechanisms encourages principals to employ more extreme agents. We apply the theory to explain various features of the administrative state. In contrast to existing accounts, in our model the use by the president of ideological bureaucrats at regulatory agencies and centralized regulatory review are complements. The use of bias to mitigate shirking results in an amplification of the swings of regulatory policy and heightens the role of regulatory policy in partisan politics.
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PACking a punch: Political Action Committees and corruption
Rajeev Goel
Applied Economics, Spring 2014, Pages 1161-1169
Abstract:
Political Action Committees (PACs) are unique and prominent players in American politics. Yet, formal research on some aspects of PACs is lacking. Using US data over the period 1970 to 2009, this research demonstrates that the growth in PACs is positively associated with greater corruption. A 10% increase in the number of PACs per capita would increase corruption by about 8%. Upon disaggregation, corporate PACs, rather than labour PACs, are positively associated with corruption. The effects of economic prosperity, government size and population on US corruption are generally in line with the literature.
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Investigating the President: Committee Probes and Presidential Approval, 1953-2006
Douglas Kriner & Eric Schickler
Journal of Politics, April 2014, Pages 521-534
Abstract:
Members of Congress have long sought to combat assertions of presidential power and alleged executive misconduct through committee investigations. But are such investigations mere political theater, or do they have systematic effects on the course of politics? We argue that congressional investigations of the executive branch damage the president's support among the public, making investigations a useful tool in interbranch battles. Marshaling an original data set of more than 3,500 investigative hearings and over 50 years of public opinion data, we show that increased investigative activity in the hearing room significantly decreases the president's job approval rating. A survey experiment both confirms our assertion that investigations decrease public support for the White House and shows that committee-led charges of misconduct have a greater influence on public opinion than identical charges not attributed to a congressional actor.
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Labor Union Political Strategy in an Era of Decline and Revitalization
Kyle Albert
Sociological Inquiry, forthcoming
Abstract:
U.S. labor unions faced sharp membership losses over the last few decades, and some responded by ushering in a new, revitalized model of organizing. Yet we know little about how these forces may be shaping the political activities of the labor movement. Has crisis prompted unions to take aim at public policies inhibiting union vitality, or have unions turned outward to embrace broader social causes? This paper uses an original dataset of union appearances in congressional hearings to analyze unions' legislative advocacy activities. Findings suggest substantial differences between those unions that are likely to appear in hearings on core labor-related topics and those that appear in hearings on broad social issues: AFL-CIO unions are more likely to participate in hearings on core labor issues, while unions commonly cited as "revitalized" and public sector unions are more likely to appear in hearings on broad social issues.
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Gary Hollibaugh, Gabriel Horton & David Lewis
American Journal of Political Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
To what extent do presidents select appointees based upon campaign experience and connections? The answer to this question has important implications for our understanding of presidential management and political leadership. This paper presents a theory explaining where presidents place different types of appointees and why, focusing on differences in ideology, competence, and non-policy patronage benefits among potential appointees. We develop a formal model and test its implications with new data on 1,307 persons appointed in the first six months of the Obama Administration. The empirical results broadly support the theory, suggesting that President Obama was more likely to place appointees selected for nonpolicy patronage reasons in agencies off his agenda, in agencies that shared his policy views, and where appointees are least able to affect agency performance. We conclude that patronage continues to play an important role in American politics with important consequences for campaigns, presidential politics, and governance.
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Toke Aidt & Graham Mooney
Journal of Public Economics, April 2014, Pages 53-71
Abstract:
We study the opportunistic political budget cycle in the London Metropolitan Boroughs between 1902 and 1937 under two different suffrage regimes: taxpayer suffrage (1902-1914) and universal suffrage (1921-1937). We argue and find supporting evidence that the political budget cycle operates differently under the two types of suffrage. Taxpayer suffrage, where the right to vote and the obligation to pay local taxes are linked, encourages demands for retrenchment and the political budget cycle manifests itself in election year tax cuts and savings on administration costs. Universal suffrage, where all adult residents can vote irrespective of their taxpayer status, creates demands for productive public services and the political budget cycle manifests itself in election year hikes in capital spending and a reduction in current spending.
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Local Logrolling? Assessing the Impact of Legislative Districting in Los Angeles
Craig Burnett & Vladimir Kogan
Urban Affairs Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
Over the past three decades, a number of U.S. cities have shifted from at-large to district-based elections. Some observers argue that this institutional change encourages elected officials to focus on district priorities while ignoring - and perhaps even sacrificing - broader municipal needs. Must district elections bring parochialism and logrolling to city councils? Using seven years' worth of roll call data from the Los Angeles City Council, we examine the hypothesis that district elections result in vote-trading among its members. Overall, voting behavior on the council appears inconsistent with conventional logrolling accounts and instead points to a strategy of conditional deference on the part of elected officials. The results suggest that district-based elections do not always push elected officials to ignore the general interests of their city.
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Governance, bureaucratic rents, and well-being differentials across US states
Simon Luechinger, Mark Schelker & Alois Stutzer
Oxford Economic Papers, April 2014, Pages 443-464
Abstract:
We analyse the influence of institutional restrictions on bureaucratic rents. As a measure for these rents, we propose subjective well-being differentials between workers in the public administration and workers in other industries. Based on data for the US states, we estimate the extent to which institutional efforts to strengthen bureaucratic accountability affect differences in well-being. We find that well-being differences are smaller in states with high transparency, elected auditors, and legal deficit carryover restrictions. These findings are consistent with limited rent extraction under these institutional conditions. No or weak effects are found for performance audits and regulatory review.
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Congressional Staff and the Revolving Door: The Impact of Regulatory Change
Bruce Cain & Lee Drutman
Election Law Journal, March 2014, Pages 27-44
Abstract:
In 2007, Congress passed the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act (HLOGA) in an attempt to slow the revolving door between Congress and the Washington lobbying industry with one year bans on contacts between the ex-staffers and their former colleagues in the Congress. The variation in the Senate and House rules and a complete set of congressional staff panel data between 2001 and 2011 allow us to assess the effectiveness of the revolving door provisions of HLOGA and the relative importance of different factors that contribute to congressional staffers' employability as lobbyists. Using a difference-in-differences quasi-experimental design on data from Legistorm, we find evidence that the HLOGA realized some of its intended effect. As compared to "high-level" staff earning between 60% and 75% of a member's salary, the share of "covered" staff (i.e., those making 75% and above of a member's salary) becoming lobbyists within a year declined at a greater rate. This decline, however, was much more notable in the Senate, which had enacted much tougher contacting rules. The effects of HLOGA were stronger on committee staff than personal office staff, and strongest of all on Senate committee staff. They were also stronger on majority party than minority party staff. Additionally, we found some substitution effects in the lobbying market. Demand for high-level but uncovered Senate committee staffers actually rose in the wake of the reforms, as did the demand for covered House committee staffers.
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The Elusive Search for Presidential Power
Fang-Yi Chiou & Lawrence Rothenberg
American Journal of Political Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Unilateral presidential actions, such as executive orders, are widely cited as a key strategic tool for presidential power. However, is unilateral action evidence of unilateralism or might it represent executive acquiescence? We answer this by (1) specifying three competing models, each with a different presidential discretion assumption and generating alternative hypotheses; (2) extending the canonical item-response model to best measure executive-order significance; and (3) comparing competing theoretical models to data for 1947-2002. Theoretically, we show that legislative preferences may impact unilateral actions differently than previously thought and indicate how parties may be influential. Empirically, a model where the president is responsive to the chamber's majority-party median fits the data better than models assuming responsiveness to the chamber median or no presidential acquiescence. Unilateral action appears not tantamount to presidential power, as evidence implies that legislative parties, or the judicial actors enforcing their will, are key conditioning factors.
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Boundaries, Redistricting Criteria, and Representation in the U.S. House of Representatives
Daniel Bowen
American Politics Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
Many U.S. states require redistricting authorities to follow traditional districting principles (TDPs) like the creation of compact districts and respecting the integrity of county and town boundaries. Reformers, academics, and other redistricting experts have long suggested that following such districting principles may enhance representation. Yet, very few academic studies have empirically examined these expectations. Using two measures of geographical compactness and a new measure of respect for political subdivisions (referred to as coterminosity) created with a geographic information system (GIS), the connection between district boundaries and representation is tested. The results show strong evidence that the use of geographic districting principles can enhance dyadic representation, as more compact and more coterminous districts are associated with more positive evaluations of legislative responsiveness and greater citizen-representative communication. Violating TDPs to advance other goals in redistricting like strict population equality between districts thus comes with a clear representational cost.
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The Political Coase Theorem: Experimental Evidence
Sebastian Galiani, Gustavo Torrens & Maria Lucia Yanguas
NBER Working Paper, February 2014
Abstract:
The Political Coase Theorem (PCT) states that, in the absence of transaction costs, agents should agree to implement efficient policies regardless of the distribution of bargaining power among them. This paper uses a laboratory experiment to explore how commitment problems undermine the validity of the PCT. Overall, the results support theoretical predictions. In particular, commitment issues matter, and the existence of more commitment possibilities leads to better social outcomes. Moreover, we find that the link is valid when commitment possibilities are asymmetrically distributed between players and even when a redistribution of political power is required to take advantage of those possibilities. However, we also find that at low levels of commitment there is more cooperation than strictly predicted by our parameterized model while the opposite is true at high levels of commitment, and only large improvements in commitment opportunities have a significant effect on the social surplus, while small changes do not.
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Dimensions of Public Meeting Participation: Evidence from Florida's Truth-in-Millage Act
Anne Williamson & Michael Scicchitano
Urban Affairs Review, January 2014, Pages 134-146
Abstract:
The literature contains a wealth of theorizing and prescription regarding citizen participation, but little in the way of systematic evidence. We seek to increase empirical knowledge of participation through examination of public meeting participation associated with Florida's Truth-in-Millage Act requirements for local government tax and budget decisions. Unlike existing evidence on public meetings, this research is based on statistical analysis of a random-sample survey (N = 601) and qualitative analysis of focus group results. In a departure from the standard socioeconomic explanation for citizen participation - which tends to ignore public meetings as a method of participation - we find no statistical difference in public meeting attendance based on gender, age, race, ethnicity, education, or income. Furthermore, we find that although state information requirements likely fulfill a needed purpose in providing transparency and accountability in local government tax and budget matters, they do not motivate public meeting attendance. Finally, our findings reinforce earlier contributions to the literature that emphasize the importance of citizen beliefs regarding political efficacy as a critical component of participation.
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Organizational History and Budgetary Punctuation
Scott Robinson, Carla Flink & Chad King
Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, April 2014, Pages 459-471
Abstract:
The basic dynamics of punctuated policy change have been found to be present in a wide variety of political institutions from a range of countries. The presence - even commonality - of punctuated change has been clearly and persuasively demonstrated. A key challenge in the literature is now to identify the conditions and institutional arrangements that make punctuated change more likely. This article investigates the role of organizational history in punctuated budgetary change. An error-accumulation model of punctuation suggested by the institutional friction framework contends that budgetary punctuation results from a built-up need for budgetary change that had been prevented by slow-moving institutions. The need builds up until the institutions give way in the form of a budgetary punctuation. This explanation suggests that the probability of a punctuation in a given year is negatively related to having experienced such a punctuation in previous years. An alternative model - which we will call the institutional model - contends that the propensity for budgetary punctuation is endemic to specific organizations. These organizations possess inherent characteristics that predispose them to punctuated change. The institutional model suggests that the probability of a punctuation occurring in a given year is positively related to the organization having experienced such a punctuation in previous years. The article uses data from Texas public school districts during an 18-year period to test these competing models of policy punctuation. The results indicate that recent punctuated changes raise the probability of additional punctuated changes, supporting the institutional hypothesis.
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An experimental study of the efficiency of unanimity rule and majority rule
Keith Dougherty et al.
Public Choice, March 2014, Pages 359-382
Abstract:
Scholars traditionally claim that unanimity rule is more capable of producing Pareto optimal outcomes than majority rule. Dougherty and Edward (Public Choice 151(3):655-678, 2012) make the opposite claim assuming proposals are either random, sincere, or strategic. We test these competing hypotheses in a two-dimensional framework using laboratory experiments. Our primary results suggest: (1) majority rule enters the Pareto set more quickly than unanimity rule, (2) majority rule leaves the Pareto set at the same rate as unanimity rule, and (3) majority rule is more likely to select a Pareto optimal outcome than unanimity rule at the end of the game.
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Dennis Halcoussis & Anton Lowenberg
Contemporary Economic Policy, forthcoming
Abstract:
In 2006, the U.S. Congress passed the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) which prohibited financial institutions from processing transactions arising from online gaming activities, thereby severely hindering U.S. residents from participating in online casino games, primarily poker. Enactment of this legislation followed lobbying and political pressure from a variety of interest groups. By examining House roll call votes, we identify empirically the sources of political influence that resulted in passage of the internet gambling legislation. We find that party affiliation was of primary importance, with Republicans more likely to vote in favor of the bill. The percentage of constituents who are Evangelical Christians and also the number of gambling establishments in the district were positively associated with votes for the bill. However, contributions from the gaming industry decreased the probability a congressman would vote for the bill.