Legislative Politics in Connecticut

Although there is a voluminous literature on the organization and procedure of state legislatures, material on their politics is relatively sparse. The classic work of A. Lawrence Lowell, now more than a half-century old, still appears to be the chief reliance of scholars in the field. Lowell's thesis was that parties were relatively insignificant in state legislatures; virtually the whole of the subsequent literature agrees with this. In the case of the Connecticut legislature, it would seem that parties, far from being relatively insignificant, play a dominating role. The study of party influence in a legislature necessitates a two-level approach: analysis of the role of the party leadership and of the voting behavior of the party membership. Several questions must be answered with regard to the party leadership. Are the party leaders an identifiable and cohesive group? Do they develop a definite program for legislative consideration? Is their authority shared with factional leaders capable of frequent disruption of the party program? Are committee chairmen or party leaders in the stronger position for actually forming legislative policy? Do pressure group leaders work through the formal party leaders or do they attempt to build ad hoc legislative majorities for their bills through independent action?