IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ebl/ecbull/eb-23-00311.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Who should be behind the wheel? A study of Oregon's Measure 88

Author

Listed:
  • Kerianne Lawson

    (North Dakota State University)

  • Joshua C. Hall

    (West Virginia University)

Abstract

In 2014, Oregon voted on Measure 88, an initiative that could provide driver cards to state residents without proof of legal presence in the United States. Measure 88 was the source of considerable public debate. Proponents argued for the safety benefits of reducing the number of unlicensed and uninsured drivers. Opponents primarily argued that Measure 88 was bad for national security and would encourage illegal aliens to migrate to the state. Despite spending more money and having the support of numerous nonprofits, community groups, and the Governor, Measure 88 failed at the ballot box, obtaining only 34% of votes cast. We examine county-level voting on Measure 88 using a median voter model to better understand why this measure failed. Fatal crashes in the prior year were not associated with yes votes in a statistically significant manner. Employment in construction and average commute times were negatively associated with ``yes' votes. Counties with a higher average income, higher employment in agriculture, and more registered Democrats were more likely to vote ``yes.' While Oregon leans Democratic, over 34% of voters are not affiliated with any party. The failure to capture these decisive voters appears be the source of Measure 88's failure.

Suggested Citation

  • Kerianne Lawson & Joshua C. Hall, 2023. "Who should be behind the wheel? A study of Oregon's Measure 88," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 43(4), pages 1797-1801.
    • Handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-23-00311
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.accessecon.com/Pubs/EB/2023/Volume43/EB-23-V43-I4-P155.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Allyssa A. Wadsworth, 2020. "Moore religious icons on state property? Alabamians pass bill to allow overlap of church and state," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 27(17), pages 1430-1433, October.
    2. Michael Reed & Patrick O’Reilly & Joshua Hall, 2019. "The Economics and Politics of Carbon Taxes and Regulations: Evidence from Voting on Washington State’s Initiative 732," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(13), pages 1-12, July.
    3. Russell S. Sobel, 2014. "The elephant in the room: why some states are refusing to expand Medicaid," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(17), pages 1226-1229, November.
    4. Congleton, Roger D & Bennett, Randall W, 1995. "On the Political Economy of State Highway Expenditures: Some Evidence of the Relative Performance of Alternative Public Choice Models," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 84(1-2), pages 1-24, July.
    5. Joshua C. Hall & Serkan Karadas, 2018. "Tuition increases Geaux away? Evidence from voting on Louisiana’s amendment 2," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(13), pages 924-927, July.
    6. Coates, Dennis & Humphreys, Brad R., 2006. "Proximity benefits and voting on stadium and arena subsidies," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(2), pages 285-299, March.
    7. Candon Johnson & Joshua Hall, 2019. "The Public Choice of Public Stadium Financing: Evidence from San Diego Referenda," Economies, MDPI, vol. 7(1), pages 1-9, March.
    8. Joshua Matti & Yang Zhou, 2017. "The political economy of Brexit: explaining the vote," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(16), pages 1131-1134, September.
    9. Randall Holcombe, 1989. "The median voter model in public choice theory," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 61(2), pages 115-125, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Candon Johnson & Joshua Hall, 2019. "The Public Choice of Public Stadium Financing: Evidence from San Diego Referenda," Economies, MDPI, vol. 7(1), pages 1-9, March.
    2. Colin Steitz, 2022. "Who votes for right-to-work?A median voter analysis of Missouri’s Proposition A," Economics and Business Letters, Oviedo University Press, vol. 11(2), pages 88-92.
    3. Benoît Le Maux, 2009. "Governmental behavior in representative democracy: a synthesis of the theoretical literature," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 141(3), pages 447-465, December.
    4. Karl Widerquist, 2000. "The Public Commodities Problem," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_299, Levy Economics Institute.
    5. José Cruz, 2001. "An empirical application of the median voter model and of the interest group influence model to the Portuguese and Galician municipalities," ERSA conference papers ersa01p25, European Regional Science Association.
    6. Can Chen, 2016. "Banking on Infrastructure: Exploring the Fiscal Impacts of State Infrastructure Bank (SIB) Loans on Leveraging State and Local Transportation Investment," Public Budgeting & Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(3), pages 94-113, September.
    7. Propheter, Geoffrey, 2020. "The effect of a new sports facility on property development: Evidence from building permits and a localized synthetic control," Journal of Regional Analysis and Policy, Mid-Continent Regional Science Association, vol. 50(1), December.
    8. José Manuel Cruz, 2004. "Empirical analysis of the influence of voters and politicians in the public choice of Portuguese municipalities universidade portucalense," ERSA conference papers ersa04p367, European Regional Science Association.
    9. Cruz, Jose Manuel, 2002. "Who is fitting better to Portuguese local demand for public choice: Central government or municipal governments?," ERSA conference papers ersa02p440, European Regional Science Association.
    10. Levi Russell & Josh Hall, 2022. "The political economy of state right to farm amendments: evidence from Missouri," Economics and Business Letters, Oviedo University Press, vol. 11(3), pages 93-97.
    11. Randall Holcombe, 2005. "Government growth in the twenty-first century," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 124(1), pages 95-114, July.
    12. Sriparna Ghosh & Joshua C. Hall, 2018. "The Political Economy of Soda Taxation," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 38(2), pages 1045-1051.
    13. Chikish, Yulia & Humphreys, Brad R. & Nowak, Adam, 2019. "Sports Arenas, Teams and Property Values: Temporary and Permanent Shocks to Local Amenity Flows," Journal of Regional Analysis and Policy, Mid-Continent Regional Science Association, vol. 49(1), February.
    14. Easwaran Narassimhan & Stefan Koester & Kelly Sims Gallagher, 2022. "Carbon Pricing in the US: Examining State-Level Policy Support and Federal Resistance," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 10(1), pages 275-289.
    15. Gabriel Ahlfeldt & Wolfgang Maennig, 2010. "Impact of sports arenas on land values: evidence from Berlin," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 44(2), pages 205-227, April.
    16. Simon Rudkin & Lucy Barros & Paweł Dłotko & Wanling Qiu, 2024. "An economic topology of the Brexit vote," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 58(3), pages 601-618, March.
    17. Dennis Coates, 2012. "Not-So-Mega Events," Chapters, in: Wolfgang Maennig & Andrew Zimbalist (ed.), International Handbook on the Economics of Mega Sporting Events, chapter 23, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    18. NakHyeok Choi & Kyujin Jung, 2017. "Measuring Efficiency and Effectiveness of Highway Management in Sustainability," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(8), pages 1-15, August.
    19. Rode, Martin & Sáenz de Viteri, Andrea, 2018. "Expressive attitudes to compensation: The case of globalization," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 42-55.
    20. Gabriel M. Ahlfeldt & Georgios Kavetsos, 2012. "Outlook, Progress and Challenges of Stadium Evaluation," Chapters, in: Wolfgang Maennig & Andrew Zimbalist (ed.), International Handbook on the Economics of Mega Sporting Events, chapter 17, Edward Elgar Publishing.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    undocumented workers; median voter; immigration; drivers license;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H1 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government
    • H8 - Public Economics - - Miscellaneous Issues

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-23-00311. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: John P. Conley (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.