IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/pubfin/v25y1997i3p327-343.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Direct Legislation: Determinants of Legislator Support for Voter Initiatives

Author

Listed:
  • Philip L. Hersch

    (Wichita State University)

  • Gerald S. McDougall

    (Southeast Missouri State University)

Abstract

This article examines the determinants of legislator support for a Kansas constitu tional amendment to authorize the use of voter initiatives. Although mixed, the results suggest that Kansas House members were more likely to vote for the amendment the greater their difficulty in representing their constituents' interests. Difficulty was, in part, proxied by constituent heterogeneity. Although it appears special interest money came into play, there is no evidence that representatives voted to protectfund-raising capacity. Surprisingly, antigovernment sentiment, as proxied by constituent support for Ross Perot's presidential campaign, did not appear to influence representative voting.

Suggested Citation

  • Philip L. Hersch & Gerald S. McDougall, 1997. "Direct Legislation: Determinants of Legislator Support for Voter Initiatives," Public Finance Review, , vol. 25(3), pages 327-343, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:pubfin:v:25:y:1997:i:3:p:327-343
    DOI: 10.1177/109114219702500304
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/109114219702500304
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/109114219702500304?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Silberman, Jonathan I & Durden, Garey C, 1976. "Determining Legislative Preferences on the Minimum Wage: An Economic Approach," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 84(2), pages 317-329, April.
    2. Kalt, Joseph P & Zupan, Mark A, 1984. "Capture and Ideology in the Economic Theory of Politics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 74(3), pages 279-300, June.
    3. Alberto Alesina & Alex Cukierman, 1990. "The Politics of Ambiguity," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 105(4), pages 829-850.
    4. Levitt, Steven D, 1996. "How Do Senators Vote? Disentangling the Role of Voter Preferences, Party Affiliation, and Senate Ideology," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(3), pages 425-441, June.
    5. Steve Mariotti, 1978. "An economic analysis of the voting on Michigan's tax and expenditure limitation amendment," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 33(3), pages 15-26, January.
    6. Kau, James B & Rubin, Paul H, 1979. "Self-Interest, Ideology, and Logrolling in Congressional Voting," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 22(2), pages 365-384, October.
    7. Chappell, Henry W, Jr, 1982. "Campaign Contributions and Congressional Voting: A Simultaneous Probit-Tobit Model," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 64(1), pages 77-83, February.
    8. Bender, Bruce & Lott, John R, Jr, 1996. "Legislator Voting and Shirking: A Critical Review of the Literature," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 87(1-2), pages 67-100, April.
    9. John G. Matsusaka, 1992. "Economics of Direct Legislation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 107(2), pages 541-571.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Peter A. Zaleski & Penny Maier Donati, 2000. "Tort Reform Voting in the U.S. Senate," Public Finance Review, , vol. 28(5), pages 415-427, September.

    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. Stadelmann, David & Portmann, Marco & Eichenberger, Reiner, 2013. "Quantifying parliamentary representation of constituents’ preferences with quasi-experimental data," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(1), pages 170-180.
    2. Potters, Jan & Sloof, Randolph, 1996. "Interest groups: A survey of empirical models that try to assess their influence," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 403-442, November.
    3. Mark Burkey & Garey Durden, 1998. "The Political Economy of Clean Air Legislation," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 11(2), pages 119-134, March.
    4. Stavins, Robert & Keohane, Nathaniel & Revesz, Richard, 1997. "The Positive Political Economy of Instrument Choice in Environmental Policy," RFF Working Paper Series dp-97-25, Resources for the Future.
    5. Hayashida, Sherilyn & La Croix, Sumner & Coffman, Makena, 2021. "Understanding changes in electric vehicle policies in the U.S. states, 2010–2018," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 211-223.
    6. Glenn Parker & Matthew Dabros, 2012. "Last-period problems in legislatures," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 151(3), pages 789-806, June.
    7. de Gorter, Harry & Rausser, Gordon C., 1989. "Endogenizing U.S. milk price supports," Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley, Working Paper Series qt4f58t530, Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley.
    8. Matsusaka, John G., 2017. "When Do Legislators Follow Constituent Opinion? Evidence from Matched Roll Call and Referendum Votes," Working Papers 264, The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, George J. Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State.
    9. Atif Mian & Amir Sufi & Francesco Trebbi, 2010. "The Political Economy of the US Mortgage Default Crisis," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(5), pages 1967-1998, December.
    10. Bronars, Stephen G & Lott, John R, Jr, 1997. "Do Campaign Donations Alter How a Politician Votes? Or, Do Donors Support Candidates Who Value the Same Things That They Do?," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 40(2), pages 317-350, October.
    11. Mark A. Zupan, 2015. "Rent-Seeking on the Supply Side of Politics," ifo DICE Report, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 13(03), pages 06-14, October.
    12. Brooks, Jonathan, 1997. "Congressional Voting On Farm Payment Limitations: Political Pressure Of Ideological Conviction?," Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Western Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 22(2), pages 1-15, December.
    13. Stephen Ansolabehere & John M. de Figueiredo & James M. Snyder Jr, 2003. "Why is There so Little Money in U.S. Politics?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 17(1), pages 105-130, Winter.
    14. Ansolabehere, Stephen & De Figueiredo, John M. & Snyder, James M., 2003. "Are Campaign Contributions Investment in the Political Marketplace or Individual Consumption? Or "Why Is There So Little Money in Politics?"," Working papers 4272-02, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Sloan School of Management.
    15. Jacobson, Elaine Mullaly & Emerson, Robert D., 1989. "The Influences Of Id Ogy And Economic Interests On Dairy Legislation," 1989 Annual Meeting, July 30-August 2, Baton Rouge, Louisiana 270466, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    16. John G. Matsusaka, 2005. "Direct Democracy Works," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 19(2), pages 185-206, Spring.
    17. repec:ces:ifodic:v:13:y:2015:i:3:p:19173857 is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Roberto Brunetti & Matthieu Pourieux, 2023. "Representative Policy-Makers? A Behavioral Experiment with French Politicians," Working Papers 2319, Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon St-Étienne (GATE Lyon St-Étienne), Université de Lyon.
    19. David Stadelmann & Reiner Eichenberger & Marco Portmann, 2014. "Voting against the separation of powers between legislature and administration," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 25(2), pages 207-229, June.
    20. René Lindstädt & Ryan Wielen, 2011. "Timely shirking: time-dependent monitoring and its effects on legislative behavior in the U.S. Senate," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 148(1), pages 119-148, July.
    21. Reiner Eichenberger & David Stadelmann & Marco Portmann, 2012. "A comparative analysis of the voting behavior of constituents and their representatives for public debts," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 23(3), pages 244-260, September.

    More about this item

    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:sae:pubfin:v:25:y:1997:i:3:p:327-343. 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: SAGE Publications (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.