How Responsive Are Legislators to Policy Information? Evidence from a Field Experiment in a State Legislature

• Published date: 01 November 2018
• Date: 01 November 2018
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/lsq.12206
• Author: Adam Zelizer

ADAM ZELIZER

Columbia University

How Responsive Are Legislators

to Policy Information? Evidence

from a Field Experiment in a

State Legislature

Theories of legislative committees, lobbying, and cue-taking assume information

affects legislators’ support for policy alternatives. However, there is little direct, empiri-

cal evidence to support this foundational assumption about legislative behavior. This

article reports results from a field experiment in which state legislators were randomly

assigned to receive policy research about pending proposals. Results show that policy

information increased aggregate cosponsorship by 60% above baseline rates. For one

bill covered critically, information diminished cosponsorship and roll-call voting sup-

port. Results are broadly consistent with information signaling models’ predictions

about the importance of information to position taking.

Facts, research, and information are essential to the healthy func-

tioning of legislatures. Alongside ideological and electoral concerns,

information is a major input into legislators’ decisions whether to support

or oppose legislation. As a result, scholars have paid a great deal of

attention to how legislators wade through a complex information envi-

ronment, structure institutions to overcome asymmetric and imperfect

information, and interact with outside information sources to decide

which bills to support (Austen-Smith 1993; Gilligan and Krehbiel 1987,

1989, 1990; Hall and Deardorff 2006; Jones and Baumgartner 2005;

Krehbiel 1991; Mooney 1992; Potters and van Winden 1992).

However, there is little direct, empirical evidence that policy infor-

mation inf‌luences individual positions or collective policy outcomes.

Few empirical studies examine how information varies ac ross legislators,

whether information affects individual behavior, and to what extent insti-

tutions overcome the problem (cf. Fenno 1973; Jones and Baumgartner

2005; Kingdon 1989). There are formidable measurement and identif‌ica-

tion challenges to studying information, as it is not randomly allocated.

As a result, studies of imperfect information rely on indirect empirical

LEGISLATIVE STUDIES QUARTERLY, 43, 4, No vember 2018

DOI: 10.1111/lsq.12206

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tests

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instead of directly examining the question of interest: Does provid-

ing legislators with policy research change their support for legislation?

Do legislative institutions affect cosponsorship or roll-call voting by pro-

viding information?

This article revisits the now-classic literature on imperfect informa-

tion with a novel research design—a f‌ield experiment embedded in a

state legislature—to estimate the effect of policy information on position

taking. Legislators were provided policy research by a legislative staffer

on randomly selected bills. The staffer, who worked for the Veterans

Caucus, conducted one-on-one brief‌ings with subjects that provided

nonpartisan, technical research about veterans bills. By randomizing

brief‌ings across bills, we can compare individual position taking across

treated and untreated bills. This approach avoids the measurement and

identif‌ication challenges that characterize observational studies of policy

information.

This article contributes to the study of decision making under

imperfect information in several ways. First and foremost, it shows that

policy research affects position taking. On average, legislators were 60%

more likely to support bills selected for brief‌ings. While most brief‌ings

painted bills in a positive light, one bill was covered critically due to a

f‌law in its drafting. Legislators briefed on this bill were less likely to

cosponsor and vote for it.

Second, the empirical design directly engages formal models of

information exchange. While previous experimental work on informa-

tional models of committees have been limited to the laboratory

(Battaglini et al. 2016), this article provides several tests of these models

in the f‌ield. In several respects, f‌indings are consistent with predictions

of these models: (1) on average, providing research helps legislators take

supportive positions by reducing uncertainty; (2) information’s effects

are largest when sender and receiver are similar; and (3) groups of

experts with heterogeneous ideologies and partisan aff‌iliations make for

trusted information sources.

The f‌inal contribution is to clarify the public policy implica-

tions of imperfect information. The brief‌ings’ inf‌luence reveals that

at least some legislators refrain from taking positions due to informa-

tion constraints. The inability or unwillingness to take positions may

lead to paralysis as risk-averse legislators delay approving proposals

(Binder 2004, 31). However, improving information is not a free

lunch, as information caused polarization. Legislators predisposed to

support legislation were convinced to do so, but legislators who

were unlikely to support bills were not convinced of their merits.

The end result is that the treatment made it easier for legislators to

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