Legislative Institutions as a Source of Party Leaders' Influence

• Date: 01 August 2016
• Author: Sarah E. Anderson,Daniel M. Butler,Laurel Harbridge
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/lsq.12124
• Published date: 01 August 2016

SARAH E. ANDERSON

University of California, Santa Barbara

DANIEL M. BUTLER

Washington University in St. Louis

LAUREL HARBRIDGE

Northwestern University

Legislative Institutions as a

Source of Party Leaders’

Influence

Legislators’ actions are influenced by party, constituency, and their own views,

each weighted differently. Our survey of state legislators finds that legislator’s own views

are the strongest influence. We also find that institutions are an important source of party

leaders’ influence. Legislators in states where members rely more on party leaders—states

without term limits, with less professional legislatures, and where the majority party con-

trols the agenda—put more weight on leaders’ preferences. Beyond direct party

influence, the views of party leaders are preemptively incorporated into legislators’ prefer-

ences when the rules of the legislature make party leaders more powerful.

How, if at all, do parties and their leaders inf‌luence the behavior

of legislators? Some scholars posit the potential for strong party inf‌lu-

ence (e.g., Rohde 1991), while others are skeptical of party inf‌luence,

suggesting that legislators’ own preferences are most important

(Krehbiel 1993). The ensuing debate is often framed around direct or

indirect party inf‌luence (Smith 2007). Direct inf‌luence focuses on arm-

twisting, pressuring, and vote buying (e.g., Groseclose 1996; Jenkins and

Monroe 2012) and assumes that legislators’ votes align with the leader-

ship because of the carrots and sticks leaders use to cajole members. In

contrast, indirect party inf‌luence focuses on how leaders structure the

form and content of legislation (Cox and McCubbins 2005; Harbridge

2015; Hartog and Monroe 2011; Lawrence, Maltzman, and Smith 2006).

Although institutions are important in nearly all accounts of party

inf‌luence, scholars have paid less attention to how institutions that affect

leaders’ resources may incentivize rank-and-f‌ile legislators to put more

weight on leaders’ positions when forming the preferences on which

they will act (though see Sinclair 2002). Institutions that affect the relative

LEGISLATIVE STUDIES QUARTERLY, 41, 3, August 2016 605

DOI: 10.1111/lsq.12124

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C2016 Washington University in St. Louis

balance of resources between leaders and other members can shape how

much weight legislators put on their leaders’ positions in at least two

ways. First, when rank-and-f‌ile members have more staff and more time

to devote to their jobs, they are less reliant on leaders for information. As

a result, they can rely less on leaders’ preferences as a signal about what

the optimal policy should be (Curry 2015; Krehbiel 1992; Mooney 2012).

Second, when leaders can allocate resources that members care about,

access to the agenda, f‌inancial resources, and committee assignments,

members may preemptively incorporate leaders’ preference into their

own positions as a way to remain in favor with the leaders (Clucas 2001;

Herron and Theodos 2004; Lebo, McGlynn, and Koger 2007; Lindst€

adt

and Vander Wielen 2014; Mooney 2012, 2013). As a result, leaders may

not have to actually twist arms; legislators may simply act in anticipation

of leaders’ power (Cameron 2000; Fox and Rothenberg 2011).

We use original survey data to measure legislators’ personal and

representational preferences along with their perceptions of voters’ and

party leaders’ preferences on their state’s gas tax. We use the term

“representational preferences” to emphasize that this position captures

the policy position they would take after taking into account their own

preferences, as well as voters’ and leaders’ preferences. It is a measure of

how they would balance representing voters, leaders, and their own per-

sonal preference. Because we measure these items on the same numeric

scale, we are able to estimate the weights that legislators put on their

own preferences, constituents’ preferences, and their party leaders’

preferences when forming their representational preference on the issue

and assess what institutions affect these weights.

1

These representational preferences have power to predict legisla-

tors’ roll-call votes. In our data set, about 60 of the surveyed legislators

in two states voted on a proposal in the previous session that would raise

the gas tax in their state. Using these individuals, we test whether their

representational preferences, as reported in our survey, predict their vote

on the bill. We f‌ind that legislators’ representational preferences predict

their roll-call votes, even when controlling for party. Our measure of

legislators’ representational preferences captures meaningful information

about an attitude that drives legislator behavior on actual roll-call votes.

We use legislators’ responses on the survey to test how term limits

(Carey et al. 2006; Mooney 2012), legislative professionalism (Mooney

1995; Squire 1992, 2007), majority-leader agenda control (Anzia and

Jackman 2013; Jackman 2014), and leader control of committee

assignments (Grimmer and Powell 2013) predict changes in the weights

that legislators put on leaders’ positions when forming their representa-

tional preferences.

606 Sarah E. Anderson, Daniel M. Butler, and Laurel Harbridge