Legislatures, Initiatives, and Representation: The Effects of State Legislative Institutions on Policy

• Date: 01 June 1996
• DOI: 10.1177/106591299604900202
• Author: Elisabeth R. Gerber
• Published date: 01 June 1996
• Subject Matter: Articles

Legislatures, Initiatives, and
Representation: The Effects of
State Legislative Institutions
on Policy
ELISABETH R. GERBER, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO
Policy advocates in many states may pursue their policy agendas either by
traditional legislative politics or by direct legislation. I show that this choice
matters: policy outcomes resulting from direct legislation often reflect dif-
ferent interests than policy outcomes resulting from the legislative process,
even on similar issues. Using data from California statewide elections, I
analyze policies that were considered in both the legislative process and
the direct legislation process, and for which the two processes led to differ-
ent outcomes. I demonstrate that features of the legislature, especially party
organization, can induce individual legislators to vote against their district
majority preference. In the aggregate, these influences are shown to lead
legislative and direct legislation outcomes to diverge.
Policy advocates in many states face choices about how to pursue their policy
agendas. In particular, twenty-six states allow the use of direct legislation in
addition to traditional legislative politics. The purpose of this research is to
consider the consequences of this option. Specifically, I consider whether the
direct legislation process and the legislative process result in different poli-
cies, and if so, what factors underlie these differences.
I argue that features of political institutions can lead the legislative pro-
cess and the direct legislation process to produce different outcomes. To sup-
port this argument, I compare two policies that were considered in both the
legislative process and the direct legislation process in California. The pur-
pose of the analysis is to isolate those features of the legislative process that
led legislators to vote against their district majority preference and hence, in
the aggregate, led direct legislation and legislative outcomes to diverge.
To provide the conceptual framework for comparing preference aggrega-
tion under the legislative process and the direct legislation process, I posit two
alternative, hypothetical models of legislative behavior. The delegate model
assumes that constituency pressures dominate legislative decisions. To the
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extent that we observe empirical support for the delegate model, we expect
the effects of legislative institutions on policy to be minimal and predict policy
congruence between the legislative and direct legislation processes. The insti-
tutional model assumes that legislators also respond to incentives and con-
straints determined by legislative institutions. To the extent that we observe
empirical support for the institutional model, we note the importance of leg-
islative institutions on policy and predict policy divergence.
In the next section, I compare characteristics of preference aggregation
under the legislative process and the direct legislation process. I then describe
the delegate and institutional models of legislative behavior in greater detail.
Next, I provide details of the two cases that form the basis of the empirical
analysis. I then present the results of the empirical analysis, discuss implica-
tions of this research for the study of institutions and preference aggregation,
and conclude.
DIRECT LEGISLATION VERSUS THE LEGISLATIVE PROCESS
In direct legislation, citizens vote directly on propositions. Propositions include
both initiatives, which are placed on the ballot by citizen groups, and referen-
dums, which are placed on the ballot by the legislature. Twenty-three Ameri-
can
states have provisions for initiatives, and twenty-five allow for referendums,
as do thousands of municipalities and many democratic nations (see Council
of State Governments 1994, and Butler and Ranney 1994 for descriptions of
direct legislation in the American states and abroad, respectively)..
The legislative process and the direct legislation process represent two
alternative sets of institutions for converting citizen preferences into public
policy The problem of preference aggregation represents one of the most fun-
damental issues in modem
democratic government, since it largely determines
who wins and who loses in the political process. Preference aggregation in the
limiting case of social consensus is trivial-simply institute the policy every-
one wants. In most political contexts, however, factors such as preference
heterogeneity, conflict over resources, and uncertainty all complicate the pref-
erence aggregation process. Decades of social science research suggest that in
these situations, the specific nature and design of institutions systematically
shapes how society moves from preferences to outcome.
1
1

The notion that institutions shape outcomes is in the spirit of structure-induced equi-
librium developed in Shepsle 1979, and Shepsle and Weingast 1987. This view of insti-
tutions, however, is not unchallenged in the literature. Riker 1980, for example, argues
that institutions are themselves endogenous manifestations of preferences and so their
independent effects on policy are minimal. Other researchers such as March and Olsen
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Direct legislation represents a relatively simple process of preference ag-
gregation. Citizens vote at-large between a proposition and the current (status
quo) policy Majority or supermajority rule determines whether the proposi-
tion becomes law or the status quo policy remains intact.’ In theory, the poli-
cies produced by direct legislation broadly reflect the preferences of the voting
majority Some critics note that in practice, however, participation biases can
lead to direct legislation policies that are not preferred by a majority of citi-
zens, but that gain the approval of a majority of active voters. Nevertheless,
because it allows for direct citizen involvement and majority rule preference
aggregation, direct legislation has the potential to reflect preferences of the
voting majority.
Preference aggregation via the legislative process is typically more com-
plex. Citizens are first apportioned into geographic districts from which they
elect their representatives. These elected representatives then &dquo;represent&dquo; the
interests of their constituents in the legislative process. How elected officials
go about the process of representation is the subject of much debate. At a
minimum, since districts are often drawn to capture heterogeneity in the un-
derlying population, this heterogeneity should, theoretically, be reflected in
aggregate outcomes as well (see Grofman et al. 1992, who argue that single-
member district systems facilitate greater representation of minority interests
than alternative electoral systems such as at-large elections). Even legislators
who act in direct accordance with their district’s majority preference may pro-
duce policies that deviate from the population majority preference if districts
are drawn such that the median of the district median positions differs from
the overall population median (see Cain 1984; Gerber 1991). To the extent
that other factors affect legislators’ policy decisions, deviations from majority
preferences are even more likely These factors will be considered at length
below.
Given these differences in how preferences are aggregated, we expect to
observe systematic differences in the relationship between voter preferences
and policy outcomes when laws are made by legislative politics and when
1984 consider how institutions systematically shape preferences. Gerber and Jackson
1993 study the implications of the simultaneous aggregation and socialization func-
tions of institutions. Recognizing the joint role of institutions, and acknowledging the
debate regarding the endogeneity of institutions, the current research focuses primarily
on the aggregation functions of institutions.
2
This description is intended to capture the most basic, essential elements of preference
aggregation by direct legislation. Specific provisions such as qualification requirements,
content restrictions, provisions for judicial review, etc., may also affect ultimate policy
outcomes; however, such provisions are primarily related to the agenda-setting phase,
and not the preference aggregation phase, of direct legislation.
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they are made by direct legislation. In particular, we expect direct legislation
policy outcomes to reflect the preferences of the median voter on that issue.
We expect legislative policy outcomes to reflect voter preferences, with the
potential for substantial deviations from those preferences because of the in-
fluence of legislative institutions.
TWO MODELS OF LEGISLATIVE BEHAVIOR
To provide the framework for testing hypotheses about the effects of institu-
tions on policy, I posit two alternative models of legislative behavior--the del-
egate model and the institutional model. The delegate model is a simple model
of legislative behavior in which representatives respond only to the constraints
placed on them by the voters in their districts. This behavior is analogous to
the behavior of reelection oriented legislators in spatial voting models (Mayhew
1974; Downs 1957). These spatial voting models predict that as long as rep-
resentatives are solely concerned with winning elections, they will respond
only to the preferences of voters in their districts. Over a single dimension,
these representatives choose the policy position of the median voter in their
district.3 Empirically, this translates into a vote in accordance...