When Voters Pull the Trigger: Can Direct Democracy Restrain Legislative Excesses?

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/lsq.12115
• Author: Vladimir Kogan
• Published date: 01 May 2016
• Date: 01 May 2016

VLADIMIR KOGAN

The Ohio State University

When Voters Pull the Trigger:

Can Direct Democracy Restrain

Legislative Excesses?

Direct democracy is sometimes described as a “gun behind the door,” but how

do legislators react when voters pull the trigger? Leveraging the high-profile referendum

defeat of a controversial law passed by the Ohio legislature, I examine how legislators

respond to voter disaffection. Using interest groups to “bridge” votes before and after

the election, I show that the measure’s defeat induced moderation on the part of the

Republican legislative majority, while leaving the behavior of opposition Democrats

largely unchanged. The results suggest that direct democracy has the potential to restrain

legislative excesses and alleviate polarization in state legislatures.

“That’s the big problem here. You’re here to represent your people, but you don’t

know what they want. The onlyway to really know is to take a referendum.”

Anonymous congressman, quotedin Kingdon (1973, 32)

Growing evidence suggests that partisan polarization, a national

phenomenon since the 1970s (McCarty, Poole, and Rosenthal 2006), is

accelerating in state legislatures as well (Shor and McCarty 2011). Just

as ideological divisions among elites appear to produce “leapfrog” repre-

sentation in Congress (Bafumi and Herron 2010)—with electoral

turnover resulting in policy change but little improvement in congruence

between policy and constituent preferences—increasing partisanship

threatens to undermine democratic responsiveness in the American

states. Lax and Phillips, for example, document a sizeable representa-

tional gap in state government and show that this democratic def‌icit is

“connected to the overresponsiveness to voter ideology and the distorting

inf‌luence of party control” (2011, 149). If elections that replace incum-

bent legislators with their opponents from the opposite party prove

ineffective in remedying the problem of legislative extremism, and if

institutional reforms such as independent redistricting commissions and

open primaries offer little hope (Kogan and McGhee 2012; McCarty,

LEGISLATIVE STUDIES QUARTERLY, 41, 2, May 2016 297

DOI: 10.1111/lsq.12115

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C2016 Washington University in St. Louis

Poole, and Rosenthal 2009; McGhee 2012), what can be done to

improverepresentationinaneraofsharppartisandiscord?

This study documents how direct democracy may, under certain

circumstances, provide voters with a mechanism to restrain legislative

excesses. Since its adoption by some states in the late nineteenth and

early twentieth centuries, direct democracy has been viewed by many

reformers and democratic theorists as an essential mechanism for

strengthening the link between citizens and their government. In addition

to empowering voters to shape policy at the ballot box, these institutions

may also serve as an effective “gun behind the door” that motivates bet-

ter representation among their elected agents (e.g., Gerber 1996, 1999).

Aside from its effects on policy through these channels, however, I argue

that direct democracy can also serve an important informational role by

signaling to elected off‌icials the preferences of their constituents.

In an increasingly polarized world, when voters must choose

between two distant and unsatisfying options in candidate contests

(Fiorina, Abrams, and Pope 2005), electoral victors may struggle to dis-

cern the voters’ true intent or preferred policy agenda once in off‌ice.

Under such circumstances, it becomes tempting for legislators to misread

the electoral tea leaves and conclude that voters have given them a

“mandate” where none in fact exists (Grossback, Peterson, and Stimson

2007; Peterson et al. 2003) and act on this belief to implement an ideo-

logical policy agenda. When voters are able to respond to such excesses

by “pulling the trigger,” legislators can observe the outcomes of direct

democracy elections, update their beliefs about the distribution of voter

preferences, and accordingly moderate their behavior in off‌ice.

Taking advantage of Ohio’s high-prof‌ile referendum defeat in

2011, I provide evidence that direct democracy can indeed serve as a

moderating check on legislative extremism. After gaining control of

both legislative chambers and the governor’s off‌ice in a Tea Party-fueled

electoral wave during the 2010 midterm elections, Ohio’s new Republi-

can majority acted quickly to put in place conservative public policies.

Less than a year later, however, voters had the opportunity to show their

widespread disaffection with the direction pursued by Republican law-

makers, rejecting a controversial and unpopular overhaul of public

sector collective bargaining laws in November 2011. Republican leaders

acknowledged their defeat: on Election Night, the governor suggested

that the voters had signalled that his agenda was “too much too soon”; a

top legislative leader admitted that “the voters have spoken, [and] we

have heard them.” Using interest groups to “bridge” roll-call votes

immediately before and after the election, I show that the measure’s

defeat induced moderation on the part of the Republican legislative

298 Vladimir Kogan