Document Type
Article
Publication Date
3-2024
Keywords
legislative behavior; comparative legislatures; term limits; policy innovation/diffusion; parties in legislatures; lobbying
Abstract
This article examines the relationship between legislative civility and legislative productivity in US state legislatures. The research employs data from the National Survey of State Legislative Lobbyists and from the State Policy Innovation and Diffusion (SPID) database. The former dataset is used to generate an overall civility index for each state as developed by Kettler et al. The SPID database allows one to measure the legislative productivity of a state legislature. Employing these data, negative binomial and Poisson regression models reveal that state legislatures rated as more civil by their own lobbyists produced significantly more pieces of noteworthy legislation than those legislative bodies rated as less civil. These results suggest that the quality of internal legislative dynamics matters for legislative productivity.
Citation
Schreckhise, W. D., Pierce, J. C., Benjamin, F. A., Lovrich, N. P., & Button, E. D. (2024). Legislative Civility, Gridlock, Polarization, and Productivity. State Politics & Policy Quarterly, 24 (1), 1-22. https://doi.org/10.1017/spq.2023.23
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.