How do constituents influence lawmaking

A political consulting firm placed calls to the constituents of legislators randomly assigned to receive calls. These constituents were read a brief description of the anti-bullying legislation, and asked if they would be willing to tell their legislator to support the bill. The outcome variable in the study is the final vote on the anti-bullying bill. Comparing legislators who were assigned to receive at least one call to those in the control group, we estimate that the targeted legislators were percentage points more likely to support the legislation.

The results are encouraging: policymakers pay attention to their constituents. Two other results are worth noting. First, the number of calls did not matter beyond the effect of simply being contacted at all. This may be due to the fact that state legislators, outside of some highly salient issues, are not frequently contacted by constituents, and even a small handful of calls may be sufficient to influence legislative voting.

Second, the influence of constituent calls does not appear to differ for different legislators. Finally, some caveats are in order. Because there are few experimental studies of advocacy, the results should be interpreted with caution. The most important caveat is that the generalizability of the results may be limited by the specifics of the experiment. Anti-bullying is a relatively low salience issue, not extensively covered in the media.

In addition, the party positions on this relatively novel issue are not clearly delineated. For the first stage looking to proxies, I uncovered some evidence of employment patterns influencing increased bill sponsorship attention on related issues. In districts with higher levels of employment in agriculture, defense, and transportation, rates of related bill sponsorship were similarly and significantly higher, compared to other districts with lower rates of employment in these industries.

Across numerous issues, such as defense, the environment, healthcare, education, and others, legislators are not responding to the calls of constituents to focus sponsorship attention on these issues.

However, when it comes to that which constituents actually express as top policy priorities, legislators seem uninterested, or at best, unaware. Please read our comments policy before commenting.

Philip D. His research and teaching interests include representation, public policy, quantitative methods, and applied and computational statistics. Well duh. And non constituents who have money. We have a Donorate and an Electorate, and the Donorate is primary. Click here to cancel reply. Facebook Facebook. Waggoner 1 Comment.

Legislators often believe they are doing the right thing and during difficult decisions, will use their own beliefs and value system and listen to their conscience. Legislators wants to remain in office or at least leave on their own terms. In order to find the support to continually be re-elected, legislators must be aware of not only the political climate but also be aware of how certain votes will affect their ability to stay in office. They must consider the will of their constituents, the needs of their state, and the desire of their party.

While there are many factors that ultimately persuade a legislator, the three H's are a solid guide to understanding a legislator's decision-making process. Sort by Relevance Newest. Order Asc Desc. How Legislators Make Decisions. The Three H's Legislators are constantly being asked to make decisions; decisions on how to vote, who to support, and what causes to champion.