Overview
My research delves into the distribution of lawmaking authority within American state legislatures. Specifically, I explore how various aspects of legislative infrastructure—such as committees and term limits—affect both the quantity and quality of state policies. I focus particularly on the dynamics unfolding in committee rooms and behind closed doors to identify where in the legislative pipeline positive and negative agenda-setting power is most potent.
My dissertation explores the allocation of committee assignments to state lawmakers and the impact of committee membership and occupational expertise on policy outcomes. My work employs mixed-methods: I have conducted interviews with legislative aides and committee staff to gain insight into the inner workings of state legislative bodies, scraped decades of archival data, and developed models predicting the introduction, advancement, and survival of bills in the California State Legislature. Through this research, I have developed expertise in state politics, legislative institutions and behavior, and policymaking processes. Detailed information about my previous work and ongoing projects can be found here.
Long-term, my goal is to identify and measure instances of negative agenda-setting power within state legislative committee systems across the country. While considerable research has been conducted on legislative entrepreneurship and the ability of legislators to navigate the policy pipeline successfully, the study of why and how bills fail to advance is still in its nascent stages. Understanding the factors that contribute to the demise of bills is crucial for comprehending the dynamics of legislative decision-making and the exercise of power within state legislatures. By shedding light on the mechanisms behind bill failures, I aim to contribute to our understanding of what constitutes effective governance.
Spotlight On My Doctoral Research
State legislatures are older and more productive than Congress itself yet receive comparatively little attention from scholars. For instance, in 2019, Congress passed just 105 bills into law while California’s legislature enacted over 1,200 bills. To achieve this level of productivity, state legislatures rely on robust committee systems, which discipline the hundreds of state representatives jockeying for influence over policymaking. Because time is finite and not all state legislators can serve on all committees simultaneously, who a legislature puts on a given committee reveals a lot about what that legislature prioritizes and who it trusts to pursue “good” public policy.
To this end, my dissertation focuses on how state legislatures distribute committee assignments to their members and the political consequences of these decisions. In my first chapter, I collected an original dataset of more than 600 state legislators and 4,000 committee assignments over a 30-year period in the California State Legislature to assess why representatives are assigned to some committees and not others. Stress-testing canonical theories of committee assignments originally meant to explain congressional politics, my findings reveal that both California Democrats and Republicans rely heavily on the pre-legislative occupation of their members when appointing committee seats. For example, a former educator is far more likely than a former doctor to sit on the Education Committee. This reliance on occupational expertise to make committee appointments strongly outweighs the importance of a member’s political ideology and even the needs of her constituents, which calls into question the nature of representation in state politics.
In the second chapter of my dissertation, I assess the consequences of relying on occupational experts to make policy behind closed doors. Specifically, I ask if it is a good thing for democracy that a career expert is the primary lawmaker for a given policy area—e.g., should a former insurance salesman be the one responsible for regulating the insurance industry? Using an extensive dataset of bill sponsorship and survival over 10 years in the California Legislature, I examine whether legislators use their committee assignments to quietly pursue policies in their own professional interests, or if committees can serve as effective gatekeepers against such biased policymaking.
The third chapter investigates the impact of lawmaker characteristics on agenda-setting and legislative outcomes. Employing 2-step Heckman selection models, I find that committee membership significantly enhances the likelihood of bills reaching both committee and chamber floor votes. Moreover, bills authored by career-committee congruent lawmakers tend to garner stronger support in these crucial votes, particularly in key policy domains such as education and health. Notably, these advantages are most pronounced in the Assembly, shedding light on the intricate dynamics that govern legislative cue-taking and bill success amid intense competition for limited plenary time.
Future Research Agenda
Moving forward, I intend to explore the applicability of my theory of committee assignments and committee activity to different states across the country, focusing on states characterized by varying levels of professionalization and interparty competition.
One key aspect of my future research will involve examining states with less professionalized legislatures, such as Ohio, where the level of staff support and independent research infrastructure may differ significantly from that of California. In these contexts, an important question emerges: Does the absence of a robust internal system of checks and balances provide career experts with even greater leverage to pursue their self-interested agendas compared to non-experts?
Moreover, I am eager to explore how partisan competition influences the appointment of committees in states with a more balanced political landscape, like Virginia, where parties jockey for power unceasingly. In California, long-standing dominance by the Democratic Party has shaped the legislature’s committee appointment practices and our expectations of who introduces bills and how far these bills survive the committee pipeline. However, in more competitive states, the dynamics and factors contributing to committee assignments and committee behavior may diverge. I seek to investigate the extent to which career expertise remains a consistent predictor of committee assignments and bill survival in these politically diverse environments. I am dedicated to conducting rigorous empirical research, employing mixed-method approaches, including interviews, data analysis, and comparative case studies, to uncover the intricate workings of state legislatures and their implications for democratic governance.
Paige Pellaton, PhD 