Keepin’ on the Sunny Side

Abstract

Political Scientists have widely explored why legislatures pass campaign finance regulations and how these laws condition the influence of organized interests over elected officials. Studies have not explained how state houses can overcome entrenched interests, to pass more restrictive legislative lobbying laws. Interest group pressure can be overcome when routine politics are impacted by agenda-setting environments and broader state political contexts that prompt the passage of legislative lobbying reforms. Findings suggest that although moralistic political culture and political scandals set the agenda for stricter regulation, the prospects for reform are tempered by the power of organized interests in state houses.

Keywords

interest groups legislative lobbying laws state politics political scandal

Lobbying is an integral part of the American political system. Organized interests have traditionally taken part in the legislative process and play a central role in the crafting of public policies at all levels in the United States. Their technical knowledge and expertise make lobbyists especially welcome to many resource-poor, amateur state legislatures (Nownes, 2001). The perception that campaign contributions and other inducements allow them to wield undue influence over elected officials, however, creates a healthy sense of distrust among the general population (Cigler & Loomis, 2007). In many states, these public perceptions are built on a long history of bribery, influence peddling, and other improprieties that were “open secrets” until public revelations of such behavior in the early 20th century prompted federal regulation of lobbying activities (Brinig, Holcombe, & Schwartzstein, 1993, p. 377) with the states following suit (Rosenthal, 2001).¹

The study of why legislatures pass laws aimed at reducing the influence of organized interests over the political process and the effectiveness of such regulation is well-represented in the professional literature (Brinig et al., 1993; Rosenson, 2003; Witko, 2005). Unlike Congressional studies, state legislatures provide significant variation and nuance for hypothesis testing, with ample room for additional research in this area (Mooney, 2001). Studies have assessed why states pass laws that affect lobbyists and organized interests, such as tougher campaign finance rules (Witko, 2007) and lobbying regulations (Opheim, 1991), but none have examined the vital question of why state legislatures pass more restrictive legislative lobbying laws—those laws that place specific restrictions on the legislator–lobbyist relationship. Legislative lobbying laws are often the best available defense for limiting impropriety and corruption in legislative bodies, and it is important for a democratic society to gain empirical traction on what factors compel legislatures to enact such policies.

Why do state legislatures pass more stringent legislative lobbying laws? How, and to what extent, do states overcome entrenched interests and enact more stringent legislative lobbying laws? Can organized interests prevail? Under what circumstances can they prevail? I present a model explaining that under normal political conditions, legislatures face strong pressures from organized interests to resist tougher regulation. Legislatures will be more likely to enact stricter regulations when certain long-term and agenda-setting variables compel politicians to make strategic calculations to support tougher legislative lobbying laws.

The Regulation of Lobbyists in the U.S. States

There are many state laws enacted to reduce the influence of organized interests over the political process. All 50 states currently regulate lobbyists to some degree (Brinig et al., 1993). Each state creates a basic statutory standard requiring lobbyists to register and disclose spending (Rosenthal, 2001), thus requiring a “definition of a lobbyist and the definition of the target of the lobbying activity” (Hamm, Weber, & Anderson, 1994, p. 379). Absent this basic standard, there is a wide-range of regulations at the state level. The tendency in the literature is to focus on the influence of money in U.S. politics and consequently, most studies have centered on campaign finance regulations and legislative elections, rather than considering the evolution and impact of lobbying and ethics regulation (Ramsden, 2002). Campaign finance laws may reduce the influence of money in legislative elections and on legislative decision making. The frontline of defense against influence peddling in state houses is represented by their commitment to directly regulating legislator–lobbyist relationships; hence, their commitment to supporting legislative lobbying laws.

Legislative lobbying laws affect the legislator–lobbyist relationship by developing guidelines establishing legally permissible behaviors between legislators and lobbyists. Legislative lobbying regulations varied considerably across the states in 2003 from South Carolina (17) to North Dakota (1) (Newmark, 2005). Legislative lobbying laws bring transparency to the lobbying and legislative process by setting guidelines for lobbyist registration, developing criteria for reporting requirements, rules on giving and accepting gifts, and other definitions for conflicts of interest

To date, studies have not addressed the question of why states pass more stringent legislative lobbying laws. Similarly situated studies have examined related topics such as the passage of state lobbying regulations (Opheim, 1991), the creation of state ethics commissions (Rosenson, 2003, 2005), and campaign finance regulations (Witko, 2007). Studies have additionally noted how these types of regulations impact a variety of phenomenon such as the composition of interest group communities (Gray & Lowery, 1998; Lowery & Gray, 1997), bill passage rates (Brining, Holcombe, & Schwartzstein, 1993), and interest group influence in state legislatures (Ozymy, 2010).

Organized interests will naturally resist greater restrictions on their interactions with legislators. Members of state houses benefit economically from their relationship with lobbyists and, under normal politics, will resist changes to the status quo. Under what conditions then will legislatures pass stricter lobbying laws that go against their members’ self-interest and the pressure of entrenched interests? I draw on previous studies of ethics regulation and campaign finance reform in the states (Rosenson, 2003; Witko, 2007) to suggest that routine politics can be overcome by both agenda-setting factors that set the political stage for stronger regulation and longer-term cultural and institutional factors, which create an environment better suited toward reform.

Routine Politics

The question of why a state legislature passes more or less restrictive regulations on the legislator–lobbyist relationship ultimately centers on why self-interested legislators collectively choose to support such legislation. Requiring elected officials to regulate their own behavior is a difficult task. Legislators tend to resist changes to normal politics when those changes prove disruptive to the beneficial status quo (Hardt, 2002). Politicians receive policy-related benefits from lobbyists (Ainsworth, 1997), but they can profit handsomely in the form of free meals, honoraria, and other emoluments (especially the generous campaign cash in states that forego limits on political donations). Considering that many states provide miserly pay and retirement benefits, restrict legislative tenure in office through institutional term limits, and the lucrative job prospects in the lobbying industry awaiting well-season legislators, the incentives for building cozy relationships with lobbyists in state houses are strong.

Allowing lobbyists to offer a broad range of inducements to legislators gives them ample leverage and power over the political process. Organized interests present a significant obstacle to passage of more stringent restrictions behaviors that build influence with legislators. Corporate and business interests are less likely to muster grassroots support for their legislative initiatives and turn to cultivating insider relationships through lobbying to influence the political process; these are the same interests touted as having the most financial resources (Anderson, Newmark, Gray, & Lowery, 2004). Yet factors in the political environment, such as ethics scandals may bring media and public scrutiny to the legislature, causing an agenda-setting effect on the policy environment (Kingdon, 2002) disrupting routine politics, and prompting legislatures to support reform.

Agenda-Setting Environments

A common theme that emerges from the literature is that passing stricter ethics and campaign finance regulations may encounter larger hurdles than most legislation, as it requires a legislature to act against the self-interest of its members (Rosenson, 2003; Witko, 2007). Ethics reform, however, is very popular with the general public (Common Cause, 1991; Duquette, 2002) and legislators may choose it as an electoral platform to improve their public image with voters. Alternatively, legislatures as a whole may be pressured to support reform, because agenda-setting factors, such as political scandals bring ethics reform to the forefront in the mass media and public consciousness, leaving little choice but to support changes that go against their own self-interest, regardless of how many individual members may be marred in a scandal. Not doing so could anger voters, hurt their public image, and risk their electoral future.

Research provides strong evidence that political scandals can bring negative publicity to a legislature and set the agenda for ethics and campaign finance reform (Rosenson, 2003; Witko, 2007). In a similar vein to Birkland’s (1997) work on natural disasters and Kingdon’s (2002) scholarship on agenda setting, salient public corruption scandals can act as “focusing events” that focus public and elite attention to ethics problems in a state legislature through media attention, frame corruption as an important public issue, and set the agenda for the passage of stricter laws. For example, after extensive investigations by the Department of Justice and FBI of the Kentucky General Assembly in the early 1990s (known as Operation Boptrot) and a similar sting, Operation Lost Trust in South Carolina, dozens of legislators were ensnared and prosecuted in public corruption probes. These scandals received extensive news coverage and resulted in major changes to legislative lobbying laws in both states (Newmark, 2005).

State Political Context

Routine politics may be disrupted by agenda-setting events that prompt reform of legislative lobbying laws in a state. These factors are situated in a broader context that affects mass and elite expectations for cleaner politics (Elazar, 1984). These factors include political culture and the structure of state political institutions.

Political culture or the orientations individuals hold toward their political system (Fitzpatrick & Hero, 1988; Lowery & Sigelman, 1982) may go far in explaining the level of public tolerance for political corruption and support for ethics regulation. Elazar’s (1984) designation of states as having either moralistic culture (government is perceived as a positive force to be used for the common good), traditionalistic culture (the primary function of government is to maintain the existing social order), and individualistic culture (government is seen as a utilitarian requirement for maintaining, but not interfering with private enterprise and relationships) is often used to capture some of these long-standing attitudes and beliefs about corruption and clean politics (Herzick, 1985). Elazar argues that both traditionalistic and individualistic states are more likely to accept backroom politics, because citizens in the former may view this is a way things are traditionally done in politics and the latter may see impropriety as the cost of doing business in an entrepreneurial, individualistic political environment. Moralistic states see government as promoting the common good, are less tolerant of using public office for private gain, and are more likely to regulate behaviors that unduly influence legislative decision making. Although the measure was last updated in 1984, more recent scholarship continues to discuss the value of the measure for explaining the broad concept of state political culture (Gray, 2004). Past research on the passage of lobbying laws, ethics laws, and campaign finance reform finds strong support for the Elazar measure in general and moralistic culture specifically for increasing the likelihood of campaign finance and ethics reform (Opheim, 1991; Rosenson, 2003, 2005; Schultz, 2002). Both of these factors suggest the measure is an appropriate indicator for state political culture and suggestive of the impact of moralistic political culture on support for more stringent legislative lobbying laws.

The institutional context of state legislatures, notably the level of professionalization provides many state houses significant resources for policymaking that allows for greater institutional expertise and control over the policy process compared to competing branches of government such as the executive and bureaucracy (Gerber, Maestas, & Dometrius, 2005; Reenock & Poggione, 2004). “But independence from the executive branch was not the only goal of professionalization. Legislatures were to become more independent from special interest groups as well” (Opheim, 1991, p. 410). In this vein higher levels of professionalism should lead to greater legislative independence over policymaking, by reducing the reliance of legislators on organized interests to craft policy.

The greatest institutional change occurring in state legislatures since the legislative professionalism movement has been the enactment of term limits (Carey, Niemi, Powell, & Moncrief, 2006). Term limits restrict opportunities for long careers in legislative service and should reduce barriers to passing lobbying restrictions, as legislators are unable to cultivate longer standing relationships with lobbyists and care less about regulating this relationship in the long-term. As a matter of legislative self-interest, legislatures with term limits will be more willing to pass legislative lobbing laws than those not subjected to institutional limitations on their tenure.

Citizens have sought to institutionalize paths to popularly driven policy changes in the states through the adoption of the initiative and referendum process. Currently, 24 states allow the initiative (Boehmke, 2008). Unlike the referendum, the initiative is especially important for citizens wanting to propose legislation directly and bypass traditional legislative channels. In the Western states, political corruption and influence peddling by the railroads often prompted the adoption of the initiative (Bridges & Kousser, 2011; Persily, 1997). Although initiative states provide a mechanism for citizens to bypass recalcitrant legislators and pass more stringent regulations (Common Cause, 1991; Pippen, Bowler, & Donovan, 2002), organized interests are just as likely to use the initiative process to reduce regulation on their behavior as it offers them “broad flexibility in designing policy proposals without legislative interference” (Boehmke, 2008, p. 362). Moreover, research shows a trend toward the professionalization of the initiative process by monied interests, who are able to muster the resources necessary to propose and pass an initiative (Bowler & Donovan, 2004). Examples have occurred in the states, such as business opposition that mobilized support against Arizona’s Proposition 200, the Citizens Clean Election Act (Voas, 1998); suggesting initiative states may have potentially have less ethics regulation than noninitiative states

Data and Measurement

I develop a model predicting why states pass more stringent legislative lobbying laws, 1994-1995. In response to public pressure from high-profile public corruption scandals involving state legislators (Rosenson, 2005) and other factors, a very appreciable range of changes in legislative lobbying laws occurs between the states making this an excellent timeframe for the analysis. Evidence suggests that enforcement was lax in many states prior to the 1990s when states increased their efforts to curb unethical practices (Hamm et al., 1994; Huckshorn, 1985; Gray & Lowery, 1999). These changes coincide with my measure of legislative lobbying laws and changes occurring to state campaign finance laws at this time (Witko, 2005).

Dependent Variable

The dependent variable in the analysis is an index of legislative lobbying laws constructed across all 50 U.S. states (Newmark, 2005). Data are gathered biannually from the Book of the States. This index is based specifically “on factors that influence the relationship between lobbyists and legislators” (p. 183). The index consists of the three primary components of legislative lobbying laws: the statutory definition of lobbying, prohibited activities, and disclosure requirements.

The statutory definition of lobbying considers the strictness of a state’s rules for who must register as a lobbyist. Criteria include the following: “legislative lobbying, administrative agency lobbying, elected officials as lobbyists, public employees as lobbyists, and whether there is a compensation standard, expenditure standard, and time standard in the definition of lobbying” (p. 184). Prohibited activities include the following: “campaign contributions at any time, campaign contributions during the legislative session, expenditures in excess of a certain dollar amount per year, and solicitation by officials or employees for contributions or gifts” (p. 185). Disclosure requirements include the following: “legislative/administrative action seeking to influence, expenditures benefiting public officials or employees, compensation received broken down by employers, total compensation received, categories of expenditures, and total expenditures” (p. 185).

If a state imposes any of these standards, it is coded 1 for each and 0 otherwise. If a state requires lobbying disclosure and reporting more than once per year, it is coded 1 and 0 otherwise. Based on his coding criteria, Newmark’s index has a possible range of 0-18 across all years. No state is without any regulation and no state meets all of the criteria to have 18. Thus, state legislative lobbying laws take on an actual range of 1-17 across all years covered in the index, 1990-2003. For the period in this study data range from 2 (Wyoming) to 16 (Texas).

Broad changes in legislative lobbying laws occurred, 1990-1995. Thirty nine states made changes to their legislative lobbing laws during this 5-year period. Three (Wisconsin, Indiana, and Virginia) reduced their laws by 7%, 27%, and 40% respectively. Fourteen states made at least a 100% increase in legislative lobbying regulations, with Georgia, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Illinois making the largest percent changes (700%, 600%, 600%, and 500%). Real changes varied from an increase of 12 (South Carolina), 11 (Vermont), 8 (Utah), and 7 (Georgia) to −1 in Wisconsin, −3 (Indiana), and −4 (Virginia). These numbers are listed in Appendix A.

Explanatory Variables

I measure interest group influence over the legislative process with an ordinal survey measure taken from a survey of state legislators (Carey, Niemi, & Powell, 1995, 2000).² The survey queries legislators about the influence a set of key actors have over the legislative process in their state: “In the past 2-3 years, has the relative influence of the following actors changed with respect to determining legislative outcomes in your chamber [Interest Groups]?” The variable is coded as a 5-point scale ranging from 1= big decrease to 5= big increase. Using this variable as an appropriate measure of interest, group influence within state houses has precedent in the literature (Carey et al., 1998, 2006). The average response centers toward the mean (3.2) with a standard deviation of .16. This suggests legislators are neither afraid to admit that organized interests influence legislative outcomes, nor do they appear to fall prey to the feeling that things are simply getting worse over time, which would be suggested by a mean response much closer to 5 on the scale. These responses are aggregated to their mean within states, to produce state-level measures of interest group influence.

The problem with measuring legislative self-interest is its constancy across each state house. Instead of measuring self-interest directly, I examine traits that make self-interested legislators less likely to want to regulate their relationship with lobbyists. The first of these aspects is legislative tenure. Organized interests cultivate personal relationships with legislators over time to influence their decision making (Hansen, 1991). Greater tenure in office can result in stronger personal relationships between legislators and lobbyists and less legislator interest in restricting this relationship. I measure legislative tenure with a variable capturing the number of terms served in office for each respondent (both upper and lower chambers) from the state legislative survey used above (Carey et al., 1995, 2000). The individual-level legislative tenure values are then aggregated to their mean value within each state to create an average measure of legislative tenure within each legislature.

Legislators can receive financial inducements from lobbyists in many states, such as honoraria, meals and gifts, but they can also solicit and accept a wide range of campaign contributions from organized interests, depending on the number of campaign finance restrictions in their state. I assume that legislatures will be more likely to support legislative lobbying laws when they already benefit from generous campaign finance laws in their state. Organized interests should object less to regulating inducements if they can gain access through more generous campaign contributions.

I include a measure in the analysis to control for the strictness of each state’s campaign finance rules. I use the Council on State Government’s Public Integrity Annual (Bowman & Ensign, 1996) and code whether or not a state had a direct prohibition or limitation at the time on six of the following categories of donations: individuals, personal (legislator), spouse and family members, corporations, labor unions, or PACs. If the state had a prohibition or restriction on any of these types of donations, it was coded (1), producing a possible range of 0-6. The initiative is coded as a dummy. I measure political scandal through content analysis of newspaper articles 10 years prior to the survey. The last date considered is January 1, 1995, well before the survey was implemented (Spring 1995) avoiding the problem of a scandal being included that occurred after the survey was distributed. In addition, I searched data from the Department of Justice’s Public Integrity Section for prosecution of state officials. If a state experienced a scandal including ethics violations by state legislators, lobbyists, or the governor, it was coded (1) and (0) otherwise.³

I measure political culture with Elazar’s (1984) categorization of states as follows: moralistic, traditionalistic, and individualistic. As studies emphasize the importance of moralistic political culture for supporting greater regulations (Opheim, 1991), I code each state as (1) moralistic (0) otherwise.⁴ I measure legislative professionalism with an indicator for session length for 1994, from the Book of the States (Carey et al., 1995, 2000). A dummy variable measures term limits (if a state enacted them prior to the survey). Summary statistics are included in Appendix B.

Results

The analysis explores variations in legislative lobbying laws across states after major changes had occurred in the early 1990s. The dependent variable is the Newmark legislative lobbying index measure for the 1994-1995 biennium, which varies from Wyoming (2) to Texas (16). Data in the first columns are modeled with Zero-truncated Poisson (ZTP) regression models. The third column contains a standard Poisson regression model as a basis of comparison.⁵ All models contain robust standard errors to control for any slight variation in the equivalence between the mean and variance that is assumed in the Poisson distribution (Long, 1997).

Table 1 displays the results of the models explaining variations in legislative lobbying laws across the states. South Carolina is an outlier in the analysis. The state traditionally had few legislative lobbying laws. It came to pass an uncharacteristically high number of laws relatively quickly (moving from 2 in 1990-1991 to 14 in 1994-1995) as a consequence of the media publicity related to a long-standing federal investigation and indictment of members of the South Carolina General Assembly by the FBI and Department of Justice known as Operation Lost Trust (Smothers, 1990). Including South Carolina does not alter the substantive findings of the analysis, but I exclude it in the first model for purposes of comparison.

Table 1.

Explaining Legislative Lobbying Law Stringency Across U.S. State Legislatures, 1994-1995 (Biennium)

	(Model 1)		(Model 2)		(Model 3)
	ZTP		ZTP		Poisson
Model type	B	SE	B	SE	B	SE
Interest group power
Interest group influence	−.739***	.278	−.514*	.295	−.512*	.294
Legislator self-interest
Campaign finance restrictions	−.024	.019	−.019	.020	−.019	.020
Presence of term limits in state	.333*	.182	.337*	.189	.336*	.188
Average legislative tenure	−.081*	.046	−.081*	.047	−.081*	.047
Institutional context
Presence of initiative in State	−.435**	.182	−.460**	.188	−.459**	.187
Professionalism	.003***	.001	.002**	.001	.002**	.001
Political context
Presence of political scandal	.186**	.092	.206**	.093	.206**	.093
Moralistic political culture	.342***	.098	.306***	.099	.306***	.098
Constant	5.132***	0.941	4.461***	1.000	4.457***	0.998
N	49		50		50
Pseudo R²	.086		.073		.073
Cox-Snell R²	.355		.312		.312
Log pseudolikelihood	−113.8		−118.5		−118.5
p > χ²	.000		.000		.000

Source: See Appendix B.

***

p < .01. **p < .05. *p < .10.

The first model in column 1 shows that when interest group influence over the legislative process is strong in a state house, the chance of that body passing more stringent legislative lobbying laws is reduced. These results confirm my expectation that that interest group power would lessen the propensity of state legislators to regulate the legislator–lobbyist relationship. The coefficients for term limits, legislative tenure, and campaign finance regulations, are in the expected direction, but the latter is not statistically significant.⁶ The much shorter tenure potential posed by terms limits should present fewer opportunities and incentives to build strong relationships with lobbyists over time and thus increase the potential for legislators to support such restrictions. The positive relationship between term limits and legislative lobbying laws suggests this may be the case in state legislatures. Supporting this assertion is that legislative tenure is negatively related to legislative lobbying stringency, suggesting longer average tenure in state houses works against reforming legislative lobbying laws (as expected).

More professional legislatures, which provide resources to counteract lobbyist influence, are more likely to have stringent regulations on legislator–lobbyist interactions. My results show an inverse relationship between legislative lobbying laws in a state and the presence of the initiative. As expected, this finding may suggest that while the public supports stricter ethics laws (Common Cause, 1991), passing an initiative is an expensive process often hijacked by well-funded businesses interests (Bowler & Donovan, 2004), which has been used by big business to push against clean election laws (Voas, 1998). The proposed agenda-setting effect of political scandals on support for more stringent lobbying regulation is supported by the data. The presence of a past political scandal has a positive relationship with stricter regulation, supporting a growing body of literature connecting scandals to support for all manner of ethics and campaign finance regulation (Opheim, 1991; Rosenson, 2003, 2005).

Although short-term factors such as scandals and longer term, institutional factors such as term limits appear to bolster legislative lobbying laws and the presence of both the initiative and interest group influence chafe against strong reform what role does political culture play in foster support for more rigorous regulations? I find that states with moralistic political cultures are more likely to support additional legislative lobbying laws than traditionalistic or individualistic states. The data support a similar body of literature connecting moralistic political culture to legislative reform (Opheim, 1991; Rosenson, 2003, 2005; Schultz, 2002).

Including South Carolina in the analysis in column 2 does not alter the substantive findings. Although the coefficients change in the analysis, and interest group influence is now significant at p < .10, the effects and directions of the coefficients are the same, confirming the previous results. The Poison model provides similar results to the ZTP.

The predicted probabilities derived from the first ZTP model tells an interesting story about the effect of a one standard deviation unit increase from the mean (or 0 to 1 for dichotomous variables) in the predictor variables have on legislative lobbying law stringency in the states in Table 2. An increase in one standard deviation in interest group influence, for example, decreases regulatory stringency by 11.3%. Alternatively, we see that a standard deviation increase in average legislative tenure decreases stringency by 6.8%, whereas a unit increase in professionalism increases stringency by 12.7%. All other factors being equal, states experiencing a salient political scandal have approximately 20% more laws than those that did not, while moralistic states have about 40% more legislative lobbying laws than nonmoralistic states.

Table 2.

ZTP Post-Estimation Effects of Significant Independent Variables

	Percentage change^a	Average marginal effect
Interest group influence	−11.3	−6.78
Term limits	39.5	3.06
Average legislative tenure	−6.8	−0.74
Presence of initiative	−35.3	−3.99
Professionalism	12.7	0.03
Political scandal	20.4	1.71
Moralistic political culture	40.7	3.14

Values represent the effect of a one standard deviation unit increase from the mean (or 0 to 1 for dichotomous variables).

The average marginal effects (AME) for the statistically significant independent variables further confirm that the strongest negative influence on more stringent legislative lobbying laws in a state may derive from interest group influence. Controlling for all other variables, on average a state experiencing an increase in interest group influence will have 6.78 fewer laws; initiative states will have approximately four fewer laws. Alternatively, regulatory stringency is significantly bolstered by moralistic political culture, term limits, and scandals. On average, controlling for all other variables, moralistic states will have about three additional laws than nonmoralistic states, whereas term-limited states will have three additional laws. The agenda-setting effect of political scandals shows an average increase of about 1.7 laws in a state experiencing a scandal.

The results overall are quite promising. Short-term, agenda-setting events such as high-profile political scandals and long-term factors like moralistic political culture all lead to more numerous restrictions on the legislator–lobbyist relationship in state houses. Legislators are more likely to regulate their relationship with lobbyists when they have less at stake, including those facing term limits. Although the cultural context may be conducive to reform or salient scandals set the agenda for change, it appears organized interests remain a powerful force against legislative lobbying reform in state houses.

Conclusion

State legislatures have traditionally welcomed lobbyists with open arms. Lobbyists represent a host of organized interests and provide policy advice and analysis to legislators. They can also distribute a variety of financial inducements. Legislative lobbying regulations attempt to define proper boundaries in this relationship by bringing transparency to the practice of lobbying and the legislator-lobbyist relationship, restricting unethical behavior, and formally limiting potential abuses of office. More than anything else, properly defining the legislator–lobbyists relationship constitutes a decision to regulate (to varied degrees) the degree of influence organized interests hold over elected officials in states legislatures.

The results confirm and expand the findings of similarly situated research. Moralistic political culture has a strong impact on the decision to regulate the legislator–lobbyist relationship. Cultural expectations regarding clean government go a long way in the form of higher public expectations for regulating influence peddling in state houses. Scandals tend to have a strong effect in the analysis on the decision to increase legislative lobbying laws, which comports with past research on the decision to support more stringent lobbing laws and fund ethics commissions (Opheim, 1991; Rosenson, 2003, 2005) Representative of this agenda-setting effect is the political reaction to the indictments handed down to five South Carolina legislators for violating the Hobbs act in the aftermath of Operation Lost Trust, where Speaker of the House Robert Sheheen and Governor Carroll A. Campbell stated respectively that “I think you will see support for these kinds of changes … The state’s image is not enhanced by this, but if we handle it well we can benefit. I think, realistically, that we will see some major reforms” (Smothers, 1990, p. 3).

Another novel finding in the article bears further examination. Chiefly among these is the varied role of the initiative process. Generally, the initiative is shown to have a negative effect on legislative lobbying regulation in a state, which may find an explanation in the professionalization and use of the initiative by business interests (Bowler & Donovan, 2004; Voas, 1998). Reformers seeking more restrictive regulations must acknowledge these conditions that bring self-interested legislators to their side, while realizing it is in the best interest of organized interests to oppose them; this may be more easily achieved in term limited states and those where pressure groups hold less power.

Future research must take into account the language and enforcement of these laws. Registration requirements provide just one example of how technical details can undermine the substance of regulation. Florida witnessed a 50% drop in lobbyist registration when it relaxed registration requirements in the 1990s (Brasher, Lowery, & Gray, 1999). Legislating restrictions on lobbyists and legislators is pointless without a strong institutional commitment to enforcement. As Witko (2005) notes, “strict disclosure requirements without sufficient agency staff to process reports are practically useless … politicians in some states may attempt to subvert stringent regulations intentionally, as in the Massachusetts legislature’s initial refusal to fund its Clean Election Laws” (p. 306). There remains much room in the literature for addressing these vital issues.

Footnotes

Appendix A

Actual and Percentage Change in Legislative Lobbying Laws by State, 1990-1995

State	Law count 1990	Law count 1995	Actual change	Percent change	State	Law count 1990	Law count 1995	Actual change	Percent change
AL	7	7	0	0	MT	8	9	1	13
AK	10	11	1	10	NE	8	9	1	13
AZ	3	3	0	0	NV	7	9	2	29
AR	2	9	7	350	NH	5	8	3	60
CA	7	12	5	71	NJ	10	11	1	10
CO	9	13	4	44	NM	4	8	4	100
CT	13	13	0	0	NY	8	12	4	50
DE	4	5	1	25	NC	2	5	3	150
FL	5	8	3	60	ND	4	4	0	0
GA	1	8	7	700	OH	3	9	6	200
HI	11	11	0	0	OK	5	5	0	0
ID	7	10	3	43	OR	11	11	0	0
IL	1	6	5	500	PA	6	7	1	17
IN	11	8	−3	−27	RI	7	7	0	0
IA	9	9	0	0	SC	2	14	12	600
KS	7	8	1	14	SD	1	7	6	600
KY	3	10	7	233	TN	5	8	3	60
LA	2	8	6	300	TX	10	16	6	60
ME	8	11	3	38	UT	5	13	8	160
MD	13	13	0	0	VT	3	14	11	367
MA	9	10	1	11	VA	10	6	−4	−40
MI	10	11	1	10	WA	14	15	1	7
MN	9	11	2	22	WV	3	8	5	167
MS	4	7	3	75	WI	14	13	−1	−7
MO	5	12	7	140	WY	2	2	0	0

Source: Compiled from Newmark (2005).

Appendix B

Summary Statistics for the Dependent and Independent Variables

Variable	Mean	Standard deviation	Source
Legislative lobbying index	9.28	3.07	Newmark (2005)
Interest group influence	3.26	0.16	Carey et al. (1995, 2000)
Campaign finance regulation	3.58	1.97	Bowman & Ensign (1996)
Term limits	0.40	0.50	Carey et al. (1995, 2000)
Tenure in office	10.47	0.87	Carey et al. (1995, 2000)
Initiative	0.48	0.51	National Conference of State Legislatures (2000)
Session length	88.50	40.63	Carey et al. (1995, 2000)
Political scandal	0.5	0.51	Compiled by author
Political culture	0.34	0.48	Elazar (1984)

Acknowledgements

I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to the anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful comments, while acknowledging the careful work of the editor in helping to produce the final manuscript.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

Bio

Joshua Ozymy is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi. His research focuses on environment politics and the politics of the American States. His articles have been featured in such journals as: Environmental Politics, Political Behavior, Review of Policy Research, and State Politics and Policy Quarterly.

References

Ainsworth

S. H.

(1997). The role of legislators in the determination of interest group influence. Legislative Studies Quarterly, 22, 517-533.

Anderson

Newmark

Gray

Lowery

(2004). Mayflies and old bulls: Organization persistence in state interest communities. State Politics and Policy Quarterly, 4, 140-160.

Birkland

T. A.

(1997). After disaster: Agenda setting, public policy, and focusing events. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.

Boehmke

F. J.

(2008). The initiative process and the dynamics of state interest group populations. State Politics and Policy Quarterly, 4, 363-383.

Bowler

Donovan

(2004). Measuring the effect of direct democracy on state policy: Not all initiatives are created equal. State Politics and Policy Quarterly, 4, 345-363.

Bowman

J. S.

Ensign

(1996). Public integrity annual. Kentucky, AR: Council on State Governments.

Brasher

Lowery

Gray

(1999). State lobbying registration data: The anomalous case of Florida and Minnesota too. Legislative Studies Quarterly, 24, 303-314.

Bridges

Kousser

(2011). Where politicians gave power to the people: Adoption of the citizen initiative in the U.S. states. State Politics and Policy Quarterly, 11, 167-197.

Brinig

Holcombe

R. G.

Schwartzstein

(1993). The regulation of lobbyists. Public Choice, 77, 377-384.

10.

Carey

J. M.

Niemi

R. G.

Powell

L. W.

(1995, 2000). State legislative survey and contextual data, 1995 [Computer file] (ICPSR Version). Columbus: Kathleen Carr, Ohio State University, Polimetrics Lab [producer]; Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor].

11.

Carey

J. M.

Niemi

R. G.

Powell

L. W.

(1998). The effects of term limits on state legislatures. Legislative Studies Quarterly, 23, 271-300.

12.

Carey

J. M.

Niemi

R. G.

Powell

L. W.

(2000). Term limits in the state legislatures. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

13.

Carey

J. M.

Niemi

R. G.

Powell

L. M.

Moncrief

G. F.

(2006). The effects of term limits on state legislatures: A new survey of the 50 states. Legislative Studies Quarterly, 1, 105-134.

14.

Cigler

A. J.

Loomis

B. A.

(2007). Interest group politics. Washington, DC: CQ Press.

15.

Common Cause. (1991, May/June). Common Cause issues poll. Retrieved from: http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?sid=e27e4853-8fe0-462c-bbf8-9db9e770a374%40sessionmgr110&vid=1&hid=104&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=a9h&AN=9107152667

16.

Duquette

J. J.

(2002). Campaign finance reform in the Bay State: Is cleanliness really next to godliness. In Schultz

(Ed), Money, Politics and Campaign Finance Reform in the States. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press.

17.

Elazar

D. J.

(1984). American federalism: A view from the states (3rd ed.). New York, NY: Harper and Row.

18.

Fitzpatrick

J. L.

Hero

R. E.

(1988). Political culture and political characteristics of the American states: A consideration of some old and new questions. Western Political Quarterly, 41, 145-153.

19.

Gerber

B. J.

Maestas

Dometrius

N. C.

(2005). State legislative influence over agency rulemaking: The case of ex ante review. State Politics and Policy Quarterly, 5, 124-146.

20.

Gray

(2004). The socioeconomic and political context of the states. In Gray

Hanson

(Eds.), Politics in the American states: A comparative analysis (8th ed., pp. 1-30). Washington, DC: CQ Press.

21.

Gray

Lowery

(1998). State lobbying regulations and their enforcement: Implications for the diversity of interest communities. State and Local Government Review, 30, 78-91.

22.

Gray

Lowery

(1999). Interest representation in the states. In Weber

R. E.

Brace

(Eds.), American State and local politics: Directions for the 21st century (pp. 241-267). New York, NY: Chatham House.

23.

Hamm

K. E.

Weber

A. R.

Anderson

R. B.

(1994). The impact of lobbying laws and their enforcement: A contrasting view. Social Science Quarterly, 75, 378-381.

24.

Hansen

J. M.

(1991). Gaining access. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

25.

Hardt

(2002). The fuel behind Oklahoma’s politics-The role of money. In Schultz

(Ed), Money, Politics and Campaign Finance Reform in the States. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press.

26.

Herzick

E. B.

(1985). The legal-formal structuring of state politics: A cultural explanation. Western Political Quarterly, 38, 413-423.

27.

Huckshorn

R. J.

(1985). Who gave it who got it? The enforcement of campaign finance laws in the states. Journal of Politics, 47, 773-789.

28.

Kingdon

J. W.

(2002). Agendas, alternatives, and public policies. New York, NY: Longman.

29.

Long

S. J.

(1997). Regression models for categorical and limited dependent variables. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.

30.

Long

S. J.

Freese

(2006). Regression models for categorical dependent variables using Stata (2nd ed.). College Station, TX: Stata.

31.

Lowery

Gray

(1997). How some rules just don’t matter: The regulation of lobbyists. Public Choice, 91, 139-147.

32.

Lowery

Sigelman

(1982). Political culture and state public policy: The missing link. Western Political Quarterly, 35, 376-384.

33.

Mooney

C. Z.

(2001). State politics and policy quarterly and the study of state politics: The editor’s introduction. State Politics and Policy Quarterly, 1, 1-4.

34.

National Conference of State Legislatures. (2000). Ballot measures database. Retrieved from http://www.ncsl.org/default.aspx?tabid=16580

35.

Newmark

A. J.

(2005). Measuring state legislative lobbying regulation, 1990-2003. State Politics and Policy Quarterly, 5, 182-191.

36.

Nownes

A. J.

(2001). Pressure and power. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.

37.

Opheim

(1991). Explaining the differences in state lobbying regulation. Western Political Quarterly, 44, 405-421.

38.

Ozymy

(2010). Assessing the impact of legislative lobbying regulations on interest group influence in U.S. state legislatures. State Politics and Policy Quarterly, 10, 397-420.

39.

Persily

N. A.

(1997). The peculiar geography of direct democracy: Why the initiative, referendum and recall developed in the American west. Michigan Law and Public Policy Review, 2, 11-41.

40.

Pippen

Bowler

Donovan

(2002). Election reform and direct democracy: Campaign finance reform regulation in the American states. American Politics Research, 30, 559-582.

41.

Ramsden

G. P.

(2002). State legislative campaign finance research: A review essay. State Politics and Policy Quarterly, 2, 176-198.

42.

Reenock

Poggione

(2004). Agency design as an ongoing tool of bureaucratic influence. Legislative Studies Quarterly, 24, 383-406.

43.

Rosenson

B. A.

(2003). Against their apparent self-interest: The authorization of independent state legislative ethics commissions, 1973-96. State Politics and Policy Quarterly, 3, 42-65.

44.

Rosenson

B. A.

(2005). The shadowlands of conduct. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.

45.

Rosenthal

(2001). The third house: Lobbyists and lobbying in the states. Washington, DC: CQ Press.

46.

Schultz

(2002). Special interest money in state politics: Lessons from the Minnesota experiment. In Schultz

(Ed.), Money, politics, and campaign finance reform law in the states (pp. 3-26). Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press.

47.

Smothers

(1990, August 25). 5 South Carolina lawmakers indicted in corruption inquiry. New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/1990/08/25/us/5-south-carolina-lawmakers-indicted-in-corruption-inquiry.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm

48.

ATS, (2011). Stata library, analyzing count data. (n.d.). UCLA: Academic Technology Services, Statistical Consulting Group. Retrieved from: http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/library/count.htm

49.

U.S. Department of Justice, Public Integrity Section. (Various years). Annual report of the Public Integrity Section of the Department of Justice. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice.

50.

Voas

(1998, October 29). The serene clean elections machine. Phoenix New Times. Retrieved from http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/content/printVersion/165484/

51.

Witko

(2005). Measuring the stringency of state campaign finance regulation. State Politics and Policy Quarterly, 5, 295-310.

52.

Witko

(2007). Explaining increases in the stringency of state campaign finance regulation, 1993-2002. State Politics and Policy Quarterly, 4, 369-393.