Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2015

Publication Source

Albany Law Review

Abstract

Political analysts have suggested that policy power will begin to shift from the federal government to state governments as gridlock in Congress persists. Therefore, understanding the policymaking process at the state level is more important than ever. Vitally missing from our understanding of policymaking in the states is the role of constitutional provisions. Many state constitutions contain directives that severely limit the ability of the legislature to act. Some of these directives are procedural while others are more substantive. This is relevant because constitutional rules are more difficult for members to alter than chamber rules. In this paper we present a quantitative measure of constitutional restrictiveness and explore the variation in this measure across the fifty state legislatures and the U.S. Congress. We discover that constitutional restrictiveness is largely explained by the historical era in which the most recent constitution has been passed.

Inclusive pages

1459-1484

ISBN/ISSN

0002-4678

Document Version

Postprint

Comments

The document available for download is the author's accepted manuscript, originally presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington, DC, August 28-31, 2014. The version of record is available from the publisher.

Publisher

Albany Law Review

Volume

78

Issue

4

Peer Reviewed

yes

Keywords

State legislatures, legislative process, rules and procedures

Download

Share

COinS