Elisabeth R. Gerber

Legislative Response to the Threat of Popular Initiatives

Theory: A spatial model of the policy process is used to identify conditions under which the threat of initiatives constrains legislative behavior. Hypotheses: Legislators in states that allow initiatives are expected to pass laws that more closely reflect their states median voters preference than legislators in states that do not allow initiatives. Methods: Logistic regression analysis of United States data relating state policies, state median voter preferences, provisions for the initiative, and several control variables in the policy area of parental consent requirements for teenage abortions. Results: Parental consent laws passed by legislatures in initiative states more closely reflect their states median voters preference than parental consent laws passed in states that prohibit initiatives, even after controlling for other population and institutional differences across states.

Beyond the Median: Voter Preferences, District Heterogeneity, and Political Representation

Despite the centrality of the median voter prediction in political economy models, overwhelming empirical evidence shows that legislators regularly take positions that diverge significantly from the preferences of the median voter in their districts. However, all these empirical studies to date lack the necessary data to directly measure the preferences of the median voter. We utilize a unique data set consisting of individual‐level voting data that allows us to construct direct measures of voter preferences. We find that legislators are most constrained by the preferences of the median voter in homogeneous districts.

When Mayors Matter: Estimating the Impact of Mayoral Partisanship on City Policy

U.S. cities are limited in their ability to set policy. Can these constraints mute the impact of mayors’ partisanship on policy outcomes? We hypothesize that mayoral partisanship will more strongly affect outcomes in policy areas where there is less shared authority between local, state, and federal governments. To test this hypothesis, we create a novel dataset combining U.S. mayoral election returns from 1990 to 2006 with city fiscal data. Using regression discontinuity design, we find that cities that elect a Democratic mayor spend a smaller share of their budget on public safety, a policy area where local discretion is high, than otherwise similar cities that elect a Republican or an Independent. We find no differences on tax policy, social policy, and other areas that are characterized by significant overlapping authority. These results suggest that models of national policymaking are only partially applicable to U.S. cities. They also have implications for political accountability: mayors may not be able to influence the full range of policies that are nominally local responsibilities.

Minorities and Direct Legislation: Evidence from California Ballot Proposition Elections

Critics argue that direct legislation (initiatives and referendums) allows an electoral majority to undermine the interests and rights of racial and ethnic minorities. We assess this claim by examining outcomes of direct democracy in California since 1978. Our analysis indicates that critics have overstated the detrimental effects of direct democracy. Confirming earlier critiques, we find that racial and ethnic minorities-and in particular Latinos-lose regularly on a small number of racially targeted propositions. However, these racially targeted propositions represent less than 5% of all ballot propositions. When we consider outcomes across all propositions, we find that the majority of Latino, Asian American, and African American voters were on the winning side of the vote. This remains true if we confine our analysis to propositions on which racial and ethnic minorities vote cohesively or to propositions on issues that racial and ethnic minorities say they care most about.

Minority Representation in Multimember Districts

Given the recent court rulings against racial gerrymandering, the effect of multimember district elections on minority representation is an important issue. We present a model of voting in double-member district elections with two majority candidates and one minority candidate and consider the voting equilibria under straight and cumulative voting. In straight voting, while an equilibrium always exists in which the two majority candidates are expected to win the two seats, minority candidates may be elected. In cumulative voting, minority candidate wins are also possible in equilibrium but are less likely when minority voters prefer one majority candidate over another. We then present experimental evidence showing that minority candidates win significantly more seats in cumulative than in straight voting elections. When minority voters perceive a substantial difference between the majority candidates, however, they are more likely to split their votes between the minority and majority candidates, winning fewer seats.

Campaign competition and policy responsiveness in direct legislation elections

Many scholars, pundits, and reform advocates argue that more competitive elections are needed to produce policy outcomes that better reflect voter interests. We challenge this argument. Using a model of direct legislation elections, we prove that greater electoral competition is neither necessary nor sufficient for more responsive postelection policy outcomes. Instead, we find that more competition increases responsivenessonly if the additional competitors are both sympathetic to voter interests and sufficiently credible to affect voter behavior. If either condition fails to hold, then increasing competition will make votersworse off, if it affects them at all. We conclude that enhanced voter competence, and not more competition, is the key to greater responsiveness.

Direct Democracy and Land Use Policy: Exchanging Public Goods for Development Rights

To counter the power of pro-development interests, growth opponents in American communities have increasingly turned to the institutions of direct democracy. This study analyses the effects of one type of direct democracy-voter requirements for new development-on municipal growth. Analysing data from a sample of California communities, we consider the impact of voter requirements on the land use process and outcomes. We find that—in general-voter requirements fail to stop new development; property owners and developers can and do adapt to the constraints created by these direct democracy institutions. We also find, however, that voter requirements change the land use process in important ways. Specifically, they change the way developers interact with interest groups in the community and force developers to compensate current residents for enduring some of the negative aspects of growth.

Development Ballot Measures, Interest Group Endorsements, and the Political Geography of Growth Preferences

In response to rapid population and economic growth, many communities have turned to voter initiatives to resolve their land use disputes. We find that despite strong public concern about growth, voters often support measures that allow or encourage new development. We consider the sources of this support by analyzing patterns of voting on a range of prodevelopment ballot initiatives. These initiatives provide a valuable opportunity to understand how economic self-interest, geography, interest group endorsements, and public goods affect citizen support for development policies. We find that interest group endorsements significantly increase public support for new development. These endorsements help voters evaluate the personal impact of complex development proposals and allow voters to behave in ways that reflect a high degree of sophistication.

When Does Government Limit the Impact of Voter Initiatives? The Politics of Implementation and Enforcement

In many states and localities, citizens make laws by initiative. Many winning initiatives, however, are later ignored or altered substantially. Why? Our answer emerges from two underappreciated aspects of the initiative process. First, many initiatives contain policies that powerful governmental actors once prevented from passing via traditional legislative channels. Second, implementation can require these actors to comply with policies they once opposed. The question then becomes: When do governmental actors comply with winning initiatives? We use a model and examples to clarify the post-election politics of initiative compliance. Our findings defy conventional explanations of how initiatives change public policy.

Introduction—Authority Migration: Defining an Emerging Research Agenda

In every modern political system, power is shared to a greater or lesser extent between levels of government. These power sharing arrangements are perhaps most explicit in formal federal systems like the United States and Canada, where federal constitutions define the relative powers of central and subnational governments. They may be no less important, however, in unitary democracies and even authoritarian regimes where central governments require local actors to implement policy on the ground and often delegate significant authority to them. Indeed, in any large and complex modern society, effective governance requires some sharing of power between higher levels of government, capable of coordinating many disparate actors and interests, and lower levels of government, capable of responding to local conditions.