Harvey J. Tucker

Contextual Models of Participation in U.S. State Legislative Elections

The analysis of turnout in state legislative elections is a relatively novel subject of inquiry that ought to be pursued. A contextual model of electoral participation provides a useful alternative to aggregate models of turnout in other elections that emphasize socioeconomic factors. The empirical success of the contextual model compares favorably with that of models employing aggregate socioeconomic data or individual level survey data. Nevertheless, Caldeira and Pattersons analysis raises even more questions about contextual models of turnout in state legislative elections than it

State Legislative Election Outcomes: Contextual Effects and Legislative Performance Effects

This paper adds to the growing literature on state legislative election outcomes. The empirical focus is on Washington state house elections for 1976 through 1984. Explanatory variables include measures of partisan strength, campaign expenditures, incumbency, and legislative performance. Separate models are developed for contests between Democrats and Republicans and for incumbents and challengers. As has been reported for other states, partisan strength, campaign expenditures, and incumbency are strongly related to outcomes in Washington state legislative elections. Legislative performance variables are weak and inconsistent correlates of election outcomes. The power and consistency of empirical relations over numerous elections and different districting schemes is impressive.

Interparty Competition in the American States One More Time

This article seeks to introduce an alternative notion of time into the cross-sectional study of the causes and effects of interparty competition in the American states. Past studies which average interparty competition over long periods ignore important conceptual and methodological issues. As a result, some empirical findings which have acquired the status of conventional wisdom may be subject to question. It is suggested that many problems may be overcome by measuring interparty competition over very short periods of time. Sequential cross-sectional analysis identifies some relationships with interparty competition which are static over time and others which are dynamic over time.

It's About Time: The Use of Time in Cross-Sectional State Policy Research

This paper discusses three interrelated issues concerning the use of time in cross-sectional policy research in the American states: (1) the proper relation of independent and dependent variables with respect to time, (2) the instability of cross-sectional variable arrays and measures of association over time, and (3) the proper relation of variables measured at a single point in time and variables measured over longer periods of time. Data are drawn from the comparative state policy literature to demonstrate the importance of these issues. Time has not been an issue of major theoretical or operational concern in this literature. However, ones operational use of time can have an important effect on ones findings. Although there is no single correct way to handle time in cross-sectional analysis, the paper suggests guidelines for future research.

Incremental Budgeting and International Organizations

The research reported in this article falls within the tradition of both the behavioral budgetary and international organization literature. The article involves two extensions of the ongoing inquiry into the politics of the budgetary process. First, it examines incremental budgetary theory in a new political arena, the international governmental organization. Specifically, budgetary actions between 1951 and 1969 regarding the budget total in the United Nations, World Health Organization, and International Labor Organization are analyzed. Second, the study expands the number of steps in the budgetary process which are included in the incremental model. In addition to original budget requests aiid legislative actions, supplementary budget changes and actual expenditures are analyzed. The empirical results of the study support the incremental model of budgeting. The relevance for the international organization field lies in the application of quantitative research techniques to a new subject, budget making in international governmental organizations, and in the development of a new theoretical statement, in the form of a structural equation model, about political behavior in international organizations.

The Nationalization of State Policy Revisited

Jewell (1982) has recently called for even more comparative study of the states. He speculated that major changes in the last two decades may make the knowledge accumulated from earlier studies obsolete. Empirical evidence of this phenomenon has already begun to appear in print (Tucker 1982a, 1982b; Robey and Jenkins 1982)1 A number of studies published in the mid-1960s and early 1970s found that the states are becoming more alike in their socioeconomic and political attributes, and in their policies (Hofferbert 1966; Sharkansky 1970, 1971). Kemp (1978) has argued that the phenomenon of increasing homogeneity has slowed or ceased for some policies. This note seeks to build upon past research in two ways. First, the research will be updated and expanded. Data on socioeconomic and political attributes of states from the 1970s and 1980s will be examined to determine whether trends

Responsiveness in Public School Districts: A Comparative Analysis of Boards of Education

Boards of education of public school districts are legislative bodies. As such, they can be analyzed using the same theoretical assumptions, empirical procedures, and evaluative criteria employed by political scientists to study other legislative bodies. This paper considers the responsiveness of school boards to their constituents. The authors argue that responsiveness is a complex multi-faceted concept, and present prototype empirical indices for eleven school boards. Comparative analysis indicates that school board responsiveness varies within and across indices, and that operational measures of responsiveness are independent within and across theoretical components.

Legislative Calendars and Workload Management in Texas

There is a well-developed normative model of how state legislatures ought to use calendars to make the management of their workloads more efficient. State legislatures that follow the normative model identify more and less important bills. Presumably, major and minor bills are treated differently--but are they? This study desegregates the agenda of the Texas Legislature into unimportant, less important, and more important bills as defined by bill placement on calendars. There are systematic differences in the way bills of varying importance are treated. Moreover, the differences are consistent with the contention that calendars can facilitate the more efficient management of legislative workloads.

State legislative apportionment: legal principles in empirical perspective

Abstract This paper considers contemporary legal standards for state legislative apportionment from an empirical perspective. Analysis of longitudinal data demonstrates numerous disparities between legal principles and empirical realities of apportionment. The courts have yet to resolve fundamental theoretical and practical questions concerning state legislative apportionment.

Legislative Workload Congestion in Texas

There is considerable evidence that the processing of work in American state legislatures is characterized by bottlenecks, congestion, and logjams. Yet past research has examined only part of the legislative workload and part of the legislative calendar. Measurement and evaluation of legislative workload is complicated by the complexity of legislation and the legislative process. However, comprehensive analyses show that, although some important activities are quite congested in parts of the session, consideration of the entire workload shows it to be quite evenly distributed over the entire session. These findings call into question the assumptions of some simplistic normative models of legislative behavior.