Powering Federalism: Partisan Divergence and Nonacquiescence to Federal Policy

• In Event: Conflict and Collaboration in Federal Systems

Abstract

What explains state agency resistance to actions from their federal counterparts? Is state agency nonacquiescence to orders issued by federal agencies associated with partisan divergence between state agency heads and corresponding federal officials? We theorize that greater differences in partisanship between analogous state and federal officials result in more state resistance. We argue that state agencies can and do resist federal administrative orders independent of political and economic constraints, whereas most existing research on state resistance to federal policy focuses on state legislative resistance to congressional actions. This study is among the first to consider the policy consequences of differences in partisanship between the executives of federal and state agencies. We argue that state agency opposition to federal policy can be partially explained by partisan divergence between state and federal agencies. We evaluate our claims by examining every instance of litigation and intervention by state bureaucrats against actions by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) from 2010-2017. Due to the relatively infrequent occurrence of litigation and intervention—which functions as our dependent variable—we estimate a rare events logistic regression model to test our claims regarding the impact of state agency partisanship on resistance to FERC actions. Studying low-salience administrative choices contrasts with the extant literature which tends to examine highly salient and polarizing policies where elite preferences are driven by partisan cleavages, such as the Affordable Care Act and No Child Left Behind. We find that state agency resistance to actions by FERC is more likely as the partisan composition between the two bodies diverges. This research has important normative implications for policy implementation in a federal system as state agencies may function as sites of resistance to national policy.

Authors

• Nicholas G. Napolio, University of Southern California

• Jordan Carr Peterson, Texas Christian University