Conservative Cross-State Mobilization and Democratic Responsiveness

• In Event: Donors, Lobbyists, and Democracy

Abstract

An ongoing debate in the state politics literature involves the extent to which partisan control of government matters for policy change and substantive policy outcomes. Some argue using over-time variation in policies and policy outcomes within states that changes in partisanship matter little compared to differences in long-term in political culture and public opinion across the states (for instance, see e.g. Caughey and Warshaw 2018; Caughey et al. 2016; Grossmann 2019; Holbein and Dynes 2018). In contrast, others have pointed to specific policy areas in which partisan changes of government within states have had significant consequences for the scope of government action and social, economic, and political outcomes (e.g. Grumbach 2018; Hertel-Fernandez et al. 2016; Jacobs and Callaghan 2013). Moreover, this second set of authors points out how changes in partisanship do not necessarily correspond to changes in public opinion, even on highly salient and significant redistributive and regulatory policies (e.g. Hertel-Fernandez 2019).

In this paper, we bring new data to bear on this debate by focusing on a nation-spanning, federated advocacy group, Americans for Prosperity (AFP), that has by now evolved into a significant force in American politics. In other work we have documented how AFP has paralleled and leveraged the Republican Party to reorient its national political stands (Hertel-Fernandez et al. 2018; Skocpol and Hertel-Fernandez 2016). In this paper, we use newly-gathered historical data on AFP’s expansion across eighteen states from 2004 to 2018 to examine how this organization has altered the stands held by state Republican politicians—and through that advocacy, the policies championed by the state governments under GOP control. Focusing on three policy areas: environmental regulation, taxes, and labor market standards, we document the effects that AFP has had on both policies and policy outcomes. Moreover, we compare AFP’s positions to public opinion data to establish the extent to which AFP’s campaigns reinforce or undermine the representation of the mass public. Our findings thus speak to the ongoing debates over the role of partisanship in explaining policy change in the states, as well as the contribution of interest group mobilization to disparities in political representation in an era of high and rising economic inequality.

Authors

• Alexander Warren Hertel-Fernandez, Columbia University

• Theda Skocpol, Harvard University

• Caroline Tervo, Harvard University

• Vanessa Williamson, Brookings Institution