Legislative Professionalism and Influence on Lawmaking.

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Abstract

Prior research demonstrates that legislative professionalism has positive effects including increased membership stability and diversity, greater policymaking capacity, and increased responsiveness to constituents (Rosenthal 1996; Squire 1992; Thompson 1986). Little research, however, has focused on the impact of professionalism on the use of oversight mechanisms such as sunset legislation. This paper builds on the research of Hamm & Robertson (1981) and Baugus, Bose, and Jacob (2019) who found that states with a high level of professionalism are less likely to utilize sunset legislation. Instead of focusing on state adoption of sunset legislation, I use a hand-collected dataset of sunset provision use in the states from 1980 to 2010 to conduct a case study on the impact of legislative professionalism on sunset provision use. I find that highly professionalized legislatures utilize more sunset provisions. This paper makes a contribution to the legislative professionalism and regulatory legislation literature, demonstrating the impact professionalism has on the legislature’s ongoing oversight of public policy implementation.

Author

• Elizabeth Ila Dorssom, University of Missouri