Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-g7gxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-10-31T00:46:23.925Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Role of Constituency, Party, and Industry in Pennsylvania's Act 13

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2021

Bradford H. Bishop*
Affiliation:
Wheaton College, Norton, MA, USA
Mark R. Dudley
Affiliation:
Duke University, Durham, NC, USA
*
Bradford H. Bishop, Wheaton College, 26 East Main Street, Norton, MA 02766, USA. Email: bishop_bradford@wheatoncollege.edu

Abstract

While a large body of research exists regarding the role of industry money on roll-call voting in the U.S. Congress, there is surprisingly little scholarship pertaining to industry influence on state politics. This study fills this void in an analysis of campaign donations and voting during passage of Act 13 in Pennsylvania during 2011 and 2012. After collecting information about natural gas production in state legislative districts, we estimate a series of multivariate models aimed at uncovering whether campaign donations contributed to a more favorable policy outcome for industry. Our findings indicate that campaign donations played a small but systematic role in consideration of the controversial legislation, which represented one of the first and most important state-level regulatory reforms for the hydraulic fracturing industry.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2017

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ansolabehere, Stephen, de Figueiredo, John M., and Snyder, James M. Jr. 2003. “Why Is There so Little Money in Congress?Journal of Economic Perspectives 17 (1): 105–30..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bishop, Bradford H. 2014. “Focusing Events and Public Opinion: Evidence from the Deepwater Horizon Disaster.” Political Behavior 36 (1): 122..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bonica, Adam. 2014. “Mapping the Ideological Marketplace.” American Journal of Political Science 58 (2): 367–86..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Browning, James, and Kaplan, Alex. 2012. Deep Drilling, Deep Pockets in Congress and Pennsylvania. Washington, DC: Common Cause.Google Scholar
Bumstead, Brad. 2014. “Money, Power, Spoils of Office Tempt State Lawmakers.” Trib Live, March 15.Google Scholar
Burke, William J. 2009. “Fitting and Interpreting Cragg's Tobit Alternative Using Stata.” The Stata Journal 9 (4): 584–92..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carey, John M., Niemi, Richard G., and Powell, Lynda W.. 2000. Term Limits in State Legislatures. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carter, Kristin M., Harper, John A., Schmid, Katherine W., and Kostelnik, Jaime. 2011. “Unconventional Natural Gas Resources in Pennsylvania: The Backstory of the Modern Marcellus Shale Play.” Environmental Geosciences 18 (4): 217–57..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cragg, John G. 1971. “Some Statistical Models for Limited Dependent Variables with Application to the Demand for Durable Goods.” Econometrica: Journal of the Econometric Society 39 (5): 829–44..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cragg, John G., and Donald, Stephen G.. 1993. “Testing Identifiability and Specification in Instrumental Variable Models.” Econometric Theory 9 (2): 222–40..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dahl, Robert Alan. 1961. Who Governs? Democracy and Power in an American City. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Durden, Gary C., Shogren, Jason F., and Silberman, Jonathan I.. 1991. “The Effects of Interest Group Pressure on Coal Strip-Mining Legislation.” Social Science Quarterly 72 (2): 239–50..Google Scholar
Eckstein, H. 1975. “Case Studies and Theory in Political Science.” In Handbook of Political Science, Vol. 7, eds. F. Greenstein, and N. Polsby. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 79138.Google Scholar
Fortier, John C., and Malbin, Michael J.. 2013. “An Agenda for Future Research on Money in Politics in the United States.” The Forum 11:455–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Galbraith, Robert. 2013. Fracking and the Revolving Door in Pennsylvania. Buffalo, NY: Public Accountability Initiative.Google Scholar
Grier, Kevin B., and Munger, Michael C.. 1986. “The Impact of Legislator Attributes on InterestGroup Campaign Contributions.” Journal of Labor Research 7 (4): 349–61..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grier, Kevin B., and Munger, Michael C.. 1991. “Committee Assignments, Constituent Preferences, and Campaign Contributions.” Economic Inquiry 29 (1): 2443..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grier, Kevin B., and Munger, Michael C.. 1993. “Comparing Interest Group PAC Contributions to House and Senate Incumbents, 1980–1986.” The Journal of Politics 55 (3): 615–43..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hall, Richard L., and Wayman, Frank W.. 1990. “Buying Time: Moneyed Interests and the Mobilization of Bias in Congressional Committees.” The American Political Science Review 84 (3): 797820..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis, Daniel C. 2013. “Advocacy and Influence: Lobbying and Legislative Outcomes in Wisconsin.” Interest Groups & Advocacy 2 (2): 206–26..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Long, J. Scott. 1997. Regression Models for Categorical and Limited Dependent Variables. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
McKay, Amy. 2010. “The Effects of Interest Groups' Ideology on Their PAC and Lobbying Expenditures.” Business and Politics 12 (2): 4.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Michaud, Kristy, Carlisle, Juliet E., and Smith, Eric R. A. N.. 2008. “Nimbyism vs. Environmentalism in Attitudes toward Energy Development.” Environmental Politics 17 (1): 2039..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Murray, Michael P. 2006. “Avoiding Invalid Instruments and Coping with Weak Instruments.” The Journal of Economic Perspectives 20 (4): 111–32..Google Scholar
Pennsylvania League of Conservation Voters. 2012. Pennsylvania Marcellus Shale Scorecard 2011–12.Google Scholar
Powell, Lynda W. 2012. The Influence of Campaign Contributions in State Legislatures: The Effects of Institutions and Politics. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Powell, Lynda W. 2013. “The Influence of Campaign Contributions on Legislative Policy.” The Forum 11 (3): 339–55..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Royston, Patrick. 2013. “Marginscontplot: Plotting the Marginal Effects of Continuous Predictors.” The Stata Journal 13 (3): 510–27..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schattschneider, Elmer E. 1960. The Semisovereign People: A Realist's View of Democracy in America. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.Google Scholar
Shor, Boris, and McCarty, Nolan. 2011. “The Ideological Mapping of American Legislatures.” American Political Science Review 105 (3): 530–51..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, Eric R. A. N. 2002. Energy, the Environment, and Public Opinion. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Snyder, James M. Jr. 1992. “Long-Term Investing in Politicians; Or, Give Early, Give Often.” The Journal of Law & Economics 35:1543.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stock, James H., Wright, Jonathan H., and Yogo, Motohiro. 2002. “A Survey of Weak Instruments and Weak Identification in Generalized Method of Moments.” Journal of Business & Economic Statistics 20 (4): 518–29..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stratmann, Thomas. 2002. “Can Special Interests Buy Congressional Votes? Evidence from Financial Services Legislation.” Journal of Law & Economics 45 (2): 345–73..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tobin, James. 1958. “Estimation of Relationships for Limited Dependent Variables.” Econometrica: Journal of the Econometric Society 26 (1): 2436..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Urbina, Ian. 2011. “Regulation Lax as Gas Wells' Tainted Water Hits Rivers.” The New York Times, February 26. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/27/us/27gas.html?pagewanted=all (accessed October 19, 2016).Google Scholar
U.S. Energy Information Administration. 2014. U.S. Crude Oil and Natural Gas Proved Reserves, 2012. April 2014 Release.Google Scholar
Welch, William P. 1974. “The Economics of Campaign Funds.” Public Choice 20 (1): 8397..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yerace, Tom. 2011. “Common Cause Wants State to Limit Contributions by the Marcellus Shale Gas Industry.” Triblive.com, November 12. http://triblive.com/x/valleynewsdispatch/s_767014.html#axzz3O9lEdVqa (accessed October 19, 2016).Google Scholar