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Legislatures, Courts, and Statutory Control of the Bureaucracy across the U.S. States

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2021

Robert J. McGrath
Robert J. McGrath*
Affiliation:
George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA
*
Robert J. McGrath, Department of Public and International Affairs, George Mason University, 4400 University Drive, MSN 3F4, Fairfax, VA 22030, USA. Email: rmcgrat2@gmu.edu
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Abstract

How do state legislatures use statutory language to control policy implementation by state agencies? In this article, I consider—in a specific policy area and time period—the extent to which this decision is affected by legislative anticipation of the likely actions of state courts. Previous literature has argued that the legislative use of statutory language to control bureaucrats varies with the availability of nonstatutory methods of control, but it does not explicitly consider the potential role of courts. My expectations are derived from a simple formal model of executive–legislative relations and are supported when I test them using data on the number of words added to a state's Medicaid laws from 1995 to 1996. In particular, I find that state legislatures write longer, more constraining, statutes when the likelihood that state courts intervene on their behalf is neither very high nor very low.

Keywords

legislative behaviorlegislative politicslegislative/executive interactionlegislative/judicial interactionexecutive politicsbureaucracy
Type
Research Article
Information
State Politics & Policy Quarterly , Volume 13 , Issue 3 , September 2013 , pp. 373 - 397
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2013

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