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State Legislative Committees and Economic Connections: Expertise and Industry Service

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2021

James Coleman Battista
James Coleman Battista*
Affiliation:
University at Buffalo, SUNY, NY, USA
*
James Coleman Battista, University at Buffalo, SUNY 520 Park Hall, Buffalo, NY 14260, USA. Email: jbattist@buffalo.edu
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Abstract

American state legislators commonly remain connected to the market, giving them the potential for unique expertise on how policy affects the industries they are connected to and the opportunity to help enact laws favoring those industries. This paper describes the extent to which state legislative committees are populated by legislators with economic connections to their jurisdiction, and analyzes appointment patterns to help distinguish stacking to tap expertise from stacking to serve an industry. I find that a substantial minority of committees are stacked with connected legislators. Appointment patterns show limited evidence for expertise in education and health care, for industry service in banking, and for both in agriculture.

Keywords

state legislaturescommitteesinformationexpertisefinancial interestindustry service
Type
Research Article
Information
State Politics & Policy Quarterly , Volume 12 , Issue 3 , September 2012 , pp. 284 - 302
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2012

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