The power and ability of state governments to impose regulations vary according to the state and national politics, policy problems, the nature and power of business and groups, and state institutional structures. Citizens regularly complain about the regulatory reach of the state but often demand state regulation of the environment, consumer safety, industry, insurance, health care, and professions. State elected officials likewise complain about the regulatory reach of the state and, in some cases, work diligently to remove regulations that are thought to hamper industries or that citizens find especially egregious. Sometimes there is disagreement over what constitutes desirable and undesirable regulations. For example, in 2010, the Florida legislature passed a seemingly simple law requiring septic systems to be inspected every 5 years. It was proposed by Republican members of the House and Senate and supported by the state peak homebuilders association, which is a strong interest in a state long dominated by the real estate industry. The then-presiding governor ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate and the incoming Republican governor won the election narrowly with strong rural conservative support. Some of the legislators who had initially signed the previously uncontroversial regulation heard complaints from their constituents regarding the possible cost of mandated repairs and the estimated $150–$200 price of inspections every 5 years. He refused to sign the law, arguing that septic tank regulation is a function best left to county governments. There is no mandatory septic system inspection in Florida, which environmental groups note is dangerous given the state's being situated on top of the Floridan aquifer that provides water for drinking, agriculture, and recreation for the state's citizens and is threatened by leaking septic systems.

Most lobbying is invisible, meaning that interest groups routinely contact government officials “off the public record.” While such lobbying is ubiquitous, whether and how it may affect public policy decision-making remains largely unknown. I theorize that lobbying that employs both invisible and visible tactics is the most influential. I study the development of 38 health-related regulatory policies in Wisconsin to assess this argument. I employ government records, survey data from more than 350 individuals, and interviews with 15 state policymakers. I find that invisible and visible lobbying—when performed in combination—are associated with greater regulatory policy change. From a normative perspective, these results are both reassuring and troubling. On one hand, the results suggest that invisible lobbying, on its own, rarely drives state regulatory policy shifts. Yet, on the other hand, those interested parties with the resources necessary to lobby across multiple modes are more likely to see policy change.

In many states, agency rules are subject to review and possible veto by elected political officials in the legislative and/or executive branches. The consequences of this rule review authority are little understood. Using time-series cross-section data on state environmental compliance costs, this study investigates the impact that several types of administrative rule review procedures have on the stringency of state environmental regulation. The findings suggest that (1) both gubernatorial and legislative rule review powers are systematically associated with reduced environmental compliance costs, (2) legislatures controlled by the Democratic Party use rule review powers to reduce these costs less than Republican ones, and (3) the latter effect is observable only when legislatures have the power to amend or veto rules without the approval of the governor. These results indicate that rule review plays an important, but complex, role in shaping regulatory outcomes.

Once legislators delegate policymaking responsibility to executive agencies, they have the ability to oversee and potentially influence the actions of these agencies. In this article, we examine, first, whether the actions of agencies reflect the preferences of legislators, and second, whether legislative professionalism enhances the ability of legislatures to influence executive agencies and obtain more preferred outcomes. We study these effects in the context of annual nursing home inspections performed by state administrators and make two predictions. First, as Democratic legislators will, on average, prefer a more activist role for government and for government agencies, we should see agencies issue more citations for violations of regulations when state legislatures are Democratic and fewer when they are Republican. Second, as more professionalized legislatures are better able to monitor the agency inspectors' actions and inspection outcomes, this effect should be intensified for legislatures with greater professionalism. We find support for both arguments: agencies faced with more Democrats in the legislature will be more activist, and this effect is strengthened for more professional legislatures.

Scholars have suggested that interest groups affect the diffusion of innovations across states by creating a network of information between the states that aids in the spread of policy ideas. Still, the unique role that interest groups play in policy diffusion networks is not fully understood, in large part because the current methodology for studying diffusion cannot parse out interest group influence. We address this problem by analyzing the actual text of legislation, moving away from binary adoption to a more nuanced measure of policy similarity. This allows us to distinguish whether states emulate other states or interest group model legislation. We use text similarity scores in a social network analysis to explore whether early-adopting states or interest groups are more central to the network. We apply this analytical framework to two policies—abortion insurance coverage restrictions and self-defense statutes. Based on this analysis, we find that a fundamentally different picture of policy diffusion networks begins to emerge—one where interest group model legislation plays a central role in the diffusion of innovations.