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Abstract
I study the consequences of interest group campaign contributions for
administrative oversight. Unlike the few previous studies in this area,
however, I study the influence in state bureaucracies and at the level of
individual groups. Specifically, I test whether campaign contributions to
state elected officials influence the outcomes of annual inspections of
skilled nursing facilities in 16 states, leveraging the context of state
politics in two important ways. First, I consider the differing effects of
contributions to the legislative and executive branches. Second, I argue
that legislative capacity for oversight influences the efficacy of
contributions Regression analysis of inspection results with controls for
facility characteristics provides evidence that contributing facilities have
better overall inspection results, with a large reduction in citations for
severe problems. Furthermore, contributions to legislators reduce overall
problems, particularly in less professionalized legislatures, while those to
the governor reduce severe ones.

AbstractScholars have begun to move beyond the dichotomous dependent variable—indicating whether a state adopts a policy or not in a given year—usually employed in event history analysis. In particular, they have devoted increasing attention to the components of policies that states adopt. I discuss a variety of estimators that have been employed to analyze the adoption and modification of policies with multiple components, including various forms of event history analysis, OLS, and event count models. With various modifications, the researcher can estimate models that treat each component as distinct, pool these models to leverage commonalities across components, or treat the components as identical parts of the same process. Each of these has its strengths and may be appropriate in certain circumstances. Nonetheless, in the majority of cases, some version of event history analysis for multiple or repeat failures is likely to be preferred. The different approaches are illustrated by studying state adoption of various obesity-related policies.

AbstractWhat effect does the initiative process have on the volatility of interest group populations? Theoretical results suggest that interest group communities in initiative states should be characterized by greater rates of entry and exit since the presence of the initiative process increases mobilizations by potentially less stable groups, particularly broad-based citizen groups. I test this prediction using data on state interest group lobby registrations in 1990 and 1997. Tabular and regression analysis of exit and entry rates for all groups as well as separate analyses for different kinds of groups, including citizen, economic, membership, institutions, and associations, are consistent with the prediction, with the effect strongest and most consistent for citizen and membership groups.

What effect does the initiative process have on the volatility of interest group populations? Theoretical results suggest that interest group communities in initiative states should be characterized by greater rates of entry and exit since the presence of the initiative process increases mobilizations by potentially less stable groups, particularly broad-based citizen groups. I test this prediction using data on state interest group lobby registrations in 1990 and 1997. Tabular and regression analysis of exit and entry rates for all groups as well as separate analyses for different kinds of groups, including citizen, economic, membership, institutions, and associations, are consistent with the prediction, with the effect strongest and most consistent for citizen and membership groups. Adapted from the source document.

A variety of factors have been shown to influence position timing and the content of positions taken by legislators on important issues. In addition to these observed factors, I argue that unobserved factors such as behind-the-scenes lobbying and party loyalty may also influence position timing and position content. Although hypotheses about observed factors can be tested using traditional methods, hypotheses about unobserved factors cannot. To test for systematic effects of unobserved factors on position timing and content, I develop a seemingly unrelated discrete-choice duration estimator and apply it to data from the vote for the North American Free Trade Agreement. The results indicate that even after controlling for observed factors, there is still evidence that unobserved factors such as Presidential lobbying and/or party loyalty influence both choices.