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Morality policy studies are generally constructed around the theoretical perspective of democratic responsiveness, whereby factors such as religious affiliation of citizens, public opinion, and partisanship affect adoption. The author expands morality policy theory to include the U.S. Supreme Court. She creates a measure of the "constitutional context" state legislators are faced with when debating morality policy proposals and develops a series of hypotheses regarding its effect on morality policy adoption. She tests these hypotheses by employing an event history model of state abortion policy adoptions from 1973 to 2000. The results indicate that the constitutional context has a significant effect on abortion policy adoption; however, its effect is conditioned by the state political environment.

We survey state affiliates of two prominent interest groups, Concerned Women for America and the National Organisation for Women, to better understand their tactics and the structural relationship between the national office and the state affiliates. We find that the tivo national organisations differ starkly in how they relate to their state affiliates. We suggest this difference in the structure of the relationship may shape the formulation and delivery of policy messages to state legislators, thus potentially affecting policy proposals and adoptions in the American states.

AbstractAlthough many studies have found that women legislators pursue policies important to women, we know relatively little concerning the effect of women's descriptive representation (WDR) on women's quality of life. We address this question by examining the relationship between the election of women state legislators and public health. Specifically, we estimate the effect of WDR on premature death rates from 1982 to 2010. We find that WDR serves to improve the well-being of both women and men. However, the effect of WDR on women's health is contingent on several important factors. First, the health-improving effects of WDR are most strongly related to the descriptive representation of Democratic women. Second, the effect of Democratic WDR on women's health, relative to men's health, increases with the scale of the state's Medicaid program. Finally, we estimate the mediating role of nine specific policies, finding that four policies mediate the effect of Democratic WDR on premature mortality. Overall, our results suggest that policy remedies aimed at improving the severe underrepresentation of women in government may help to improve the relatively low ranking of the United States on indicators of public health.

We provide evidence regarding potential policy feedback effects of healthcare reform by estimating the effect of Medicaid expansion on public support for the state actor most closely associated with responsibility for the expansion decision—the governor. The discretion granted to state governments concerning Medicaid expansion has created the potential for significant variation in mass feedback effects across the states. We are particularly interested in how these effects are influenced by the emerging racial polarization over healthcare policy, and how this may lead to different types of feedback effects that align with partisan, ideological, and racial cleavages. We estimate the impact of Medicaid expansion on gubernatorial approval, utilizing five waves of the Cooperative Congressional Election Study (2008–16). We find that on average, expansion led to a modest, yet statistically significant increase in gubernatorial approval. However, there is important variation both within and across states in the effect of expansion. Specifically, we find that governors were more likely to be rewarded for expansion by those who supported President Obama, and those who resided in states where the Medicaid recipient population is more likely to be white.

Explores the relationship between external funding & publication of political science research. The distribution of published articles in eight leading journals is examined & content identified by research subfields & methodological approaches. The source of funding, National Science Foundation (NSF) grants or other sources, was also identified. The results are analyzed for implications about biases of funding agencies & journals across epistemological approaches & research subfields. The major finding was that external funding does not support most of the published research in the major journals. 13 Tables, 2 Appendixes, 5 References. L. Collins

We examine local government response to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States utilizing a unique dataset created by the National League of Cities. The most common action by local governments was changing administrative procedures and implementing policies aimed at prevention or "flattening the curve". The general public was the most common population target. In addition to detailing the most common local action types, policy areas, and population targets, we analyze local response based on the autonomy granted to local governments by states. We expected local governments with greater levels of autonomy would have a greater level of response; however, some local governments did not 'behave' as expected based on their degree of policymaking autonomy granted by state governments. Some states with higher levels of autonomy enacted relatively few local actions in response to the pandemic, whereas some with little autonomy engaged in considerable activity to address COVID-19.