Legislative capacity limits interest group influence: Evidence from California's Proposition 140

Abstract

Reformers assert that lobbyists take advantage of legislators who lack adequate staffing and research to win policy outcomes for their interest group clients. However, in the United States, legislators usually determine their own levels of staff. This paper exploits the 1990 passage of California's Proposition 140 to test a situation when the legislature's capacity dropped. Proposition 140 immediately lowered legislative expenditures for the 1991–1992 session by 38%, which decimated the policy staff, particularly in the state's Assembly. Using bill analyses that identify which outside groups served as the source of legislation, we show that group sponsored bills became more likely to pass than non-group bills in the wake of Proposition 140. This effect is concentrated in bills introduced in the Assembly. We account for other factors that could explain this relationship, particularly direct and indirect effects of the term limits wrought by Proposition 140, but find they did not alter legislator relationships with outside groups.