The Contours and Complexity of Legislator Objectives: Empirically Examining the Basis of Purposive Models

Abstract

QO VER the past decade legislative scholars have been quite successful in explaining many aspects of legislative behavior by focusing on legislator objectives. However, there has been little effort to examine empirically the importance of legislator objectives in explaining legislative behavior. While earlier studies by Fenno, Mayhew, and Fiorina have focused on the small number (usually three or four) of legislator objectives there has been little investigation of the ability of these central goals to capture fully the complexity of legislator behavior. Legislators engage in a wide variety of activities including those involving voting on legislation, committee work, staff operations, ceremonial functions, and general governmental oversight. This analysis focuses on the importance that legislators place on various legislative activities and examines the interrelationship among these activities. The purpose is to assess the complexity and scope of legislative objectives as a foundation for explaining legislator behavior. Specifically, this analysis examines the measurement of legislator objectives and analyzes various ways that a large number of legislative activities can be reduced to a smaller number of central goals. Using interview questions first employed in the Obey Commission's study of the legislative activities of members of the House of Representatives, this analysis relies on survey data collected in interviews with Indiana state legislators.' While the Indiana legislature is a citizen legislature meeting for long sessions (60 days) and short sessions (30 days) in alternate years, it is a suitable setting for assessing the contours and complexity of legislator objectives. To the extent that the adoption of legislative objectives is part of a legislator's socialization to the legislative arena, the less formal organizational structure, less frequent meetings, and smaller staffs and perquisites found in a citizen legislature may affect the assimilation and adoption of objectives by legislators (see, for example, Bell and Price