The Relationship Between Party Control and Civil Rights Legislation in the American States

Abstract

OR SOME TIME now, analysts of state policy have been attempting to detect significant policy consequences of variables. Although earlier attempts had suggested that political variables have little policy impact,' some recent studies are beginning to produce occasional evidence to the contrary.2 The present note reports one instance in which a variable appears to have a direct effect on an important policy variable. The finding is that for non-southern states there is an appreciable relationship between (1) the party that controls the state legislature and governorship and (2) the enactment of civil rights legislation. The units of analysis are biennial legislatures of non-southern states over the period from 1945 to 1964. The independent variable is the party control of the state's legislature and governorship: either Democratic, Republican, or split. The dependent variable is a dichotomy; whether or not in the particular biennium the state enacted civil rights legislation with administrative enforcement powers in the areas of public accommodations, open housing, or fair employment.3 The relationship between these two variables is presented in Table 1. The table shows that, although the Republican party was more often in control than the Democratic party, there were more civil rights enactments when the Democrats were in power. In fact, passage of new civil rights legislation is shown to be three