Legislative Campaigns Research Articles

From the courts to the state legislatures: social justice feminism, labor legislation, and the 1920s

The Progressive Era, a period of important social and political activism which stretched from 1890 through the end of World War I, now offers a rich, diverse historiography.1 In contrast, the 1920s...

Duty to the Race

In 1904, leaders of three major white fraternal orders launched a nationally coordinated legislative and legal campaign to force their black counterparts out of existence, a struggle that spread to atleast 29 states and culminated in victories for the African American groups before the U.S. Supreme Court in 1912 and 1929. The organizational structures of the black orders, usually consisting of a tripartite system of local, state, and national lodges, were critical in this successful defense of the legal right to form and operate fraternal organizations. These structures enabled fraternal members and leaders to turn local disputes into national ones, devise strategies based on the interplay of different levels of government, and sustain a discourse that facilitated internal mobilization and minimized external opposition. While most scholarship on resistance to Jim Crow has focused on local activism, the defense mounted by these orders facilitated the development of sophisticated, nationwide networks binding together local fraternal leaders and African American lawyers. These networks became a critical venue for the development of oppositional traditions, organizational infrastructures, and leadership ties that kept resistance alive under Jim Crow and laid the building blocks for future political and civil rights-related work. In particular, these fraternal lawyers, a number of whom went on to work for the NAACP, honed skills in these trials that were also central to the NAACP’s legal strategy, especially in learning to tailor cases to achieve federal hearings.

Putin Represents an Imperial Course for Russia

A leading figure in Russia, Grigory A. Yavlinsky is the cofounder and chairman of Yabloko, a liberal party. Yavlinsky is an economist who became widely known in 1990 when he co-authored the radical 500 Days economic program with Stanislav Shatalin that was eventually rejected by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. He was also the co-author of a proposal for large-scale Western assistance to the USSR in exchange for specific reforms, known as the Grand Bargain, with Graham Allison of Harvard University. Yavlinsky went on to become an architect of relatively successful economic reforms in the province of Nizhny-Novgorod, working closely with governor Boris Nemtsov, who currently leads the other main liberal party, the Union of Right Forces (SPS). Yavlinsky has been a presidential candidate twice and a longtime critic of the privatization project carried out under Boris Yeltsin and its consequences. This interview was conducted on May 19, 2003, at the Yabloko office of the State Duma in Moscow by Demokratizatsiya founder Fredo Arias-King.Demokratizatsiya: Now that Yeltsin is gone, do you think the unity of the forces is more doable, say cooperation between the Union of Right Forces, Yabloko, and other liberal forces?Yavlinsky: What do you mean by democratic forces?Demokratizatsiya: Usually they associate the forces with those parties that are not the Communists, not the party of power, not xenophobes or ... but you are right, maybe it's a matter of semantics.Yavlinsky: I don't think that's a good way to describe who are the forces.Demokratizatsiya: Alright then, between Yabloko and SPS. Say, if they have a leadership change and they remove Anatoly Chubais and Alfred Kokh, would there be more room for cooperation between Yabloko, and then Irina Khakamada, and others in SPS?Yavlinsky: Maybe. But there is no hope that Chubais and Kokh will leave. They are the key people after all. They are more important there than Khakamada and other people. These people are the real SPS, and this nomination of Mr. Kokh [to manage the SPS legislative campaign] is making things much more clear than they were before.Demokratizatsiya: In the view of Yabloko, what is the main item on the agenda for the country? What is the main wish list?Yavlinsky: The liberation of the state from the domination of oligarchic, semi-criminal groups. Which means an independent judicial system, independent law-making, existence of independent media, more or less fair elections, that's what it means. That is the most important task for Yabloko.Demokratizatsiya: Putin is viewed in the West as improving the economic performance, mainly the tax system--which I understand was a Yabloko idea, the flat tax, the fair tax--but taking back political and press freedoms in the process. Do you think this view in the West is correct?Yavlinsky: What is really going on in the Russian economy I would call de-industrialization. I can say that the high economic growth in 2000 and 2001 was the consequence of the devaluation of the ruble and very high oil prices. What about the structural reforms? What about the changes in the political environment? If we compare them to the mid- 1990s, the situation is no better. Maybe in some aspects such as corruption, bureaucratization, and the domination of super-powerful oligarchic groups, the situation is probably worse than it was before.Demokratizatsiya: You once used the anecdote of the to describe NATO and its expansion. I remember a speech you gave at Harvard in the mid-1990s, where you mention that NATO is a nice pink tank--it has flowers, it plays music, it has girls on top, but it's still a tank. In light of NATO's latest expansion that will cover seven new countries, mostly former Soviet and Warsaw Pact members, has your view of NATO changed in any way?Yavlinsky: NATO is not a threat. It's still a pink tank, but [one] that can hardly move, because the people who are in the tank have no idea where to move and how to cooperate. …

The Effects Of Primary Divisiveness On General Election Outcomes In State Legislative Elections

Does a divisive primary contest harm a candidate’s chances in the general election? This question is addressed in an analysis of legislative campaigns in nine states during the 1994 and 1996 election cycles. Findings indicate that primary divisiveness does affect general election outcomes but in the opposite direction than anticipated. Greater divisiveness in a candidate’s primary leads to a higher vote share in the general election. Similarly, greater divisiveness in a general election opponent’s primary leads to a candidate receiving a lower vote share. Simply the presence of a primary challenge is found to exert a substantial positive influence for a candidate in the general election, particularly in open seat contests. Such counterintuitive results are attributed to the low levels of information that voters typically possess about state legislative primaries and to the strategic decisions of candidates who seek legislative office.

The “Congressionalization” of state legislative races

This paper examines the phenomenon of the “Congressionalization” of state legislative races. That is, as state legislative campaigns become more expensive, use more mass media, polling, and professional political consulting, these races are looking more and more like Congressional campaigns. Although others have pointed toward a “Congressionalization” trend, there is little concrete support to prove such a trend. We provide a detailed case study of the characteristics of state legislative races in a single state in the mid-1990s. We find that although there is indeed support for the view that these races are looking more and more Congressional-like, state legislative races are still distinctive in a number of important ways.

Candidate Perceptions of Political Party Campaign Activity in State Legislative Elections

AbstractThis article examines candidates' perceptions of political party services provided in state legislative campaigns using survey data from seven states in 1994. I find that candidates generally do not feel that party assistance is very helpful, although multivariate analyses show that this varies systematically with state context and district-level competition. The influence of campaign financing on candidate perceptions is particularly important. In districts where candidates spend similar amounts on their campaigns, candidates believe parties provide greater assistance. My findings suggest that parties target campaign services to candidates in the same way that they target financial contributions, focusing on districts where these resources are most likely to affect the election outcome.

State Legislative Campaign Finance Research: A Review Essay

AbstractOver the last 10 years, a great deal of research has been conducted in what had been a neglected field—state legislative campaign finance. Much of this research is motivated by concerns about the impact of money on democracy in state legislative elections. This essay reviews that work critically, looking particularly at studies of spending levels, campaign contributions and fundraising, spending and voting, and campaign finance reform. Comparing campaign finance systems across the states facilitates theory building, provides empirical leverage with which to test hypotheses developed at the congressional level, and allows us to test the efficacy of campaign finance reforms.

Campaign War Chests and Challenger Emergence in State Legislative Elections

Recent studies examining the role of money in state legislative campaigns focus on questions related to the amounts raised, the sources of the funds, and the effects of spending on election outcomes. Little attention, however, has been given to the possible impact of money on other aspects of the electoral process-namely candidacy decisions. Political practitioners often assert that money has an important influence when incumbents collect large campaign treasuries or “war chests” for the purpose of warding off potential challengers. While several studies address the validity of this proposition in the congressional setting, few have examined it closely in state legislative races. This study considers this possibility in an analysis of incumbent funding in primary and general elections in eight states. Findings indicate that incumbents often amass war chests and these sums negatively impact challenger emergence; however, this effect is partially mitigated by legislative professionalism. The dampening effect of campaign treasuries is found to be more potent in states having the least professional legislatures.

Healthy public relations: the FDA's 1930s legislative campaign.

In this article, I argue that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is an oft-overlooked government agency that acts to preserve and secure the public's health. From its early years as an agency charged with enforcement of the 1906 Pure Food and Drugs Act, the FDA not only protected the public's health but also made the public aware of its mission, using methods as diverse as displays at county fairs and at the 1933 Chicago World's Fair, radio programming, and active correspondence. The agency encouraged the public to protect itself, particularly in those arenas in which the FDA had no regulatory authority. In addition, it may have overstepped its boundaries when it actively solicited public support for a bill submitted to Congress in the early 1930s. In the dark days of the Great Depression, the FDA contended not only with limited resources and its own feelings of inadequacy in terms of what could and could not be done to protect the populace, but also with "guinea pig" books that horrified and angered many readers. By 1938, when the agency prevailed and the revisions to the 1906 Act passed Congress and were signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the FDA had done all that a responsible public health agency should do, and more.

Songs of Ourselves

Research on diversity in the workplace considers the conditions for creating a safe, equitable, and welcoming work environment. Inclusivity is a challenge when visible social identities trigger potentially judgmental and divisive reactions (e.g., Wharton, 1992). A distinct set of challenges arises when employees bring invisible, marginalized, or even stigmatized aspects of their identities into the workplace. Making a social identity visible not only sets the stage for others’ reactions, whether positive, negative, or mixed, it also lays the groundwork for social changes that may reduce the stigma and costs of the social identity. In this article, we investigate the deployment of social identity in the interest of organizational change, extending a concept used by Bernstein (1997) to describe the faceto-face lobbying practices of gays and lesbians in state and local political campaigns for nondiscrimination legislation. We also extend the concept of encounters, through which individuals who identify with a category engage in some self-conscious and intentional performances that announce and enact who they are (Goffman, 1969). This concept has been elaborated for understanding the micromobilizing moments of social movements in broader societal contexts (W. A. Gamson, Fireman, & Rytina, 1982). We examine how employees deploy their social identity in the workplace in ways that they hope will advance social

A Simple Explanation for Why Campaign Expenditures are Increasing: The Government is Getting Bigger

This paper shows that most of the large recent increases in campaign spending for Federal and state offices can be explained by higher government spending. This result holds for both Federal and state legislative campaigns and gubernatorial races and across many different specifications. Evidence is also examined on whether it is the composition and not just the level of expenditures which determines campaign expenditures and whether higher government expenditures similarly results in more candidates competing for office. The data provide some indication that legislative term limits reduce campaign expenditures and increase the number of candidates running for office. Finally, by focusing on the symptoms and not the root causes of ever higher campaign expenditures, this paper argues that the current public policy debate risks changing the form that payments are made rather than actually restricting the level of competition.

Freedom of information in the U.K.: a progress report

Last year the author wrote about the U.K.’s plans to embrace Freedom of Information (FOI) legislation after a quarter of a century of campaigns for such legislation by the Labor Party. The Bill has now been presented to Parliament and has been amended by government to meet some objections. It is still widely criticized, however. The FOI Bill is also one of several measures that relate to openness in contemporary aspects of British government.

A Simple Explanation for Why Campaign Expenditures Are Increasing: The Government Is Getting Bigger

Abstract This paper shows that most of the large recent increases in campaign spending for federal and state offices can be explained by higher government spending. This result holds for both federal and state legislative campaigns and gubernatorial races and across many different specifications. The irony is that those who seem most concerned about the level of campaign expenditures are also frequently the ones who most strongly support increasing the size of government. Evidence is also examined on whether it is the composition and not just the level of expenditures that determines campaign expenditures and whether higher government expenditures similarly results in more candidates competing for office. Finally, by focusing on the symptoms and not the root causes of ever higher campaign expenditures, this paper argues that the current public policy debate risks changing the form in which payments are made rather than actually restricting the level of competition.

The Business of Soil Fertility

During the Progressive era, an urban-agrarian wing of the conservation movement made soil fertility a highly salient issue in the press. This article examines the extent and causes of a convergence of urban-agrarian concern between 1907 and 1916, which was one of the first sustainable agriculture policy networks in United States history. Businessmen and journalists helped put soil fertility on the national policy agenda. Existing institutions, such as the United States Department of Agriculture, were not considered adequate guardians of the food supply for an expanding industrial nation. Urban agrarians financed and managed soil fertility propaganda and agrarian legislative campaigns based on the recognition that existing institutions lacked the resources necessary to convert traditional farmers to the emerging scientific, soil-preserving paradigm. In an era punctuated by debate over the rising cost of living, the new agriculture was known to many in the movement simply as “businesslike” farming.

‘On les aura!’: The gendered politics of abortion and the Alliance nationale contre la dépopulation, 1938–1944

This article examines the centrality of the interwar period's leading natalist‐familialist group, the Alliance nationale contre la dépopulation, in the creation of abortion policy during the Occupation. It asserts that the organisation did more than participate in the abortion debate between 1938 and 1944; through an intensive propaganda and legislative campaign, its leaders cultivated much of the public's and government's fixation on the issues. In doing so, the Alliance helped create the harsh abortion statutes included in the Daladier government's Family Code, laws that the Vichy regime intensified with the 300 Law of February 1942. In this instance, we can see how cultural and political debates about the roles of women in society played a key role in the State's attempt to limit French women's reproductive options. As a result, Vichy officials ultimately guillotined a woman who defied the law and traditional gender norms.

Estratégias de campanha no horário gratuito de propaganda eleitoral em eleições proporcionais

The article contends that Brazil’s Horario Gratuito de Propaganda Eleitoral (under which parties are granted free airtime for political campaign advertisements) can be contrasted with the Brazilian electoral system’s tendency to produce purely individualistic legislative campaigns. The central hypothesis is that the way in which Brazilian political parties organize their candidates’ participation in these time slots has substantial consequences both for their public image as well as for their poll performance. The first section of the article defines the more general characteristics of political representation in Brazil within the framework of traditional political science interpretations. The second section underscores the growing importance of studies on election campaigns and party presence in the media. Within this context, the evolution of the HGPE’s historical importance as a campaign space is examined. The third section presents our model of analysis of the HGPE, highlighting its effects on relations between parties, on the one hand, and their candidates and potential voters, on the other. Rio de Janeiro’s proportional elections of 1994 and 1996 are taken as a case study. The article concludes that the HGPE acts as a tool for informally ranking party lists in Brazil.

Two Asian Laundry Cases

Two Asian Laundry Cases David E. Bernstein* In Yick Wo v. Hopkins,1 the Supreme Court held that a facially neutral laundry licensing regulation was an unconstitutional violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendmentbecause the regulation was only enforced against Chinese laundrymen. Even casual students ofAmerican constitutional history are likely to be aware that Yick Wo arose out ofone of many legal challenges launched by Chinese laundrymen against San Francisco ordinances that were intended to drive the Chinese out of the laundry business. Very few people, on the other hand, know that Yick Wo did not end government harassment ofAsian-owned laundries, nor did it end litigation over discriminatory laundry laws before the U.S. Supreme Court. Montana continued its long-term legislative campaign against Chinese laundries, culminating in the 1912 Supreme Court case of Quong Wing v. Kirkendall.2 Over a decade after Yick Wo was decided, meanwhile, San Francisco authorities began to discriminate against the growing number ofJapanese-owned laundries, leading to the 1902 Supreme Court case of Tsukamoto v. Lackman.2 This article discusses Quong Wing and Tsukamoto in their respective historical con­ texts. The history of these cases demonstrates the persistence ofAsian immigrants in fighting for their constitutional rights, throughboth law­ suits and civil disobedience. These cases dem­ onstrate that even after Yick Wo, Asian immi­ grant entrepreneurs who went into the laundry business were by no means assured that courts would protect their right to earn a living from hostile local governments. Quong Wing v. Kirkendall In the 1860s, migrants, including Chinese, began to settle Montana. By 1870, 1,943 Chi­ nese resided in Montana, ten percent of the territory’s population.4 Several dozen of the Montana Chinese opened laundries. Running 96 JOURNAL OF SUPREME COURT HISTORY a laundry appealed to impoverished Chinese immigrants because it did not require much knowledge ofEnglish or a large capital invest­ ment—a shack with a stove and a sufficient water supply usually sufficed.5 Also, owning a business was a status symbol in the American Chinese communityand inthe immigrant’s home village, to which the laundry owner generally planned to return.6 Finally, the laundry busi­ ness was attractive because the Chinese hoped it would notraise the competitive ire ofwhites; few white women and even fewer men wanted to work as launderers, a profession considered arduous and unpleasant. Unfortunately forthe Chinese laundrymen, despite the usefulness oftheir profession, and the fact that they had few white competitors, anti-Chinese forces refused to leave them in peace. As in other Western locales, Chinese laundrymen in Montana quickly became a tar­ get ofrabble-rousers, demagogues, hooligans, and racists. Anti-Chinese activists charged that the Chinese crowded out widows and other single women from working as launderers, forcing them to turn to prostitution.7 A Helena newspaper complained that “[i]t is hard enough now for a white woman to make a living in the few, branches ofhonest livelihood that are open to them and these avenues of competence are being rapidly filled up with Chinamen, who actually wrest the wash-tub from them, and invade those provinces of labor belonging to women.”8 This propaganda was based on mostly fic­ titious premises, serving as a pretext for pre­ existing anti-Chinese sentiment. The women of frontier Helena, like the men, were over­ whelmingly unattached and interested in mak­ ing a fast buck, not always through legitimate means. Because of the shortage ofwomen on the frontier, and white men’s refusal to do “women’s work,” laundering was sufficiently lucrative that a few women took in laundry before the Chinese arrived, only to be displaced by Chinese working for more reasonable rates.9 However, the picture drawn by Sinophobes of many virtuous young women and poor wid­ ows being forced out of the laundry trade in Helena in 1866 “just does not fit.”10 Nevertheless, on January 27,1866, a Hel­ ena committee placed a notice in the local newspaper complaining about “Mongolian Hordes” driving white women out ofthe laun­ dry business.11 The committee called on the community to boycott all Chinese launderers.12 The newspaper in which the advertisement appeared editorialized that the committee had its...

Mobile Home Park Lot “Rent Control”

Successful legislative campaigns, especially those in rural areas, are not often reported in the literature. There are many lessons to be learned from these campaigns. This case example explores a significant legislative victory by an organization called Tenants United for Fairness-Vermont (TUFF-VT), and applies several different community organizing models in the analysis of the campaign.

On the Coattails of a Contract: RNC Activities and Republican Gains in the 1994 State Legislative Elections

In 1994, the Republican party initiated an unprecedented effort by a modem American political party to coordinate issues in subnational cam paigns. They made a concerted effort to persuade state Republican party leaders to adopt electoral contracts similar to the "Republican Contract with America," reflecting basic Republican values, but tailored to the par ticular needs of each state. About half of the states holding elections in 1994 responded by developing such documents. The purpose of this study is to determine if these contracts had coattails in the midterm state legis lative elections similar to those generally provided by popular presiden tial or gubernatorial candidates during their elections. The results indicate that many Republican state legislative candidates may indeed have rid den their electoral contracts to historic seat gains, even controlling for such traditional predictors as presidential popularity, economic evalua tion, variations in voter turnout and partisan financial support. These results suggest that politicians might reconsider how they have tradition ally conducted legislative campaigns and to scholars that they reevaluate how they study them.

Voter Contact Techniques in State Legislative Campaigns: The Prevalence of Mass Media Advertising

What methods of voter contact are used by candidates running for state legislative office? A number of studies on the congressional level suggest that mass media advertising, particularly on television, is becoming the predominant form of voter contact. However, few studies have questioned whether these findings are generalizable to state legislative races. This analysis of itemized expenditure data for 583 primary and general election candidates in Texas and Kansas shows that state legislative campaigns differ dramatically from congressional campaigns in their methods of voter contact. In both primary and general election campaigns, state legislative candidates allocate a preponderance of their voter contact dollars to direct forms of contact, such as mailings and pamphlet distribution. However, some candidates do allocate resources to advertising in mass media. District-level features condition the choice more than do candidate type, level of expenditures, or electoral competition. Few recent studies have examined voter contact expenditures in state legislative campaigns in detail. Using spending data from campaigns in Texas and Kansas, this study addresses two types of question. First, how do state legislative candidates allocate their resources-what types of media do they rely on to deliver their message to voters? Do they spend higher proportions of their voter contact dollars on mass media or on more direct forms of contact, such as mailings and pamphlet distribution? Second, what factors influence these choices? I explore a number of explanations for spending patterns, including those related to the candidate, the campaign context, and the legislative district.