States Politics Quiz #3

Two Dimensions of Public Opinion

• Preferences “do you prefer A or B”

• Intensity “how much do you care whether its A or B”

  • how much weight voters might put on different issues

Why is Public Opinion Important?

• In a democracy, public opinion is hopefully translated into action in the government

• Elections are effective tools for doing this

• Knowing what people think about specific issues:

  • Lets politicians hone their agendas and appeals

  • Teaches us about preferences of people with different characteristics

  • Gives us a sense of voter satisfaction

Measuring Public Opinions

• “Public opinion polls” - surveys to members of the public

  • Measurement issues

    • Question structure - questions can be leading, unclear, measuring multiple things

    • Most questions can’t accurately capture intensity of preferences

    • Questions may not elicit accurate pictures of voter preferences

      • ex. Not identifying identity within group that may affect the relationship trying to be examined (Evangelical vs. born-again)

  • Sampling issues

    • Can’t poll everyone

    • Most use “simple random sample”

      • Weight survey respondents on observable characteristics

Measuring Public Opinion: Sampling Issues

• Population: group of people we’d like to know something about

• Sampling frame: targeted group who we try to sample from

• Sample: the group of people who ultimately respond

• Can’t generally get a random sample, we re-weight on observables

  • Assumes those who responded aren’t different from those who didn’t

Measuring State Public Opinion

• Too expensive to run state-specific surveys

• Number of respondents for nationally representative survey won’t have enough people in some states to make meaningful inferences about sub-national public opinion

• MRP: multiple-level regression and post-stratification)

  • Tool used by social scientists to estimate public opinion as a function of 1) respondent place and 2) respondent characteristics, and then create estimates of sub-national public opinion by taking those estimates and applying them to place demographics, etc.

Responsiveness vs. Congruence

• Congruent: legislators and constituents think the same thing/legislators act in accordance with preferences of constituents

• Responsiveness: asks whether changes in constituent preferences correspond to changes in legislative action

  • Across time (dynamic responsiveness)

  • Across districts at one time

Measuring Responsiveness

• Correlation measures “strength” of a relationship

  • not as informative as other estimators

• Simple linear regression

  • Y = a + Bx + e

    • a = Captures ‘“bias”

    • B = Captures “responsiveness”

Measuring Variables on the Same/Different Scales

• To measure congruence, we generally need measures of 1) constituent preferences and 2) legislator action on the same scale, but voters don’t take roll call votes and legislators don’t take surveys, so it’s hard to have ways to compare

Common Work-Arounds

• Focus on responsiveness rather than congruence

• Focus on whether responsiveness is greater than 0

• Cannot establish what normatively optimal level of responsiveness or “bias” is when variables are on different scales

Federalism and Public Opinion

• The complex system of federalism in the U.S. makes it hard to know which system of government to hold accountable, so public opinion might blame the wrong people/department

• Attributing blame: media shifted public opinion of timing of Katrina relief being the fault of the state as opposed to the national government

• Attributing errors: voters punish presidents fro local tax raises, which they have no jurisdiction over

Devin & Warshaw 2018

• Find adaptation (driven primarily by elected officials’ anticipation voter sanctions) by re-election motivated incumbents as opposed to partisan selection (the election of candidates of one party rather than the other) is more important to state policy responsiveness

What is Fiscal Policy?

Taxing and spending

How is Fiscal Policy Made?

Through state budget process

• Governors submit budgets

• Legislatures craft budgets

• Passed and signed as a bill/bills

  • 30 states budget annually

  • 20 states budget bi-annually

Polarization and Passing Budgets

• No effects on whether the budget will pass in time; however, does extend delays when budget is already late

How Do States Make Money?

• Taxes

• Federal Transfers

• Fees

Taxes

• Personal income tax

• Sales tax

• Not property tax (usually)

• Earmarked taxes

• Others

Personal Income Tax

• When you pay a proportion of your income to the state

• States vary wildly in the ways that they do income taxes

  • some have none

  • some have a flat or near-flat tax

  • some have a federal government-like progressive income taxes

Progressive vs. Flat vs. Regressive Taxes

• A flat tax taxes all income at the same rate

• A progressive tax taxes higher income at a higher rate

  • Almost always all income not taxed at higher rate, all income over a certain a certain threshold taxed at a higher rate

State Sales Tax

• Most states have a sales tax

• The extra tax added on when you buy something

• Varies by state in two important dimensions

  • what is subject to sales tax

  • sales tax rate

• Sales tax considered among most regressive taxes

  • wealthy aren’t spending all of their money on stuff while less wealthy people do

Property Taxes

• Taxes paid on owned property (usually real estate)

• Almost always property taxes are local taxes, paid to the city or county for local things

• Some states also tax non-real estate property, such as cars or other motorized things

Earmarked (or Excise) Taxes

Some taxes are specifically targeted toward providing public goods associated with the tax’s substantive area

• gas taxes for road maintenance

• many states also earmark gambling taxes

Fees

• States also collect a variety of point-of-use fees

  • state park entry fees

  • DMV registration fees

  • copying fees at state archives

  • tolls on highways

Federal Government and State Fiscal Policy

• Very considerable portion of state’s budget comes from the federal government

• Federal spending represents ¼ to 1/3 of state budgets, and 15% of the federal budget

Bonds

• States must have balanced budgets (can’t run deficits)

• States can issue municipal bonds, which are a type of debt (people buy them, and get interest payments over time)

• Long-term debt issued to pay for concrete infrastructure projects (different than federal debt which is simply the federal government spending more than it has)

What Do States Spend Money On?

• Medicaid/CHIP

• Education

• Transportation

• Corrections

• Other Stuff

Intergovernmental Transfers

• Inter-governmental transfer can be money between any two governments

• States spend money on sending money to local governments

• Transfers provide states with a means of control over local governments with money

• A fair amount of state “spending” is actually done through transfers to local government (like education spending)

Types of State Budgets

• Operating Budgets: The price of ongoing governmental operations

  • Usually require simple majority

• Capital Budgets: About physical items, usually one-time things like highways and bridges

  • States can only go into debt for capital budgets

  • Usually require extraordinary majority

• General Fund: around 1/3 to half of the total budget which accounts for discretionary spending

  • Nondiscretionary funds are monies that are locked in and required to be spent on specific programs or times (federal aid)

State Budget Cycles

• Usually go from July 1 to June 30th of the following year

• Most states have legislative sessions that begin in January and run three or four month

  • A few states operate full time and others every other year

• Budgeting begins one year early, sometimes causing chaos in unforeseen circumstances (like 2009 Great Recession)

• Some states have bi-annual budget cycles, as they believe it states greater budget certainty and ability to engage in long-range decision making, but makes it more susceptible to error

State Balanced Budget Requirements

• All states require a balanced operating budget, with variable enforcement mechanisms

State Tax Limits or Spending Mandates

• Tax and Expenditure Limitations (TELs)

  • Proposition 13 - put strict limit on property tax increases

  • Certain percentage of the state budget be dedicated to a specific expenditure, such as schools

  • Especially prevalent in states that permit the direct initiative

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009

• Federal government provided generous infusion of federal funds to help states weather storm of Great Recession

  • Example of fiscal federalism

  • Unlike ARRA, most federal aid is ongoing, composed of annual transfer of money from fed gov to state or local gov with specific conditions and guidelines

What Do States Do in Education Policy?

• Set standards

• Distribute funds

• Monitor performance

• Delegate power to local government

• Fund and regulate higher education

Standards and Regulations

• State governments are in change of setting requirements for who gets to be a teacher

• Generally speaking this involves:

  • requiring certification from an approved program

  • some sort of test

  • degree requirement

  • states primary entity in charge of setting public school curricula

  • establish minimum standards for graduation, required coursework for different subjects, required testing, etc.

States Distribute Funds in Education Policy

• Funding for public schools comes from:

  • Federal government (usually in grant form)

  • State government

  • Local government

• More than 80% of total funding comes from state + local sources

• Local funding is often thought as primary source of school funding

  • will be a higher share of school district revenue where property taxes provide more money

  • Could be from either 1) higher property values or 2) higher tax rates

• Roughly even split between state and local sources

State Funds in Education Policy

• States funds will represent a higher share of school district revenues where local sources are insufficient

• States have a set of rules/formulas that attempt to equalize per-pupil spending across school districts

  • minimum per-pupil spending

  • additional spending for lower-income students, ELL, special education, size, etc.

  • formulas vary dramatically by state

Monitor Performance

• States set performance benchmarks

• No Child Left Behind (2002) somewhat federalizes standards

  • still up to states to determine standards

  • but federal law required increased standardized testing and monitoring

  • tied federal funding to make a certain amount of progress

• Common Core

  • 41 states ultimately adopt at least some of these

  • supposed to be a cross-state benchmark

Delegate Power to Local Government in Education Policy

• School districts are the creation of state governments, so ultimately most authority for public education lies with states

School Choice

• Charter schools - allowing students to attend public schools other than that which they’re districted for

• Magnet schools - specialized, theme-based schools

  • Often intended to facilitate diversification and desegregations

  • Generally quite selective, not guaranteed admission

• Intra- and inter-district open enrollement

Standards and Regulation - Charter Schools

• Charter schools are public schools that receive public funds

• Operate outside the traditional public school system, under a contract with a sponsoring entity

• Generally charter schools are not subject to many of the regulations required for other public schools

Higher Education

• States create and fund public universities and colleges

  • structure: under a governing board that receive its authority from the state government, may vary in independence, and can coordinate across “systems” or be for a specific “system”

    • Can have wide-ranging power from selecting leadership, setting standards, shaping programs, setting policies; generally governor key player

  • affirmative action: policy of favoring individuals belonging to groups known to have been discriminated against previously

    • University of California vs. Bakke (1978): Supreme Court upheld affirmative action, but struck down strict racial quotes; struck down in 1996, upheld in 2003

    • Banned in California (Prop 209) and Florida (“One Florida”)

• Factors shaping states funding of higher education:

  • ideological commitments

  • importance of university to state economy

  • tuition factors

  • economic conditions

Berry 2008

• Increasing number of overlapping governments result in “overfishing” from the shared tax base, reducing efficiency

Racial Bias in Criminal Justice

Black and Brown people more likely to be stopped by the police, and thus more lily to appear in criminal/police databases

Origins of Felon Voting Rights

• Disenfranchisement as retribution for committing a crime and as a deterrent to future criminal behavior

• States began to incorporate such provisions in their constitutions in the late eighteenth century; implicitly permanently

Felon Voting Rights in Florida

• 2018 Florida voters approve Amendment 4 to end felon disenfranchisement

• In June 2019 Gov. DeSantis signs SB 7066 to require payment of legal financial obligations (LFOs) before reinstatement of voting rights

• Federal district court finds SB 7066 unconstitutional in part; circuit court vacates ruling

Legal Financial Obligations (LFOs)

• Court costs, fines, restitution to victims

• Some states require these (or more) to be paid in full before voting rights can be restored

• Processes for determining eligibility can be tough

• Disproportionately affects those with public defenders and black people

Cohodes & Parham 2021

• Charter schools in urban areas boost student test scores (particularly minority and low income students’ test scores), lessen risky behavior, and leads to higher college enrollment

• Teacher are less qualified and more likely to leave the profession than traditional public school teachers

• Can have small competitive impacts in neighboring schools

• Appear to induce a small financial impact for district, in the short term

State vs. Federal Judiciary

• Whether a case ends up in state vs federal court depends on whether you broke a state or federal law

• Most laws broken are state laws (robbery, drunk driving, hunting without a license) and end up in state court

• Federal judiciary has jurisdiction over cases where US is a party, crimes on federal land, violations of constitution, bankruptcy, maritime, and federal laws (mail fraud)

Committing Crimes in States

• States vary in the things that they consider crimes. Affected by:

  • states values/morality/public opinion

    • some state laws are a function of state public opinion about what is “moral”

  • circumstances in states

    • maybe drug overdoses are more of a problem? particular wildlife needs protecting? could also be historical circumstance

Who Arrests You For Crimes?

• “Law enforcement” serve the state directly

• Local law enforcement still draw their authority from state government indirectly

Types of State and Local Law Enforcement

• State Bureaus of Investigation: plainclothes investigative agencies; like the FBI for states

• State Police/State Troopers: highway patrol, investigative functions, state government, protecting football coaches, etc.

• Sheriffs: county level, county jail, police unincorporated areas, judicial functions, etc.

• Police: municipality level

Sentencing Practices

• The “default” is that judges decide on sentences, within the bounds set by statutes

• Some states have begun to adopt uniform system of “sentencing guidelines” in the last 40 years

• In addition to criminalizing different behaviors, states also hand down different sentences for similar crimes

State Corrections Facilities

• Once you’ve committed a crime (usually defined by state), been arrested by (usually state) law enforcement office, been sentenced by a state judge, you get sent to state prison

What Do Corrections Institutions Look Like?

• Either cabinet-level director, or a board to oversee the department of corrections at the top (clear role for governor)

Prison Locations by State

• Prison gerrymandering: counting prisoners as living at the prison has the consequence of inflating rural populations and diminishing urban ones

Private Prisons

• Some states contract out prison services to private, for-profit companies with the idea they can provide higher quality goods at a lower cost (8%)

• Private prison population seems to be going down

Roles of States in Mass Incarceration

• States account for the vast majority of the prison population

• The US prison population has increased dramatically

• Ballooning expenditure on corrections by the state

• Larger amounts of prison & jail sentences for drug related offenses

• Democratic governors are incentivized to become more punitive and carceral when they are electorally vulnerable, outspending and out incarcerating their republican counterparts to compete

Meredith & Morse 2015

• Ex-felons’ voter turnout increased after 2005, when their voting rights were automatically restored after their sentence instead of having to apply to the governor. After this was reinstated in 2011, the voter turnout of ex-felons against decreased. Ex-felon voter turnout is also affected by disenfranchisement by misinformation.

State Jurisdiction Over Health Policy

• Health policy falls cleanly under the “reserve clause”

  • little in the constitution’s enumerated powers related to anything like health

What Do States Do in Health Policy?

• Insurance

• Public Health

• Regulation

States: Insurance

• States are the major players in Medicaid

• CHIP (child health insurance program) also administered by states for children from lower-income families

• States have huge discretion in how these things are implements; funded jointly by states and federal matching funds

Federal Involvement in Health Care

Medicare:

• Funded almost exclusively by federal government

• For the elderly, folks with end-stage diseases, and long-term disability

Medicaid:

• Joint funding by states and federal government

• Administered by states

• Primarily for low-income folks (esp. kids, elderly, disabled)

Access to Health Care

• Health insurance through a government program

• Receive health insurance as a benefits package through their employer

  • Built through WWII, when empowers began using healthcare to attract especially women, when Stabilization Act prohibited them from raising wages

• Pay for health insurance themselves

• Go uninsured

States’ Role Before the ACA

• Regular insurers: especially requiring certain coverage be provided by insurers

• Run Medicaid in the state:

  • federal minimums for requirement (generally a function of child/not child + income relative to poverty level)

  • states provide much funding, set requirements

Affordable Care Act and Insurance Availability

• Changed health insurance availability

• Change health insurance coverage requirements

• Expansion of medicaid eligibility to 133% of the poverty rate

• Creation of exchanges and marketplaces where folks can directly buy insurance plans

Affordable Care Act and Coverage Requirements

• Children covered until 26 instead of 18/end of college

• No denial of coverage to those with pre-existing conditions

• Definition of “essential health benefits” that must be covered

• Individual mandate: requirement that everyone have health insurance

ACA and State Politics

• Debate over ACA is about relationship between state governments and the federal government when it comes to health policy

  • ACA encroaches on states’ traditional discretion when it comes to Medicaid

  • ACA encroaches on states’ traditional ability to regulate insurers

Public Health in the States

• Behavior modification programs: smoking reduction, obesity reduction, etc.

• Direct public health interventions: testing programs, needle exchanges, etc.pandemic preparedness/response

• Licensure for health care professionals

• Regulating health insurers (setting requirements)

Structure of State Health Institutions

• State department, with cabinet-level head and subordinates

• local/county departments - tagged by state/local employees

• Varying levels of centralization vs. decentralization

Public Health Orders

• State law allows for governors to declare states of emergency

  • Executive order or proclamation

• Declarations might:

  • remove need for licensure for out of state doctors

  • free up stockpiles of supplies

  • allow the governor to spend from an emergency fund

Scheberle 2013

• Preemption of federal law in environmental policy

• Environmental programs implemented by local governments and special districts

• Fight in who has ultimate jurisdiction over environmental policy

• Grants-in-aid, with federal making mandates with little financial support

• Trend of programs delegated to the states

  • Anti-comandeering - Congress can act but not compel

• Federal grant-in-aid, with categorical and infrastructure funds mainly used to fund environmental policy. However, state expenditures keep raising, unlike federal grants

Woods 2020

• “No More Stringent” (NMS) laws that limit the ability for states to make laws that are more stringent than the minimum standard established by federal law

• States create NMS laws to gain a competitive a competitive advantage over other sates int he change for mobile capital

  • Policy competition from broad nMS laws in other states

  • Cost competition when state imposes high environmental compliance costs relative to its peers

Dimensions of Environmental Policy

• Preservation

• Pollution Prevention

• Climate Change & Resource Management

Preservation of State Parks

• State parks provide an analogous way to protect areas of environmental, cultural, or recreational signification that aren’t national park worthy

• Transition from ad hoc to institutionalized park systems, with creation of NPS serving as guide

• National Conference of State Parks starts in 1921

  • preservation, reforestation, soil conservation, recreation, tourism, take pressure off national parks, etc.

• State parks are not a cabinet position

Preservation: Environmental Impact Reviews

• Federal government passes National Environmental Policy Act (1969) to require review of environmental impact before engaging in federal projects, number of states require the same

Pollution Prevention: Federal Level

• EPA established by Executive Order in 1970

• Clear Water Act (1977) allows EPA to regulate dumpling of pollutants into water sources

• The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) (1980) regulates and provides funding for cleanup of hazardous waste sites

• etc.

Pollution Prevention: State Level

• States have an organization dedicated to pollution prevention/environmental protection

• EPA generally works through state and local agencies to monitor compliance with regulations and laws

• Large part is act as enforcement agents for the federal EPA

• States can adopt their own laws aimed at pollution prevention and other environmental goals

Resource Management and Climate Change: Theory

• Resource management and climate change can both be thought of through the lens of tragedy of the common, where a common-pool resource gets over-used bc nobody has individual incentives to moderate usage

  • States as the agents who are over-consuming

  • As regulators seeking to address these problems

Politics of Environmental Policy: Executive Branch

• Executive has reasonably strong power in this area as overseer of state bureaucracy

• Means of exerting influence

  • appointments of subsequent influence

  • proposing laws/budgets

  • executive orders (Book of the States)

Thompson et al. 2020

• Universal vote-by-mail does not affect either party’s share of turnout r either party’s vote shares, resembling in-person elections

Barreto et al. 2018

• Voter ID laws disenfranchise ethnic minority voters, who are less likely to have a valid ID

States and Election Administration

• Election administration has historically been a state-dominated policy area

• Federal “encroachments” at times have occurred to protect civil rights, but ultimately a state policy area

State and Elections at the Founding

• In constitution:

  • Qualification to vote for the house: based on state rules

  • Vacancies in house to be filled by writ of election from state executive

• Pre-Civil War

  • Expansion of voting rights to unpropertied white man

  • Simultaneous retraction of voting rights for African Americans

  • Women’s right to vote in NJ taken away

• Reconstruction Acts (1867)

  • Place explicit conditions on southern states’ readmission to the union

  • Require “manhood suffrage” that all men can vote included in the constitution

• 15th Amendment

• Williams vs. Mississippi (1898): Mississippi disfranchising laws were upheld

• Smith vs. Allwright (1944): Declares white primaries unconstitutional

• 24th Amendment (1964): prohibits poll taxes in elections for federal officials

• Women right to vote in Wyoming (1869)

  • Slow increase

• 19th Amendment in 1920

• Voting Rights Act (1965)

  • prohibits racial discrimination in elections

  • “coverage formula”

  • limited to explicit racial discrimination, extended to account for de facto discrimination

• Shelby v. Holder (2013) holds coverage formula unconstitutional bc it doesn’t fit modern circumstances

• Brnovich vs DNC (2021) weakens section 2 of VRA by laying out conditions that might be used to evaluate claims

Calculus of Voting

V = PB - C + D

• V = proxy for probability the voter will turn out

• P = probability of vote mattering

• B = utility benefit from voting (different benefit bw one candidate or the other)

• C = costs of voting

• D = citizens duty, goodwill feeling, psychological and civic benefit

Wait Times and Elections

• Line length corresponds with race

• Long lines discourage subsequent voting

Shelby v. Holder (2013)

• 2010: Shelby County AL files suit in federal district court asking for Sec 5 of VRA to be declared unconstitutional

• DC Circuit upholds constitutionality

• DC Court of Appeals upholds constitutionality

• 2013: Supreme Court holds Sec 4(b) of VRA (“coverage formula”) is unconstitutional as currently construed

• Argument: no evidence of discrimination recently, so no need

• No more need for pre clearance for south counties with histories of discrimination

Vote by Mail

• Absentee Voting: vote cast by person who has been permitted to vote by mail

• No-Excuse Absentee Voting: The same, but without requirement to prove legitimate absence from the jurisdiction of election day

• Early voting: a system for voting that allows folks to cast votes ahead of election day

• Vote-by-Mail: voting by mail

• Universal Vote-by-Mail: system whereby every registered voter is mailed a ballot in advance and expected to return it via the mail

History of Voter ID Laws

• South Carolina becomes first state to ask for ID when voting in 1950

• Hawaii, Texas, Florida, and Alaska follow

• 14 states by 2000

• 2005 Commission on Federal Election Reform report recommends states adopt some form of Voter ID

  • state level registration lists

  • restoring voting rights to ex-felons

  • voting machine security and clear audit procedures

  • greater independence and non-partisan-ness of state election administration

• Indiana and Georgia pioneer modern Voter ID laws, use accelerates

Types of Voter ID Laws

• No ID requested

• Type of ID:

  • with picture

  • without picture

• Strict vs. Non-strict

  • strict: ID required, have to cast provisional ballot

  • non-strict: ID requested, alternative means possible

Do Voter ID Laws Matter

• limited evidence Voter ID laws matter for turnout on average

• if they matter, they disproportionately affect minorities

• possible counteractive effect of voter mobilization