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Previous research into place effects has provided mixed evidence about the effect of geography on public opinion. Much of the work finding a relationship is susceptible to methodological criticisms of spuriousness or endogeneity. In this paper, I leverage a unique research design to examine the influence of residential setting on environmental attitudes regarding water use. The findings indicate that local drought conditions increase individuals' level of concern about the nation's water supply. In addition, drought conditions are related to public attitudes toward water use regulation, with those living in drought-afflicted counties more likely to support government regulation. This study provides a firm foundation for research attempting to demonstrate that local conditions have a causal effect on public opinion. Does where one lives influence how one thinks about politics? Research into the role of personal experiences in opinion formation has provided surprisingly mixed answers (e.g., Sears and Funk 1991). Public opinion scholars have long observed that ordinary individuals' policy views are rarely determined by their own direct experiences, since most people do not connect their own personal circumstances to abstract, generalized patterns (Lane 1962). Even the most well-informed individuals, whose policy preferences are most likely to be informed by their own experiences, are less likely to generalize from these experiences to the national context (Mutz 1993).

While a large body of research exists regarding the role of industry money on roll-call voting in the U.S. Congress, there is surprisingly little scholarship pertaining to industry influence on state politics. This study fills this void in an analysis of campaign donations and voting during passage of Act 13 in Pennsylvania during 2011 and 2012. After collecting information about natural gas production in state legislative districts, we estimate a series of multivariate models aimed at uncovering whether campaign donations contributed to a more favorable policy outcome for industry. Our findings indicate that campaign donations played a small but systematic role in consideration of the controversial legislation, which represented one of the first and most important state-level regulatory reforms for the hydraulic fracturing industry.