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It is well established that legislators from highly professionalized bodies are more likely to win reelection than members of less professionalized legislatures. We find that the effect of professionalization on incumbent electoral success is far more pervasive. As the level of professionalism of a legislature increases, the effects of external political and economic forces (such as coattails from higher level elections and national economic conditions) on a legislator's chances for reelection diminish in strength. This implies that legislative professionalization promotes institutionalization by establishing boundaries that insulate members from external shocks. We reach these conclusions by specifying and testing a district-level model of state legislative election outcomes, using as dependent variable the probability that an incumbent will win reelection. The model is estimated with probit using data for more than 42,000 state legislators from 1970 to 1989.

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There has been a lack of analysis of the consequences of divided government at the American state level. Past analyses tend to assume divided government results in gridlock. This article examines innovations in tax policy for the 50 states from 1960–1990 to test this assumption. Taking interparty competition into account, preliminary tests indicate that divided state governments, at least in the field of taxation, are capable of producing important legislation.