Instant Credibility: The Conditional Role of Professional Background in Policymaking Success

Abstract

For legislators without legislative experience, credibility can be vital to achieving legislative success, and expertise from one’s professional background is a highly plausible source of such credibility. For example, when legislating in policy areas directly related to one’s previous occupation, a legislator’s colleagues may perceive policy instruments as more informed by expertise rather than ideological preferences. In this paper, I focus on several questions related to the linkage between professional background and legislative success, and specifically, the ability to guide authored bills through the legislative process. First, does a match between a legislator’s professional background and the topic of legislation make that legislation more likely to advance in the legislative process? Second, if so, does the importance of professional background dissipate as length of legislative service increases? Third, does the relevance of professional background systematically differ across types of legislators and legislatures? I find strong evidence that having a relevant professional background does lead to legislative success for new members, but that this pattern persists later in the legislative career too. Moreover, I find that these patterns are especially strong for minority party legislators and in legislatures with higher levels of membership turnover.

The Consequences of Legislative Professionalism in U.S. State Legislatures: A Review

“…That said, professionalism as both a subject of research and legislative reform appears to be finding renewed interest among scholars and policy makers. For example, momentum is building among scholars to revisit its consequences given that: (1) states have become central to policy change and diffusion in light of gridlock at the national level and Supreme Court decisions pushing hot button issues back to the states (e.g., Dorrell and Jansa 2022; Kroeger, Karch, Callaghan 2022; LaCombe and Boehmke 2021; LaCombe, Tolbert, and Mossberger 2022; Makse 2022; Mallinson 2021); (2) the U.S. continues to experience transformational demographic shifts that raise questions about the relationship between institutions, such as legislative professionalism, and descriptive representation (e.g., Clark 2019); and (3) state legislatures’ attempts to reign in governors, especially after unprecedented growth in executive power during the coronavirus pandemic (e.g., Bolton and Thrower 2022; Cockerham 2021; Greenblatt 2021).…”

Institutional Attachments and Patterns of Ambition in State Legislatures

“…However, it is likely that term limits influence decisions prior to the year in which the limit is reached (Francis and Kenny 1997). Moreover, disentangling turnover and term limits is challenging since the two measures tend to be highly correlated (e.g., Makse 2022). in the online supporting information, we present alternative models solely including states without term limits.…”

The Economic Backgrounds of Politicians

“…Occupation is perhaps the most complex; in the larger literatures on stratification and social class, there are scores of systems for classifying occupations (and decades-long debates about which is preferable). In the literature on the economic backgrounds of politicians, scholars have often divided politicians into those from particular industries, like agriculture or financial services (Makse 2022), or those from distinct types of jobs, like business executives (Kirkland 2021) or workers (O'Grady 2018).…”