Should We Measure Professionalism with an Index? A Note on Theory and Practice in State Legislative Professionalism Research

Abstract

Legislative professionalism has played a prominent role in state politics research for decades. Despite the attention paid to its causes and consequences, recent research has largely set aside questions about professionalism's conceptualization and operationalization. Usually measuring it as an aggregate index, scholars theoretically and empirically treat professionalism as a unidimensional concept. In this article, we argue that exclusive use of aggregate indices can limit state politics research. Using a new dataset with almost 40 years of data on state legislative resources, salary, and session length, we reconsider the validity of using an index to study professionalism across the states. We evaluate the internal consistency of professionalism components over time, the relationship between components and the Squire Index, and the degree to which professionalism components are unidimensional using classical multidimensional scaling. We find enough commonality and enough variation between professionalism components to support a range of measurement strategies like the use of unidimensional indices (such as the Squire Index), disaggregating the components and analyzing their effects individually, or formulating multidimensional measures. Scholars should take care to choose the appropriate measure of the concept that best fits the causal relationships under examination. Legislative professionalism has occupied a central place in the study of state politics for over four decades. Few concepts in the field have received as much attention as the transformation of some state legislatures from "horse and buggy, 18th century anachronisms" (Mooney 1995, 47) to institutions of high capacity, equipped with financial resources and staff, full-time sessions, and attractive legislative compensation packages. The utility of legislative professionalism for the study of state politics is unquestionable; the process has been associated with a wide range of political outcomes including the degree and quality of legislative representation, public opinions about the legislature, state government spending, and various aspects of legislative careers, to mention only a few effects of the process (e.g.

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“…Recent research additionally stresses the importance of disaggregating professionalism indices when a single dimension is more appropriate for testing a particular theory (Bowen and Greene 2014). In our case, compensation is the relevant dimension.…”

“…24 As a general rule, executive salaries are higher than legislative, so these differences are almost always positive. Legislative salaries are larger than executive only in California, in 1999, 2005, and Pennsylvania, in 1990, and 1991 Biennial data is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.7910/DVN/27595 (Bowen and Greene 2014). We carried forward previous values to the second year of each biennium to create yearly data.…”

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“…To account for variation at the state level, we use the Bowen and Greene () measure of legislative professionalism, which matches well to the Squire measure (e.g., Squire, , ), but is available for more recent time periods. To control for the size of the population represented by a legislator, we use 2010 Census population of the state in tens of thousands divided by the size of the lower house .…”

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“…I also include a biennial session variable to account for Arkansas and Oregon, which switched from biennial to annual legislative sessions in 2009 and 2011, respectively. The salary, expenditures, and regular session length variables are based from Bowen and Greene (). The salary and expenditure measures are presented in the following regressions as the ratio of salary or expenditure to a state's personal income per capita in 2010.…”