The Effect of Initiative and Referenda Processes on the Size of.docVIP

The Effect of Initiative and Referenda Processes on the Size of Government Brooke Conaway Direct initiative and referenda processes vary in availability across states. These processes allow citizens to avoid the route of the legislature and propose and pass laws directly. Previous work by Matsusaka has looked at whether the availability of these processes has any effect on the size of state governments. His findings have varied depending on time period, as discussed in the following section. In this paper, his methodology is used to show how the recent size of state governments has been affected by the availability of initiative and referenda procedures. The following section reviews Matsusaka’s findings and the second section provides a description of the data used as well as empirical results. As shown, it seems that the time period of study is highly relevant when determining the effects of initiative and referenda processes on state government size. Section I Matsusaka’s first study looked at evidence of the initiative effect from 1960 to 1990 in 5 year increments. He noted that initiatives may be important for the following reasons. Because of legislative logrolling, or trading votes so that gains from trade between representatives are maximized, median voter preferences may be ignored. If logrolling is prevalent, initiatives may help voting outcomes to reflect true median voter outcomes. In addition, legislative agenda control may also prevent the median voter outcome, so it follows that less legislative agenda control will be in those states with initiatives. Theoretical reasoning also suggests that even if legislators are well-intentioned, there is a lack of information about constituent preferences. Even if legislators do not shirk, it is difficult for them to truly reflect median voter preferences. The evidence from Matsusaka’s first study revealed that states with the initiative have significantly lower spending than states without the