PRELIMINARY DRAFT: Please do not distribute without author’sI. Professionalism and Government Growth: A Theory of LegislCartel Builders and Ombudsmen to the BureaucracyII. Professionalism and Government Growth: An Empirical TestIn addition to developing a theory of state legislative profModelFollowing previous empirical studies of professionalization Hence, the empirical model for the Series One panel analysisPit = (0 + (1Pi0 + (2Bi + (3Ci+ (4Si+ (Xi+ (iPit = (0 + (1Pit-1 + (2Bi + (3Ci+ (4Si+ (Xi+ (iMeasuring ProfessionalismDependent Variables: Operationalizing the HypothesesControl Variables: The “Willful Policy” ApproachIII. ResultsIV. ConclusionAPPENDIX: Measurement of Variables and Sources of DataNotesPRELIMINARY DRAFT: Please do not distribute without author’s permission Bureaucracies and Budgets: Government Growth and Professionalism in U.S. State Legislatures Neil Malhotra Department of Political Science Stanford University ABSTRACT This paper analyzes the determinants of professionalization in American state legislatures since the 1960s. I develop four hypotheses relating changes in professionalism to changes in two measures of government growth: bureaucracy size and expenditure levels. A panel analysis of state-level data reveals two major trends that occurred during the 1970s. First, increases in professionalism are inversely related to bureaucratic growth since agency expansion is most likely to occur in states where the legislature is unable to provide effective oversight. Second, professionalization is directly related to increases in social services spending since legislators need to devote more time to their jobs as their facilitation duties expand. 1In his seminal article on the institutionalization of the U.S. House of Representatives, Polsby (1968, 164) links legislative development to the size of government: “As the responsibilities of the national government grew, as a larger proportion of the national economy was affected by decisions taken at the center, the agencies of the national government institutionalized.” In addition to begetting institutionalization, the growth of government also made Congress a more professional body.1 Salaries, session lengths, and legislative resources all dramatically increased after the Second World War. In order to deal with the increasing role of government in the economy, members of Congress needed to devote more time to their jobs and required more resources at their disposal. This paper attempts to determine if similar patterns existed at the subnational level after states gained more fiscal authority over budgets and taxation in the 1960s. I draw upon diverse theories from the Congress and federal bureaucracy literatures to answer the following question: Can changes in the professionalization of state legislatures since the 1960s be explained by measures of government growth such as bureaucracy size and expenditure levels? Determining the causes of legislative professionalization in the states is an important research question given that professionalism has been used as an independent variable to explain myriad political outcomes including: divided government and partisan composition (Fiorina 1994; Squire 1997; Stonecash and Agathangelou 1997), interest group activity (Berkman 2001), membership diversity (Squire 1992), policy responsiveness (Maestas 2000), gubernatorial effectiveness (Dilger, Krause, and Moffett 1995), incumbent reelection (Berry, Berkman, and Schneiderman 2000), congressional candidacies (Berkman 1993; Berkman 1994; Berkman and Eisenstein 1999), and 2membership stability (Squire 1988). There is a need to develop our understanding of why state legislatures have become more professional, a phenomenon that has had an impact on various aspects of state government ranging from public policy outputs to election results. However, there exist only a few studies that have analyzed the determinants of professionalism. Previous research has attempted to explain the tendency towards professionalization from various methodological angles. Historians point to the pressure imposed by reform advocates who saw the state chambers as ineffectual and unable to deal with the needs of the citizenry.2 In contrast, legal scholars principally attribute the trend towards professionalism to the Supreme Court’s decisions in Baker v. Carr (1962) and Reynolds v. Sims (1964), which diminished malapportionment (and consequently the power of rural regions to keep legislatures unprofessionalized).3 However, more recent studies by political scientists (King 2000; Mooney 1995) argue that professionalization is a willful policy output. In other words, a legislature decides to professionalize in the same way it decides to pass health care, education, or economic policies. Consequently, these scholars look to the variables of the state policy literature in building their empirical models. According to this approach, economic factors, social and demographic trends, institutional structures, and the policies of neighboring states best explain the increase of professionalism since 1960 (Berry and Berry 1990; Gray 1973). While professionalism may indeed be a strategic choice, there are two main deficiencies with previous empirical tests of the “willful policy” theory. First, simply borrowing the explanatory variables of state policy studies may be insufficient. While there may exist relationships between professionalization and broad socioeconomic 3indicators (e.g. population, heterogeneity, wealth), they may be confounded by more subtle institutional features. As a result, the findings of previous studies of professionalization by political scientists may be spurious. Second, “willful policy” explanations fail to provide a political mechanism linking state characteristics to professionalism. If professionalism is truly a policy output, then it is necessary to consider the strategic decisions of the legislature as well as its interaction with other government branches. This study attempts to advance our understanding of professionalism in state legislatures by building and testing theories of institutional development based upon previous work on Congress and the American bureaucracy. By considering the legislature’s strategic response to changes in the bureaucracy and budgets, this paper strives to remedy the two main shortcomings of the “willful policy” approach. Underlying