The Role of Constituency, Party, and Industry in Pennsylvania's Act 13. (June 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Bishop, Bradford H.; Dudley, Mark R.
• Is Part Of: State politics & policy quarterly. Volume 17:Number 2(2017:Jun.)
• Page Start: 154
• Page End: 179
• Publication Date: 2017-06
• Subjects: interest groups and elections -- political behavior -- parties in legislatures -- parties and interest groups -- political action committees -- legislative behavior -- legislative politics -- roll-call voting -- lobbying -- environmental policy -- public policy; State governments -- United States -- Periodicals; Political planning -- United States -- States -- Periodicals; Gouvernements d'États fédérés -- États-Unis -- Périodiques; Politique publique -- États-Unis -- États -- Périodiques; 320.97305
• DOI: 10.1177/1532440016674249
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1532-4400

Abstract

While a large body of research exists regarding the role of industry money on roll-call voting in the U.S. Congress, there is surprisingly little scholarship pertaining to industry influence on state politics. This study fills this void in an analysis of campaign donations and voting during passage of Act 13 in Pennsylvania during 2011 and 2012. After collecting information about natural gas production in state legislative districts, we estimate a series of multivariate models aimed at uncovering whether campaign donations contributed to a more favorable policy outcome for industry. Our findings indicate that campaign donations played a small but systematic role in consideration of the controversial legislation, which represented one of the first and most important state-level regulatory reforms for the hydraulic fracturing industry.