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A Note on Legislative Research: Labor Representation in Rhode Island

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

Jay S. Goodman
Jay S. Goodman*
Affiliation:
Wheaton College, Massachusetts
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Extract

In the last ten years, an extensive and useful literature has developed on state legislative behavior. This paper reports on an exploratory study of three questions about state legislative processes: (1) What is the relationship between labor representation and legislative outcomes? (2) Are there measurable connections between a legislative role and perceptions of political events and relationships? (3) Does simultaneous individual association with labor and a legislative party result in measurable crosspressures? The responses of sixty-two Rhode Island activists provide the data. The research was designed to provide an empirical basis for comparisons of the perceptions of various participants.

The study utilized differentiated sets of legislators plus a set of interest group leaders. Labor legislators were Democratic legislators serving between 1952 and 1962 who, in their Rhode Island Manual biographies (for which they personally provided all the information), listed one of these associations with labor: official union position, union membership, or a source of livelihood in manual or crafts work. Fifteen of a universe of thirty were interviewed; the sample was weighted for legislative tenure. Rank and file Democratic legislators were legislators who served one or more terms in the General Assembly between 1952 and 1962, listed no association with labor in their biographies, and were not elected party leaders. Fifteen were sampled from a universe of one hundred twenty-three; the survey was weighted for legislative tenure. In addition, seven elected leaders, Democratic legislative leaders, were interviewed from a universe of ten. Labor executive board members were local union leaders between 1952 and 1962 who sat on the executive board of the Rhode Island AFL, CIO, or AFL-CIO (the product of a 1958 merger). Twenty-five were interviewed of a universe of sixty-one; the sample was weighted for terms on the board as well as to obtain the proper proportion from each group's pre-1958 governing structure. None served in the Assembly.

Type
Research Notes
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 61 , Issue 2 , June 1967 , pp. 468 - 473
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1967

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Footnotes

*

I am grateful to the Woodrow Wilson Foundation for the Dissertation Fellowship which allowed me a year of uninterrupted research, and to Elmer E. Cornwell, Jr., C. Peter Magrath, Raymond E. Wolfinger, John Sprague, David Conradt, and Arthur English, who were kind enough to read and comment upon this article in an earlier draft.

References

1 See, for example, Wahlke, John C.et al., The Legislative System (New York: Wiley, 1962)Google Scholar; Lockard, Duane, New England State Politics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1959)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Barber, James D., The Lawmakers: Recruitment and Adaptation to Legislative Life (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1965)Google Scholar; Steiner, Gilbert and Gove, Samuel, Legislative Politics in Illinois (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1960)Google Scholar; and Jewell, Malcolm, The State Legislature (New York: Random House, 1962)Google Scholar.

2 See MacRae, Duncan Jr., “The Role of the State Legislator in Massachusetts,” American Sociological Review, 19 (04, 1954), at p. 185CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Eulau, Heinzet al., “Career Perspectives of American State Legislators,” in Marvick, Dwaine (ed.), Political Decision Makers (Glencoe: The Free Press, 1961) pp. 237–238, 247Google Scholar; and Wahlke, John C.et al., “American State Legislators' Role Orientations Toward Pressure Groups,” Journal of Politics, 27 (05, 1960), at p. 212Google Scholar.

3 Zeller, Belle, American State Legislatures (New York: Crowell and Co., 1954), p. 72Google Scholar.

4 See Seligman, L. G., “Political Change: Legislative Elites and Parties in Oregon.” Western Political Quarterly, 17 (06, 1964), 177–187CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 “Organized Labor in Electoral Politics: Some Questions for the Discipline,” Western Political Quarterly, 16 (September, 1963), p. 666.

6 Ibid.

7 Wahlke, , “American State Legislators' Role Orientations,” op. cit., p. 203Google Scholar.

8 Ibid. p. 226.

9 Cf. Lockard, op. cit., pp. 217–218; and Jewell, op. cit., pp. 51–52.

10 Wahlke, , “American State Legislators' Role Orientations,” op. cit., p. 205Google Scholar.

11 Ibid., p. 206.

12 p. 333.

13 See Lazarsfeld, Paulet al.The People's Choice (New York; Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1944)Google Scholar, Chapter Six; and Campbell, Anguset al., The American Voter (New York: Wiley, 1960), pp. 86–88Google Scholar.

14 Political Life (New York: The Free Press, 1959), p. 203.

15 Ibid. Italics added.

16 The Governmental Process (New York: Knopf, 1951), p. O. Italics added.

17 The Congressional Party (New York: Wiley, 1959), p. 95.

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