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Measuring State House Speakers' Formal Powers, 1981–2010

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2021

Christopher Z. Mooney
Christopher Z. Mooney*
Affiliation:
University of Illinois, Springfield, IL, USA
*
Christopher Z. Mooney, Institute of Government and Public Affairs, One University Plaza, PAC 451, University of Illinois, Springfield, IL 62703-5407, USA. Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

The cross-sectional variation among state legislative leaders' formal powers provides a unique opportunity to test a variety of hypotheses of the American legislative process that involve the causes and effects of these powers. But to date, measures of these powers have been developed primarily for single years or biennia, limiting their applicability, especially for drawing causal conclusions. In this note, I develop an index of state House speakers' formal powers for each biennia from 1981 to 2010 (for even-year-election states) and from 1982 to 2009 (for odd-year-election states).

Keywords

parties in legislaturesparties and interest groupslegislative politicsmeasurementlegislative leadershiplegislative behavior
Type
Research Article
Information
State Politics & Policy Quarterly , Volume 13 , Issue 2 , June 2013 , pp. 262 - 273
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2012

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