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Descriptive Representation, Legislative Leadership, and Direct Democracy: Latino Influence on English Only Laws in the States, 1984-2002

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2021

Robert R. Preuhs
Robert R. Preuhs*
Affiliation:
University of Colorado at Boulder
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Abstract

How does minority racial and ethnic descriptive representation exert policy influence in majoritarian representative institutions? And how do nonrepresentative majoritarian institutions, such as the citizen initiative, affect the degree of this influence? I use an event history analysis of state adoption of English Only laws from 1984 to 2002 to test a model of minority policy influence that is exerted through the possession of state legislative leadership positions. Unlike previous studies, I find that the size of the minority population and the level of descriptive representation in the legislature exert only an indirect effect on legislative policy decisions. Furthermore, the majoritarian rules of the initiative undermine the policy influence minorities gain through legislative leadership and can actually lead to a policy backlash.

Type
Research Article
Information
State Politics & Policy Quarterly , Volume 5 , Issue 3 , Fall 2005 , pp. 203 - 224
Copyright
Copyright © 2005 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

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