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Political Insulation and Legislative Interventions: The Impact of Rule Review

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2021

Sarah J. Poggione  and
Christopher Reenock
Sarah J. Poggione
Affiliation:
Ohio University
Christopher Reenock
Affiliation:
Florida State University
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Abstract

While previous work suggests that enacting coalitions' use of ex ante control devices shapes future legislatures' incentives to intervene in the bureaucracy, it is less clear how such insulation motivates individual legislators. We advance an individual-level account of how legislative rule review, a control device that structures an agency's insulation from political interference, differentially shapes legislators' preferences for direct and statutory intervention tactics. Using an original survey of U.S. state legislators, we find that insulation reduces the expected policy benefits of direct interventions, making these tactics less attractive to legislators. Moreover, to capitalize on more permeable agency design, legislators must have access to key resources. For statutory tactics, insulation has no effect on legislators' intervention preferences. Our findings suggest that insulation is a durable control device that casts a long shadow in protecting an enacting coalition's interest in agency affairs.

Type
Research Article
Information
State Politics & Policy Quarterly , Volume 9 , Issue 4 , Winter 2009 , pp. 456 - 485
Copyright
Copyright © 2009 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

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