Punishing the Statehouse for the Sins of Congress: Displaced Anger and State Government Performance Ratings.

Throughout the 1990s, citizens have used the initiative process to limit the behavior of their state legislatures. In several states, these initiatives have led to term limitations for state legislators (e.g., Arkansas, Ohio, Michigan). In other states, voters have chosen to limit the number of days legislators can meet in any given year (e.g., Colorado) and have cut legislative budgets, staffs, and pension benefits (e.g., California). It would seem that the public very much dislikes those occupying their statehouses. In this paper we investigate whether the public's punitive actions against state legislatures are the result of actual state-level conditions or whether the public is displacing their anger and disapproval of Congress onto their state legislative bodies. Early in the term limitation movement several states attempted to term limit their Congressional representatives as well as their state legislative representatives. The Supreme Court quickly ruled that term limiting members of Congress was unconstitutional, but upheld the term limiting of state legislators. Are citizens punishing their Statehouses for the sins of the Congress? Using a variety of available public opinion, policy, and institutional measures, we seek to understand the extent to which citizen disapproval of state legislative performance is related to feelings about Congress. We find only limited evidence that the public displaces their anger, and more support for the idea that they transfer their pleasure with Congress to state actors. There seems to be little association between negative ratings of Congress and punitive ballot measures at the state level, but improved Congressional ratings seem to lead to the passage of fewer restrictive measures at the state level, as well as the proposal and passage of more measures expanding state power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]