ABSTRACT

Citizens lobby state legislators about policy issues frequently. Political science research holds conflicting findings regarding the efficacy of grass-roots lobbying messages; some studies find that legislators ignore lobbying by constituents that they do not agree with (Butler et al., 2012), while others find that legislators act based on the cost constituents bear. In environments where the costs of contacting legislators are flattened (Cluverius, 2017), trust becomes the primary heuristic that legislators use to process information. Information processing requires resources: time, pay, and staff for legislators to better understand the information they are receiving. I use a series of interviews and free-text survey responses to evaluate how these resources affect how legislators view grass-roots lobbying messages. I find that legislators with longer sessions are less influenced by grass-roots lobbying, that legislative staff make legislators more likely to be influenced, and that legislator pay has no meaningful effects on legislator influence.

摘要

公民经常游说州立立法机构讨论政策问题。政治学研究在基层游说信息的功效方面存在矛盾的发现；一些研究发现，立法者忽略了他们不同意的选民的游说（Butler等人，2012），而另一些研究发现，立法者则基于选民承担的成本行事。在与立法者联系的成本降低的环境中（Cluverius，2017），信任成为立法者用于处理信息的主要试探法。信息处理需要资源：时间，工资和人员，以使立法者更好地了解他们所接收的信息。我使用一系列访谈和自由文本调查回复来评估这些资源如何影响立法者如何看待基层游说信息。