Interest groups are an important influence in the subnational policymaking process. Previously, environmental policy scholars measured the strength of environmental groups in the American policymaking subnational process by using proxies like state-level group membership in major nationwide environmental organizations (e.g., Sierra Club). Although these prior measures of group strength have face validity, recent scholarship suggests that the utilization of group financial resources is a better measure of the influence of interest groups in state-level models. We take this approach and provide a new way to measure state-level environmental interests by using aggregated financial information (income and assets) from Internal Revenue Service (IRS) data obtained via the National Center for Charitable Statistics (NCCS). This measure provides several advantages over previous approaches because it varies over time, is derived from easily accessible public data, includes a greater diversity of environmental organizations, and it is considered reliable by prior scholars. We demonstrate its empirical value by deploying our measure in a model of state policy adoption. We encourage researchers to further utilize this new measure in their analysis of environmental advocacy at the subnational level.

Can racial primes influence support for public expressions of religion? While a growing body of research demonstrates correlations between racial attitudes and support for public religion among White Americans, experimental tests of subconscious connections between the two concepts have been lacking. We utilize a novel survey experiment to prime racial considerations, and we find that Black racial primes raise support for Christian nationalism and civil religion among White Americans, compared to White racial primes. Moreover, our analysis indicates that these effects are attributable to racial animus, namely the evaluation that Black Americans are not prototypical members of the national community. The findings suggest that the preference for a Christian/religious America and a White America are subconsciously interwoven for many White Americans, providing the first experimental evidence, to our knowledge, of this relationship.

In 2017, transgender woman Danica Roem stunned political observers in Virginia by unseating a long-time anti-LGBTQ legislator from a conservative district in the Virginia House of Delegates.1 She was the first openly transgender person elected and seated to a state legislature. Delegate Roem’s election was historic in LGBTQ political representation, but it also occurred in a period when backlash against the LGBTQ community seemed to be growing (Taylor, Lewis, and Haider-Markel 2018). These two threads led us to ask: How are LGBTQ candidates achieving historic successes even as forces seem mobilized against them?

Attempts to assess the influence of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) groups on LGBT-related policy are hampered by imprecise measurement of LGBT group strength and activity. This research note examines the problems with existing measures of state-level LGBT advocacy strength and it develops an alternative measure of LGBT advocacy group strength. We utilize revenue and asset data available from the National Center for Charitable Statistics to develop better and reproducible state-level measures of LGBT interest group strength on an annual basis. We compare our measures to existing measures and demonstrate their utility for the ongoing study of LGBT politics. The approach used in construction of our measure can be extended over time, is replicable in other issue areas, and thus has broad utility for the study of interest groups at the subnational level.

Social scientists are increasingly taking a more complex theoretical approach to the role of stereotyping in the electorate's evaluation of political candidates. Within this literature, most studies investigate the impact of one stereotype on the public's evaluation of candidates from an underrepresented group. We build on and extend this literature by exploring what we term “intersectional stereotyping”: The role of stereotypes in shaping the electorate's evaluation of political candidates who share dual membership in stigmatized groups—women and sexual minorities. We empirically examine the impact of intersectional stereotyping in a unique 2003 survey of national adults. Our results indicate that gender, both of the respondent and the candidate, plays a key role in shaping attitudes toward gay and lesbian political candidates. These findings suggest that intersectional stereotyping plays a nuanced role in evaluations of candidates; in certain contexts gender stereotypes are more significant, and at other times stereotypes about sexual minorities appear to be driving evaluations of candidates.

The events of September 11 have clearly changed the way that Americans think about politics and policy and may have changed attitudes about the treatment of America's perceived enemies. At the same time, revelations about American interrogation techniques in the war on terror have forced a national dialogue on human rights during a time of war. Americans do tend to oppose a variety of harsh interrogation techniques, but opposition appears to be conditioned by gender, partisanship, and the context in which an interrogation might take place. We explore how conditions shape attitudes on interrogation techniques in the war on terror, with a particular focus on gender and contextual framing. We analyze data from a unique 2004 national survey of American adults to test several hypotheses. Our results suggest that gender strongly shapes opposition to harsh interrogation techniques, but contextual framing also shapes opposition. Partisanship and contextual framing also mediate the influence of gender on attitudes.

Jailbait: The Politics of Statutory Rape Laws in the United States. By Carolyn E. Cocca. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2004. 228p. $59.50 cloth, $19.95 paper.

In her book, Carolyn Cocca takes on an ambitious topic of a relatively sensitive nature—the politics of sexuality, gender, and morality in the context of statutory rape laws. Cocca recognizes the nature of her task from the start. She opens the preface with a discussion of the reaction of others to her research—comments by colleagues questioning her own beliefs about the topic and the implied notion that her interest must somehow be inherently political or personal. Such is the reaction of most social scientists to those who study the politics of sexuality.

Few would dispute that religion has played a fundamental role in shaping our understanding of human relationships, including marriage, and what types of relationships are permitted. However, science, especially biology, has also played an important role in government regulation of marriage (Bittles and Neel 1994; Ottenheimer 1990; Dupuis 2002; Ellison 2004; Strasser 2002). A cursory overview of government regulations of marriage reveals laws that establish age requirements, necessitate testing for diseases, ban nuptials between individuals with biological relations, set limits on the number of spouses, and ban interracial marriage (miscegenation), among other things (Barlow and Probert 2004; Bratt 1984; Cott 2000; Micklos and Carlson 2000; Moran 2001; Ottenheimer 1990; Scott 2000). Certainly some of these policies reflect a religious based morality, but some, such as those that ban marriages between individuals within a family, also reflect a biological understanding of potential problems associated with the offspring of these couples (Bratt 1984; Ottenheimer 1990; Cott 2000; Micklos and Carlson 2000; St. Jean 1998; Scott 2000; Stoddard 2003).

The national government can force or entice state governments to act on policy through a variety of actions, including providing monetary incentives and sanctions. We examine how and under what conditions actions of the national government influence the diffusion of policy across the states. We test our hypotheses on the cases of the diffusion of partial birth abortion laws, truth-in-sentencing laws, and hate crime laws using event history analysis on pooled cross-sectional data from the 50 states. Our results suggest that, in addition to fiscal incentives, the national government can influence state policymaking when it sends strong, clear signals to the states concerning its preferences and the potential for future action. But even national-level signals that are weak and ambiguous may influence state policymaking indirectly.

I use elements of overhead democracy and policy implementation theory to explain hate crime law enforcement in American cities. I develop hypotheses of the relationships between law enforcement, state and local policies, and the preferences of elected officials, bureaucrats, and the public. Using survey and demographic data, I find that local hate crime law enforcement is driven by the presence of state hate crime policies, the support and efforts of bureaucrats, the tractability of the hate crime problem, police funding and training, and public preferences. Law enforcement does not appear to be significantly influenced by the preferences of elected officials, local hate crime policies, or administrative procedures for hate crime cases. Thus, although political control by local elected officials is weak, state officials and citizens have some influence over local hate crime law enforcement.

In 1996, more than half of the states considered legislation banning same-sex marriages. This article examines these events as a geographic expansion of the scope of the conflict rather than as traditional state-centered policy innovation. I argue that the diffusion of same-sex marriage bans was determined by the organized efforts of advocacy coalitions and internal state characteristics rather than by regional diffusion or communication among policy experts. I use state-level data collected from activists, media accounts, and official sources to establish the organized efforts to ban same-sex marriage. I then develop and empirically test a model of policy diffusion to predict both state consideration and adoption of policies banning same-sex marriage. The findings suggest that the diffusion of these policies is best explained by the presence of an organized national campaign by conservative religious groups, the local resources of interest groups, and other internal state characteristics rather than by regional diffusion patterns. I also find that the influence of state characteristics may vary during the policymaking process.

Of key importance to groups in a democracy is the political representation of their interests in the policy process. The most obvious strategy of groups to achieve representation is to elect officials that identify with group interests. Our research examines the political representation of lesbian and gay interests, exploring the influence of openly gay elected officials on domestic partner policies. Based on the literature, we select and operationalize variables that may influence policy adoption. Analysis on a dataset of 270 localities suggests that elected gay officials are an important determinant for achieving substantive political representation. Our findings also suggest that supportive non-gay elected officials can effectively represent gays in the policy process.