RICHARD A. CLUCAS
Portland State University
Improving the Harvest of State Legislative Research

The American state legislatures provide a unique opportunity for the study of lawmaking. This essay describes and analyzes state legislative research since 1990 and offers suggestions for future research. The discipline made significant gains during this period, expanding our knowledge on a wide variety of important topics and concerns. Despite these gains, many gaps in our knowledge remain unfilled and many questions remain unanswered. The field has been particularly weak in building theory. Scholars need to make a more concerted effort to develop our theoretical understanding of state legislatures for the field to develop greater direction and coherence.