State Politics & Policy Quarterly | Vol. 5 No. 3| Descriptive Representation, Legislative Leadership, and Direct Democracy: Latino Influence on English Only Laws in the States, 1984

Abstract

Volume 5• Number 3

Fall 2005

research articles

ROBERT R. PREUHS
University of Colorado at Boulder

Descriptive Representation, Legislative Leadership, and Direct Democracy: Latino Influence on English Only Laws in the States, 1984–2002

How does minority racial and ethnic descriptive representation exert policy influence in majoritarian representative institutions? And how do nonrepresentative majoritarian institutions, such as the citizen initiative, affect the degree of this influence? I use an event history analysis of state adoption of English Only laws from 1984 to 2002 to test a model of minority policy influence that is exerted through the possession of state legislative leadership positions. Unlike previous studies, I find that the size of the minority population and the level of descriptive representation in the legislature exert only an indirect effect on legislative policy decisions. Furthermore, the majoritarian rules of the initiative undermine the policy influence minorities gain through legislative leadership and can actually lead to a policy backlash.

Home | Issue Index

Content in State Politics & Policy Quarterly is intended for personal, noncommercial use only. You may not reproduce, publish, distribute, transmit, participate in the transfer or sale of, modify, create derivative works from, display, or in any way exploit the SPPQ database in whole or in part without the written permission of the copyright holder.

Terms and Conditions of Use