Research
Articles
Daniel J. Palazzolo, University of Richmond
Vincent G. Moscardelli, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Policy Crisis and Political Leadership:
Election Law Reform in the States after the
2000 Presidential Election
What effect do political leaders have on policy adoption in response to a crisis? The
vote-counting crisis in the presidential election in Florida in 2000 forced policymakers
in all 50 states to re-examine their own election laws and procedures. Some state
leaders acted as entrepreneurs, seizing the opportunity to advance major reform,
while others sought only modest or no substantive change. We test the impact of
political leadership on policy adoption in a crisis situation by constructing a leadership
variable from content analysis of news coverage in the states. We find that the
activities of elected or appointed policymakers, particularly the states' chief elections
officials (CEOs), had a decisive effect on the extent of election reforms adopted by
the states. Five other factors also affected the adoption of election reforms: political
culture, the ideology of a state's electorate, recommendations by statewide commissions,
legislative term limits, and the interaction between the winner's margin of
victory in the 2000 presidential election and the state's residual vote rate.
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