Title:      The Power to Propose: A Natural Experiment in
Politics

Authors:    Peter Loewen, Royce Koop, James Fowler

Entrydate:  2009-07-22 16:59:53

Keywords:   

Abstract:   In the study of democracy, an enduring question is
whether citizens pay attention to what lawmakers do. Legislators
frequently propose new laws, but observational studies cannot
elucidate the effect such proposals have on citizen reactions to
specific lawmakers, since any effects on electoral outcomes are
confounded by unobserved individual differences in legislative
and political skill. Here, we take advantage of a unique natural
experiment in the Canadian House of Commons that allows us to
estimate how the power to propose legislation affects elections.
In the two most recent parliaments, the right of non-cabinet
members to propose has been assigned by lottery. Comparing
outcomes between those who were granted the right to propose and
those who were not, we show that incumbents of the governing
party enjoy a three and a half percentage point bonus in the
electoral vote count following the allowed introduction of a
single piece of legislation. This effect translates to a nine
percent increase in the probability of winning the election. We
also show that the causal effect does not result from media
exposure or deterred entry of quality challengers who might
otherwise have opposed the incumbent. Instead, government MPs
who pass legislation receive more campaign donations, and money
is associated with higher vote totals. These results are the
first ever to show that what politicians do as lawmakers has a
causal effect on the electorate.

http://polmeth.wustl.edu/retrieve.php?id=925

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