Interest Group Influence on State Administrative Rule Making

Abstract

In many states, administrative rules are subject to review by elected political officials in the legislative and/or executive branches. Using recently developed measures of state rule review powers, this study investigates whether they serve to enhance or diminish interest group influence on the content of agency regulations. It finds that both greater gubernatorial and legislative rule review authority significantly decrease the amount of interest group influence reported by state agency directors. These results provide evidence that powers of external rule review may serve to counteract the effects of subsystem policy making.