The Politics of Consumer Protection: Explaining State Attorney General Participation in Multi-State Lawsuits

Abstract

In the past 20 years, state attorneys general have reinvented the enforcement of consumer protection regulations. Prosecuting businesses through multi-state lawsuits has the effect of enforcing consumer protection laws at the national level. The participation of states in these lawsuits varies quite dramatically across states, yet little research has been done to explain these differences in consumer protection enforcement. Because state attorneys general are elected in 43 states, the electorate’s ideology and the state’s socioeconomic culture should help explain these discrepancies. A pooled time-series analysis of participation rates from 1989-1998 provides support for these hypotheses.