state legislative constraints on the development of water resources policy

WATER RESOURCES BULLETIN VOL. 14, NO. 6 AMERICAN WATER RESOURCES ASSOCIATION DECEMBER 1978

STATE LEGISLATIVE CONSTRAINTS ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF WATER RESOURCES POLICY’

Donald C. Menzel’

ABSTRACT: Legislative constraints on the development of water resources policy fit into three broad categories - political, institutional, and informational. The political category en- compasses constituency needs and preferences, satisfaction with existing water management practices and policies, and the necessity for legislators to blend political ambition with public problem solving. Constraints fitting into the institutional category include differences in legislative behavior and attitudes that stem from one’s location in the legislature (e.g., senate-house, leader-follower, or committee activity), the dynamics of scheduling and organization, and the capability to manage complex issues. Informational constraints refer to the availability of information and the use to which it is put by lawmakers in formulating decisions on water- related issues. These constraints are approached from a behavioral perspective by examining several constituency, institutional, and information hypotheses that “explain” legislative involvement with water resources issues. The data are drawn from a recent study of water resources decision making in West Virginia. Eighty-three of the 134 members of the 1975-76 West Virginia Legislature participated in the study. (KEY TERMS: policy development; political constraints; institutional constraints; state gov- ernments.)

INTRODUCTION

The development of water resources policies within and among the fifty states is sub- ject to many constraints. Policy enactments at the national level such as the Water Pol- lution Control Act of 1972 and the newly enacted Surface Mining Control and Reclama- tion Act of 1977 are good examples. Interstate cooperation or lack thereof may also be a constraint. These and other external constraints exist alongside institutional, political, and resource constraints within the states. This paper does not inventory and assess what may be countless constraints on water resources policy development in the American states. Rather, its purpose is to explore and where possible, assess several legislative constraints on water resources policy development.

‘Paper No. 78004 of the Water Resources Bulletin. Discussionsare openuntil August 1,1979. The work upon which this paper is based was supported by funds provided by the Water Research Institute, West Virginia University, as authorized under the Water Resources Act of 1964 and administered by the U.S. Department of the Interior, Office of Water Research and Technology. The views expressed are the sole responsibility of the author.

‘Department of Political Science, West Virginia University, Morgantown, West Virginia 26506.

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LEGISLATIVE CONSTRAINTS

Legislative constraints on the development of water resource policy fit into three broad categories - political, institutional, and informational. The political category en- compasses constituency needs and preferences, satisfaction with existing water management practices and policies. and the necessity for legislators t o blend political ambition with public problem solving. Constraints fitting into the institutional category include differences in legislative behavior and attitudes that stem from one’s location in the legislature (e.g., senate-house, leader-follower, OT committee activity), the dynamics of scheduling and organization, and the capability to manage complex issues. Informational constraints refer t o the availability of information and the use t o which it is put by lawmakers in formulating decisions on water-related issues.

Approaching these constraints from a behavioral perspective ~ one might pose the following questions: what political, institutional, or information variables encourage .some legislators to be more involved with water resources issues than other legislators.? Or h o ~ ~ , i f at all. do legislators involved with water resources problems and issues differ from their colleagzes ?

HYPOTHESES

The answers t o these questions can be framed in terms of several hypothescs:

C‘onstituency Hypotheses

H-1 . As water resource problems become increasingly severe in a legislator’s district. the more involved he/she will be with water resources issues.

ti-2: As constituents become increasingly capable of articulating their preferences and demands, the more responsive a legislator will be in all issue areas, including water resourceb.

H-3 : As a legislator’s constituency becomes increasingly middle-class in nature. the more involved a legislator will be with water resources issues.

The “problem severity” hypothesis requires little explanation. It is widely believed to be a fundamental tenet of the American democratic process that elected officials are sensitive to various problems facing their constituents. The second and third hypotheses, the “articulation” and ”middle-class” hypotheses, are interrelated. Middle classness usually connotes an ability to articulate interests and preferences. At the same time. it is widely asserted that environmental issues, such as water quality. are middle-class con- cerns. To paraphrase Andrew S. McFarland (1976). an increasing number of middle-class citizens is fostering an issue orientation which is finding expression in numerous environmental public interest lobbies.

Insn tutional Hypotheses

It is plausible t o suggest that one’s location and responsibilities in a legislative body bear upon issue attentiveness and the success or lack of success in the legislative arena. It might. for example, be argued that members of a state senate would be more sensitive to environmental issues than members o f a house o f representatives since senators

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State Legislative Constraints on the Development of Water Resources Policy

typically represent larger geographical regions than representatives. A larger areal view would seem to foster thinking congruent with the concept of environmental interde- pendence. Senators are also elected for a longer term of office, a fact which might also encourage long-term thinking about and involvement with environmental issues. Thus, the fourth hypothesis is:

H-4: Members of a state senate are more likely to be involved with water resources issues than members of a state house of delegates/representatives.

This hypothesis, like the three before i t , posits legislator involvement with water resources issues as the dependent variable. Since this paper is partly exploratory, it is also appropriate to ask the following questions:

Q-1: Are legislators involved with water resources issues likely to be among the leaders or the followers in a legislative body?

Q-2: Are legislators involved with water resources issues likely to be junior or senior members of a legislature?

Q-3: Are legislators involved with water resources issues likely to be multi-issue or single-issue legislators?

Q-4: Are legislators involved with water resources issues likely to be “successful” or “unsuccessful” legislators?

In formational Hypothesis

offered and examined in this paper: Although many informational hypotheses could be suggested, only one hypothesis is

H-5: As a legislator’s expertise in the water resources field increases, other lawmakers will turn to him/her for cues and information.

Legislators, of course, are not equally informed on public problems and issues. Some bring considerable expertise to their job as a result of prior experience or formal training; others become knowledgeable after years of service. Regardless of how lawmakers become knowledgeable, it is widely believed that legislative specialization is desirable and essential.

The rapid growth in legislative workloads in recent years has placed a premium on time and the utilization of “expert” colleagues (Porter, 1974). Legislative specialization certainly implies the transfer of ideas, information, and decision cues among lawmakers.

OPERATIONALIZATION

The research setting for assembling data to examine the above hypotheses and questions was the 62nd West Virginia Legislature (1975-76). Constituency and behavioral data were gathered on eighty-three members of the 134-member legislature. (The House has one-hundred members; the Senate has thirty-four members.) Sixty-four personal interviews were held with senators for a 56-percent sample. The interviews were conducted during the February-March session of 1976 as part of a broad-based study of water

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resources decision making (Menzel and Williams, 1977). The sample included legislative leaders, members of the Senate Natural Resources Committee and the House Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee, and randomly selected lawmakers. Thus the overall sample is biased toward the leadership and legislators associated with natural resources committees.

Legislative involvement with water resources issues was operationalized by counting and classifying all water-related bills introduced by the eighty-three member sample during the first session of the 62nd Legislature (1975). Twenty-six lawmakers introduced forty-two such bills. The bills varied in content from proposals t o consolidate state environmental units to stiffer penalties for water pollution. For analytical purposes, the twenty-six legislators who introduced at least one water-related bill can be compared to the group of fifty-seven legislators who introduced no water-related bills. The operationalization of other variables contained in the above hypotheses and questions are pre- sented with the findings.

FINDINGS

Turning first to the constituency hypothesis, an inspection of Table 1 suggests that West Virginia lawmakers are not constrained by their constituents. Problem severity. as measured by the indicators in Table 1, does not separate lawmakers that introduce water resources bills from those that do not. Neither population, urbanization, industrialiia- tion, nor mining differences seem to have any impact on legislative behavior. The standard T-test statistic for comparing means yielded probability values ranging from p=O. 10 (urbanization) to ~ ~ 0 . 3 5 (mining).

The findings with respect t o “middle classness” and “articulative capability” are also statistically insignificant. Neither variation in constituency education levels nor wealth are associated with legislators’ involvement with water resources issues. The T-tests yield high probabilities that the two groups are more alike than different.

The institutional hypothesis (H-4) - that state senators were more likely to be involved with water resources issues - was also without import. Although more West Virginia senators, proportionately speaking, introduced more water-related bills than did their counterparts in the House of Delegates, the difference is not statistically significant. Forty-two percent (n=8) of the Senators introduced at least one water-related bill during the 1975 session in contrast to a 28 percent figure for Delegates. This difference pro- duces a chi square value of 0.7605 with a probability value of 0.38. West Virginia Sena- tors do not appear more involved with water resources than Delegates.

Shifting the focus from Senate-House differences to leader-follower and tenure differences, neither variable is statistically associated with a propensity to be involved with water resources issues. Leader and follower comparisons, with leaders (n=2 1) defined as those holding party posts or committee chairmanships, show a chi square value equal to 1.094 which, with one statistical degree of freedom, is statistically significant at a 0.30 level of probability. For legislative tenure, dichotomized at four or less years and five or more years, the calculated chi square value is 0.826, which is statistically significant a t a 0.36 level of probability.

Water resources involved legislators are not more numerous among the leadership, nor among the senior lawmakers. Could they, however, tend to be single-issue legislators? Table 2 answers this question. Comparing the means of the involved and noninvolved

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TABLE 1. Constituency Characteristics and the Introduction of Water Related Bills.a

Constituency Characteristic Indicator

Hypothesized Relationship with the Introduction of Statistical

Water-Related Bills Findingb

(1) Problem Severity

POPULATION - number of people residing in legislator’s district (1970Ic

URBANIZATION - percent of population in legislator’s home county living in towns of 2500 or more (1970)‘

INDUSTRIALIZATION - value added by manufacturing in legislator’s dis- trictC

MINING - tonnage produced by surface and deep miningd

EDUCATION - number of years of formal schooling among citizens in legislator’s county of residence (1 970)‘

WEALTH - per capita income of citizens in legislator’s county of residence (1 970)‘

(2) Articulative Capability

+ T = -0.90 p = 0.31

+ T = -1.67 p = 0.10

+ T = -1.33 p = 0.19

T = 0.93 p = 0.35

T = -1.51 p = 0.13

+ T = -1.28 p = 0.21

aDelegates are elected from multi-member districts with each county constituting a district. All

bThe T-statistic is used to compare the means of two groups. See Hubert M. Blalock, Jr., Social

‘Data secured from Bureau of the Census, County and City Data Book, 1972, U. S. Government

dData secured from West Virginia University, Bureau of Business Research, West Virginia Sfatisti-

senators, except those representing Kanawha County, are elected from mul t i aun ty districts.

Statistics, McGraw-Hill Book Company, New York, 2nd edition, 1972, pp. 220 and 275.

Printing Bureau, 1972.

eal Handbook 1974, Bureau of Business Research, Morgantown, West Virginia, 1974.

TABLE 2. Legislative Activity and the Introduction of Water Resource Bills.

One or More Water No Water Bills Bills Introduced Introduced

Variable (N) Mean (N) Mean T-Value

Total Number of Bilk Introduced

Number of Bills Passed Chamber

(26) 19.1 (57) 11.1 3.52 p = 0.001

( 2 6 ) 6 .O (57) 2.3 3.02 p = 0.003

Number of Bills Reported (26) a. 1 (57) 3.3 2.98 from Committee p = 0.004

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legislators concerning the numb er of bills introduced, those reported from legislative committees, and the bills passed in each chamber, it is apparent that water resources involved legislators are an active lot. The differences among means in all three areas are statistically significant with probability values ranging from p=O.OOl to p=0.004. Sub- stantively speaking, water resources involved legislators are not “back benchers” who occasionally concern themselves with only water resources issues. They are active parti- cipants in the legislative process.

Since water resources involved legislators are multiple-issue people, could it be that they do not seek membership on natural resources committees? Legislators usually pursue committee assignments that agree with their substantive interests. An answer to this question is possible because thirty-two members interviewed in this study served on either the Senate Xatural Resources Committee or the House Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee. These committees have a combined membership of thirty-nine. The findings do indeed indicate that members of the natural resources committees introduce mure water-related bills than their colleagues. The calculated chi square value is 7.089 which. with one degree of freedom, yields a probability level of p=0.008.

There is still another way to view committee membership. It might be asked, “are members of the natural resources committees among the more or less ‘successful’ legislators?” The answer to this question is important since it has already been established that natural resources committee members introduce most water resource bills.

Success was measured two ways. First, the bills which cleared all legislative commit- lees were counted and divided by the total bills a legislator introduced. Thus a legislator who introduced twenty bills and had all twenty bills reported out of committee received a score of 1 .O. Conversely, if no bills cleared any committees, the success score was zero. The same scheme was employed for a second measure of legislative ‘hccess” by focusing on the passage of bills in each legislative chamber. The first measure is defined as committee success; the second is defined as house success.

Comparing means, one finds that the means for committee success and house success are higher for natural resources committee members than other legislators. The committee success means are 0.30 for natural resource members and 0.25 for other legislators. The house success means are similar with the mean for natural resource members being 0.23 and the mean for other legislators being 0.17. A standard T-test applied to the means resulted in probability values of 0.29 for committee success and 0.10 for house success. There are, of course, other variables that might explain legislative success. These include leadership, tenure, partisanship, and chamber membership. Indeed, the findings reported in Table 3 indicate that all but partisanship are related to legislative success.

The last finding reported in this paper has to do with legislative expertise. Are legislators with expertise in the water resources area, sources of information for their colleagues? To answer this question, each respondent was asked :

( 1 ) What do you do when you must reach a decision on a water pollution issue and yet you do not have enough time to become well informed?

(2) Some legislators say that among their colleagues there are those whom they consider particularly knowledgeable. Are there two or three legislators whom you consider particularly knowledgeable in the water pollution area?

(:3) Do you consider yourself to be “particularly knowledgeable” in the water pollution area?

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TABLE 3. Variables Associated with Legislative Success.

Committee Success House Success Variable (mean) T-Value (mean) T-Value

Chamber Delegate (n=64) Senator (n=19)

Partisanship Democratic ( ~ 7 0 ) Republican (n=13)

Tenure 4 years or less ( ~ 4 6 ) 5 years or more ( ~ 3 7 )

Leadership Leader (n=21) Follower (n=62)

Committee Assignment* Major (n=53) Minor (n=30)

0.23 0.38

0.27 0.25

0.22 0.32

0.35 0.24

0.31 0.19

-3.09 p = 0.003

0.41 p = 0.68

-2.35 p = 0.021

2.27 p = 0.026

2.72 p = 0.008

0.17 0.20

0.20 0.19

0.16 0.23

0.26 0.17

0.21 0.16

-2.20 p = 0.03

0.11 p = 0.92

-1.88 p = 0.064

2.02 p = 0.047

1.13 p = 0.261

*The major committees are Rules, Finance, and Judicial

As indicated in Table 4, legislative colleagues, administrative agencies, and informed people in general are the primary sources of information. Forty-six percent ( ~ 3 4 ) of the respondents ( ~ 7 4 ) could identify a knowledgeable colleague and nineteen percent (n=16) of those responding (1142) consider themselves knowledgeable in the water pollution area.

The respondents were also asked to name their “knowledgeable” colleagues. Many legislators were named, with eleven senators and fifteen delegates receiving at least one nomination. However, only five legislators were mentioned four or more times, with one person - the Chairman of the Natural Resources Committee - receiving twelve mentions. The Chairman of the House Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee received the next highest number of mentions - five.

These findings indicate that the West Virginia legislature has one or two lawmakers who are more visible than their colleagues on water pollution issues. However, this finding must be tempered by the fact that the majority of those interviewed (84-94 percent) did not accord them such recognition. Stated differently, although a few lawmakers are visible, they do not appear to be the primary conduits of information. Legislative expertise is diffused throughout the West Virginia legislature.

DISCUSSION

The limitations of the data reported in this paper are self-evident. Generalizations or inferences about constituency, institutional: or informational constraints on water

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resources-oriented legislators in other states or time periods may or may not be accurate. However, the West Virginia study is an empirical base for speculating about many issues and may be helpful for guiding future research.

TABLE 4. Legislative Sources of Information and Advice on Water Pollution Issues.

QUESTION: What d o you d o when you must reach a decision on a water pollution issue and yet you do not have enough time to become well informed?* (11~83)

Source Frequency Percentage

Seek advice from other more knowledgeable legislators 51 61

Turn to administrative agencies, governor’s office 44 53

Turn to people who are informed (general) 44 53

Depend on discussion or debate in committees, on the floor, or in caucus

37 4s

Turn to legislative staff, legislative aids 37 45

Do extra reading, study on my own 34 41

Turn to lobbyists 22 L h

Rely on my own feelings 1 6 19

Turn to constituents, vote the way constituents want me to 1 2 14

Doesn’t ever happen t o me, I am always informed 1 1

*Multiple responses permitted.

What, then, does this case study suggest to policymakers and public policy students? First, the findings are both encouraging and discouraging. They are encouraging in the sense that what would appear to be relatively fixed constraints - namely constituency and institutional - are less important than hypothesized. The lawmakers in this study are more independent of their constituents than what might be suspected. Moreover. the fact that water resources involved legislators are among the more active legislators suggests that they are in the legislative mainstream: not outside it. Thus water resources proposals are likely to be “mainstreamed” relatively quickly after being introduced in the legislative arena.

On the discouraging side, it is conceivable that the lack of constituency and institutional constraints invites constraints of a different order, perhaps special interest constraints. Or it might foster “speculative” policymaking, i.e., the development of policies that cannot be implemented effectively because aspirations outstrip organizational and/or fiscal resources. Stated differently, lawmakers may provide forceful, legal remedies that

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in practice are quite ineffective. There is certainly some evidence that this has happened in West Virginia (Menzel and Williams, 1978). For example, West Virginia legislators speculated in 1974 that bringing West Virginia’s water pollution control laws into con- formance with the 1972 Federal Water Pollution Control Act and strengthening the authority of the state water pollution control agency would contribute greatly toward solving water pollution problems. This simply has not happened.

The final constraint investigated in the West Virginia case study - the informational constraint - is perhaps the most troublesome from a policy perspective. It is troublesome for several reasons. First, if legislative expertise is diffuse (as in West Virginia), cues may be given which have a canceling effect on the development of policies. Policy development may proceed very slowly, or perhaps not at all. Second, such diffuseness may make it very difficult for program administrators t o introduce and effectuate adjustments in existing policies. In other words, program administrators may have to do a lot more guessing about the best strategy for stimulating lawmakers to act on their proposals.

Third, the absence of legislative “specialists” encourages, perhaps requires reliance on other information sources or may, under certain circumstances, result in little input from knowledgeable sources. Both outcomes might be undesirable. On the one hand, legislative decision makers might rely wholly on “private” information (e.g., industry lobbyists) and thereby promote policies that are not in the public interest. On the other hand, public policies developed with knowledge supplied by newspaper editors, the Reader’s Digest, or drugstore conversation may have short, unhappy half-lives.

CONCLUSION Legislative constraints on the development of water resources policy, viewed from a

behavioral perspective, are closely associated with the organizational growth and development of a legislature. Legislatures, like other organizations, have greater or lesser capabilities to solve problems - and are judged accordingly. The findings reported in this paper underscore the need to develop an improved understanding of the extent to which legislatures, as information processing organizations, vary in their capabilities t o act upon technically and socially complex problems.

LITERATURE CITED

McFarland, Andrew S., 1976. American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, pp. 5-6.

Menzel, Donald C. and David G. Williams, 1977. Decision-Making Constraints in the Policy Develop- ment and Administration of Water Resources in West Virginia. Water Research Institute, West Virginia University.

Menzel, Donald C. and David G. Williams, 1978. Speculative Policymaking in the Environmental Arena. Water Resources Bulletin 14(2):374-383.

Porter, H. Owen, 1974. Legislative Experts and Outsiders: The Two-step Flow of Communication. Journal of Politics 36:703-730.

Public Interest Lobbies.

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