State Legislator Job Duties: A Data-Driven Learning Guide

Goal & Concept

Goal

The goal of this exercise is to learn how state legislators do their job and the constraints they face in doing their job effectively while focusing on reelection. Frequency tables and crosstabulations are used.

Concept

While state legislators have the authority to make laws, appropriate funds, oversee the operations of other state branches (state executive and the state courts), and generally represent the people, most state constitutions are not clear on how legislators should go about accomplishing these tasks or how much time legislators should spend on any given aspect of their job.

Not all states employ their legislators in a full time capacity, and similar to their counterparts in the national legislature, state legislators are concerned with re-election. These concerns may impede legislators as they attempt to complete the requirements of their duty as a legislator.

Possible research questions about state legislator job duties include:

• Do most state legislators plan to run for re-election?
• Which party is more responsive to constituent needs?
• Which party spends more time campaigning and fundraising?
• Does re-election campaigning and fundraising take away from job performance?

Goal & Concept - Dataset - Application - Interpretation & Summary - Bibliography