Political power and the market for governors

Abstract

The statistically insignificant results for the budget-power and veto-power variables suggest that, for some reason, these power characteristics are not particularly salable to consumers of governmental favors. It may simply be the case that political competition pushes governors to adopt median-voter public-policy outcomes despite the existence of discretionary budget and veto powers which permit them to behave otherwise. This suggests that discretionary powers may only be of value in those states where political competition is weak or where deviations from the wishes of the median voter are relatively costless (in terms of the value of votes lost) to the party or candidate in power. However, attempts to test this hypothesis using an interaction term between measures of inter-party competition and the governors budgetary and veto powers proved unsatisfactory. Perhaps, intra-party competition in ‘one-party’ states makes candidates just as responsive to the preferences of the median voter as are candidates in states with strong inter-party competition. Finally, the empirical results raise an interesting issue concerning the trend toward the ‘unbundling’ of gubernatorial races. Between 1960 and 1970, twelve states added (on average) eight points to their appointment power index while thirty-four states lost (on average) nearly seven points each. This decrease in gubernatorial appointment power (on average) suggests that data which merely report the growth in gubernatorial campaign spending during the sixties actually would underestimate the expansionary campaign-spending pressures at work. Copyright Martinus Nijhoff Publishers 1981