Assessing the Importance of Party and Gender in Legislators’ Policy Preferences

Authors

  • Gregory S. Thielemann

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15763/issn.2374-7781.1995.16.0.151-165

Abstract

In recent years much has been written about what factors influence the policy preferences of legislators in general and women legislators specifically. This analysis explores the relative importance of a member's sex, party, locality and tenure on policy preferences in the 71st Texas House of Representatives with its low levels of professionalism and party influence. The members were surveyed for their views on the four most pressing issue areas they faced: education reform, judicial selection reform, workers' compensation insurance reform and abortion. Surprisingly, party is important in explaining policy preferences on education reform, judicial selection reform and workers’ compensation reform. Being a woman is of less importance in these areas, but is more important in the area of abortion rights.

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Published

1995-07-01

Issue

Vol. 16: Summer 1995

Section

Articles

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