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The Impact of Party Control on the Diffusion of Parental Involvement Laws in the U.S. States

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2021

Marshall H. Medoff,
Christopher Dennis and
Kerri Stephens
Marshall H. Medoff*
Affiliation:
California State University, Long Beach, CA, USA
Christopher Dennis
Affiliation:
California State University, Long Beach, CA, USA
Kerri Stephens
Affiliation:
University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA
*
Marshall H. Medoff, Department of Economics, California State University, Long Beach, Long Beach, CA 90840, USA Email: mmedoff@csulb.edu
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Abstract

The authors examine the impact of political party control of government on the restrictiveness of a U.S. state's abortion policy, measured by the enactment of a parental involvement law. The empirical results show that (1) institutional control of a state's legislative and executive branches of government by the Republican Party increases the likelihood a state will enact a parental involvement law, while Democratic Party control decreases this likelihood; (2) the more conservative state public opinion is on abortion rights, the more likely a state is to enact a parental involvement law; (3) public anti-abortion attitudes do not act as a moderating force on the link between political party control and the enactment of a parental involvement law; and (4) the impact of political party control on the enactment of a parental involvement law has grown larger over time.

Keywords

abortionparental involvement laws

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
State Politics & Policy Quarterly , Volume 11 , Issue 3 , September 2011, pp. 325 - 347
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2011

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