ABSTRACT
Many state legislatures are staffed by citizens, not professional politicians. Most legislatures are part-time, under staffed, filled with conflicts of interest and outright corruption and dominated by interest groups. Public opinion sometimes seems related to public policy, but such correlations are suspicious since groups seeking to shape policy also mount campaigns to shape public opinion. There is little media attention to what happens in state legislatures as thousands of laws are enacted. Our national survey shows that citizens don’t know much about state legislators and legislation, so opinion–policy congruence found in some research is likely spurious. Absent popular involvement and media attention, the states are a perfect environment for interest group politics and for corruption. In recent years, interest groups and lobbyists have rushed to the states seeing a lightly regulated “wild west” where influence can more easily be wielded than in the more tightly regulated and more public environment of Washington.
