Across and Within State Reinvention of Workplace Drug Testing Legislation

This paper has two main research foci. First, the patterns of across and within state reinvention of workplace drug testing legislation are explored. The results indicate that this policy conforms to the findings of prior research on other policies. That is, across state reinvention tends to be unidirectional—in this case toward more pro‐business legislation—and this trend is reinforced through within state reinvention, or amendment. Second, an event history model is employed to investigate the determinants of within state reinvention. The results show weak support for the influence of social learning on the decision to amend. Stronger support is found for societal context. Specifically, a state's drug‐related arrest rate is positively and significantly related to the likelihood of amendment.