Partisan Cues and Decision Loci in U. S. State Legislatures

This study examines American state legislator orientations toward political parties and how these orientations relate to the legislators' cue-seeking behavior and their perceptions about the major decision-making arenas for state legislative policymaking. Using data from a fifty state sample of state legislators, several hypotheses are evaluated about the relationship of legislative party system support to partisan cue-seeking and legislator perceptions about the party caucus as a decision-making arena. The expectation that legislators who exhibit strong support for the legislative party system would be more likely to look to legislative party leaders for cues is confirmed by the data analyses. A control for district typicality enhances this relationship. Strong support by the legislators for the legislative party system also is moderately related to their perception of partisan arenas as the locus of decision-making in state legislatures.