Narratives of Justice: Legislators' Beliefs about Distributive Fairness

6. How the Narratives Play Out: Three Bills

CHAPTER 6 How the Narratives Play Out: Three Bills We have now heard the respective narratives ofjustice. In this and the following chapter I wish to examine the effects ofthe senators' beliefs on their actual behavior during the 1988 legislative session, the session in which the interviews took place. For many political scientists and political observers, the uncovering of these connections is the real payoffof a study such as this one; the understanding of beliefs themselves is secondary to the understanding of how they affect important political outcomes in relatively immediate ways. Unfortunately, political scientists presently know comparatively little about how beliefs-particularly the deeper beliefs found in the narrativesinfluence legislators' processing and evaluation of incoming information, and ultimately how such beliefs influence decision making. There have been relatively few attempts, even in single state studies, to independently determine beliefs and then examine how these beliefs affect behavior (Barrett and Cook 1991). Granted, there is a vast statistically based literature that attempts to find correlations between certain measured legislator or chamber characteristics and certain behavioral outcomes, such as voting decisions or policies (these characteristics may include many items in addition to beliefs). Indeed, I will draw liberally on this literature in making my own arguments. But this literature remains only suggestive since the correlations are only tabulated, while the actual mechanisms of linkage are left for the most part unstudied. In most cases, these works are left to speculate about these mechanisms in their final conclusions. Alas, given the narrow perspective of my own work here-my main focus is beliefs rather than behavior-my findings will be only suggestive as well. Ifit is true, as I have argued in chapter 2, that beliefs have their impact on behavior primarily as filters, then we would expect to find narrative-based patterns in the way the senators discuss and ultimately act on legislative issues. These patterns begin to emerge in this chapter. I will also look for any narrative-based patterns in the relations between beliefs and behavior, as well as any narrative-based patterns in the senators' perceptions of the relations between beliefs and behavior. These patterns are considered in the following chapter. 163 164 Narratives of Justice The interviews upon which the narratives are based also contained questions about the connections between the senators' beliefs and their behavior, the workings of the senate, and several specific bills considered during the 1988 session. This chapter and the following one are based on those sections of the interviews, my observations prior to the interviews, other primary sources such as interviews and conversations with staff members and house members, and documentary sources such as floor transcripts, records of public hearings, and newspaper articles. I will draw on my interview and observation material throughout my examination, often without quoting or even specifically acknowledging it, so the reader should remember that this material undergirds my arguments. This chapter examines three bills that were considered during the 1988 legislative session, and the senators' discussion ofthem in the interviews, in an attempt to see how the deep beliefs reflected in the narratives manifest themselves in more specific, immediate attitudes about policy issues. The bills I will examine here concern education financing, property tax, and plant closings. The following chapter considers the connections between beliefs and behavior in the senate from a more general perspective, and draws on all the sources just mentioned, in addition to the research of other scholars. Of course, in an effort to better understand the connections between the senators' beliefs and their behavior, it would be extremely helpful to trace out in detail what individual senators within each narrative type actually did regarding the three bills. Unfortunately any such presentation would also run the risk of exposing the respondents' identities, which I have been trying to protect . Thus, I have decided to refrain from that effort. Nonetheless, the senators' discussions of the bills are at least suggestive of the effects of general normative beliefs on more specific policy attitudes, and in tum on voting decisions and other forms of legislative behavior. And beliefs do appear to matter. At the same time, the senators' discussions also preview many of the limitations on the effects of beliefs, which will be considered in the following chapter. Education Finance In 1977, the state supreme court upheld a lower court decision in the case of Horton v. Meskill (172 Conn. 615), which held that the state's reliance on local property taxes to finance public education violated...