| Chapter 1: | Governors and the National Governors Association (NGA) |
|
|
This is a limited free preview of this book. Please buy full access.
Organization of This Book
Working from the view that governors are able to impact federal policy making through the NGA, this book examines the factors that determine the NGA’s success and failure in influencing federal decision making. In the next chapter, I examine the NGA as a public interest group, and I draw upon the work of earlier scholars who have noted the similarities and differences between the NGA and other private interest groups in order to illustrate the ways in which they differ. I then provide a review of the small body of literature that examines the NGA as an interest group.
Chapters 3, 4, and 5 each contain one case study. Through these case studies, the factors that affect the NGA’s successes and failures in securing favorable policies are examined. Chapter 3 examines the NGA’s role in the 1998 tobacco settlement between state governments and the tobacco industry. I specifically focus on the efforts of the federal government to commandeer some of the settlement money and the NGA’s resistance to those efforts. Chapter 4 examines governors’ efforts to resist the Internet Tax Freedom Act, which prohibits states from collecting tax on commercial activities that take place on the Internet. Chapter 5 describes the battle between the governors and the federal government over Real ID, in which the states have strongly opposed the requirements of this legislation. In chapter 6, an exploratory quantitative analysis provides a more systematic examination of the NGA’s success in working with Congress. Drawing upon previous research and the lessons learned from the case studies in chapters 3, 4, and 5, I present a number of propositions which I tested using a quantitative approach. Finally, in chapter 7, I consider my findings in the context of the existing literature regarding gubernatorial powers, intergovernmental lobbying, and federalism. I also discuss future directions for the study of governors and their intergovernmental lobbying efforts.