The Strategic Use of Congressional Intergovernmental Delegation

Congressional delegation choices are widely studied, but scholars have overlooked the states as an inherent part of this process. How do members of Congress with state constituents delegate responsibility to the states? This paper incorporates states and legislators with state-based interests in a theory of intergovernmental delegation, and argues that members of Congress consider their relationship with their state government vis-à-vis their connection with the national executive branch as they make intergovernmental delegation choices. This theory is tested against current explanations of decentralization: Republican devolution, average partisan congruence between Congress and the states, and policy type using a novel dataset spanning over 30 years, 30,000 provisions, and 197 significant laws. Not only is support for the theory of intergovernmental delegation found, but alternative explanations fail to explain the degree of responsibility delegated to the states in national law, demonstrating the importance of national and state political contexts on delegation.