Replication Data for: Legislative Civility, Gridlock, Polarization, and Productivity

This article examines the extent to which legislative civility produces important results in the legislative process. Specifically, the research reported here explores the role that greater civility among state legislators can play in fostering legislative productivity. We report evidence that legislatures which are rated as more civil by people who are highly knowledgeable about their operations produce more legislation on important topics of contemporary public policy. We also report findings indicating that state legislatures which are more civil are less prone to the ill effects of political polarization as it relates to legislative gridlock. We employ a dataset derived from a national survey of state legislative lobbyists conducted in 2018 and 2019. Survey respondents were asked to rate the degree to which they believe the legislators with whom they work in their respective states treat each other in a civil manner (Lovrich et al. 2021). Over one thousand state legislative lobbyists from all 50 U.S. states participated in the study, with many offering detailed comments and expressing concern over the decreasing levels of civility being displayed in the state legislatures in which they lobby. Many were former legislators and legislative staffers, many of whom reflected the widespread expression of concern over the state of civil discourse in Congress, state legislatures, local governments, school boards, public health districts, and even library boards across the country (Schuman, 2016).