Another Reason Why State Legislatures Will Continue to Restrict Public University Autonomy

Paula L. W. Sabloff

Tables

The relationship between public universities and state legislatures in the United States has always been a contest between the former's centrifugal desire for autonomy and the latter's centripetal concern for accountability and regulation of teaching, research, and administration. Much of the higher education literature affirms that, since World War II, regulation has increased at the expense of autonomy (Berdahl, 1971, 1975; Carnegie Foundation, 1982; Education Commission of the States, 1989; Glenny, 1975; Krotseng, 1990; Newman, 1987; Zusman, 1984). Two exceptions are Fisher (1988) and Crosson (1983). Fisher (1988, p. 134) cautions that even in the nineteenth century, state legislatures sought to limit university autonomy; therefore it is inaccurate to say that regulation is increasing. Rather, one should write that regulation continues. Fisher's data and perspective are valid and [End Page 141] are reflected in the title of this article. The second exception is Crosson (see note 4). Most recently, Schuster (1994, p. 1) has written that regulation will continue to limit autonomy into the next century.

Autonomy, operationalized by James (1965, p. vii) as the freedom of universities to select faculty, staff, and students; develop curricula and research programs; and allocate resources internally (including space and equipment, capital funds, and recurrent operating revenues) has been linked for a long time to discussions of regulation. Higher education researchers have proposed several reasons for continued regulation accompanied by decreased autonomy of public universities. Some of these are: greater demands for accountability (Berdahl, 1978; Millard, 1978); higher education institutions' inability to resolve inter-institutional conflict without help (Carnegie Foundation, 1982; Mingle, 1983); many states' desire for systems, or master planning (Carnegie Foundation, 1982; Mingle, 1983); and states' search for the proper means to evaluate nonprofit institutions--i.e., because profit cannot be used to measure success, state legislatures have sought other measures of accountability (Carnegie Foundation, 1982; Mingle, 1983). In the late 1970s, some researchers interested in higher education predicted that regulation would continue because of the changing nature of state politics (Cope, 1978; Rosenthal, 1977). This paper argues that the predictions of those researchers appear to be coming true: As the political process in the states changes, one outcome is the continual production of bills and laws that regulate and sometimes restrict the autonomy of public universities. This argument does not supplant earlier reasons for legislative regulation of higher education; rather, it provides yet another reason for the continued restriction of public university autonomy.

To demonstrate that the changing political process is a factor in continuing legislation of public universities, I will first review the political science literature that describes changes in states' political process and the concomitant changes in the legislatures' regulation of public universities. The political transformation of several states has been called "professionalization" by political scientists, meaning that these states exhibit the characteristics of Congress (Polsby, 1975; Squire, 1992). It is marked by year-round sessions, increased numbers and functions of a professional staff, respectable legislative pay scales, raised education levels of legislators, standing committees, and legislators' belief that legislative service is a career. A good way to comprehend the political transformation to professionalization is to picture it as one of shifting patronage. As the first part of the article will show, state legislators used to owe allegiance to political party organizations, usually the Democrats and Republicans, that helped get them (re)elected. The party organizations may be viewed as the legislators' original patrons. But with professionalization (true in some states), patronage shifted away from [End Page 142] political party organizations to legislative leaders (caucus leaders), constituents, and political action committees (PACs). ¹ To curry favor with their new patrons, today's legislators propose numerous bills and pass laws, some of which regulate higher education institutions. Such regulation has the potential to limit university autonomy.

Following the literature review, I will present a statistical analysis of regulatory laws passed in the 50 states, which shows some correlation between legislative change (professionalization) and the regulation of public colleges and universities. Finally, I suggest that the relationship between the changing political process and the regulation of public universities may be causal in at least one professionalized state, Pennsylvania, by describing a case study conducted there.

The Changing Political Process

The literature from higher education and political science documents the transformation of the political system over the last 20 to 30 years. New and revised laws, passed to make the election of officials more democratic, inadvertently altered the patronage system at every level of government from the president to the town mayor. One such law was the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) of 1974, which sought to limit the amount of money that political parties, PACs, and individuals could contribute to federal campaigns. Because PACs could proliferate and political parties could not, the importance of nonparty contributors increased at the expense of state party organizations (Durenberger, 1984, p. 31). Furthermore, business-oriented PACs developed under the stimulus of the law and soon outnumbered union PACs. In fact, as of 1988, 4,165 PACs had registered with the Federal Election Commission. Of these, there were almost five times as many corporate PACs as union PACs (Bibby et al., 1990, p. 112).

Changes in the Political Process

Political change on the state level has been marked by several trends. First, political party affiliation no longer guarantees the election or reelection of a legislator (Salmore & Salmore, 1989, p. 189). Bibby et al. (1990) write that the increased nomination of candidates by primary elections or within-party elections, in this century,

. . . has undercut the influence and control of political parties over nominations. With nominations ultimately in the hands of the voters, party organizations [End Page 143] cannot unilaterally designate party nominees. Therefore, candidates have an incentive to set up personal campaign organizations to contest the primaries. (p. 100)

Second, the political party apparatus on the local and state levels no longer acts as patron to the legislators by providing necessary campaign funds and votes. In the 1980s the two major parties started providing such services to candidates as fund-raising assistance, polling, media consulting, and campaign seminars rather than raising the funds for and delivering votes to them (Conlan, Martino, & Dilger, 1984, p. 7). As a result of such changes in the role of the political party organization, the legislators' party ties, while extant, are not as strong as they once were. Weakened party control, however, does not mean that the political party structure is dormant (Salmore & Salmore, 1989, p. 195). Between 1950 and 1988, only one person has been elected governor as an independent; only one senator out of nearly 2,000 and seven state representatives out of over 5,000 have been independents (Bibby et al., 1990, pp. 85-86).

Today legislators' patronage is focused on two loci, constituents and caucus leaders. Legislators' first patrons are their constituents. Ever since the 1962 U.S. Supreme Court Baker vs. Carr decision (see "Changes in the Role of States" below), legislators exchange services for votes, including the introduction of bills that benefit their districts and/or constituents and the pursuit of more than their districts' fair share of state funds (Rosenthal, 1989, p. 95). They also help constituents navigate the vicissitudes of government agencies to get jobs, licenses, tax help, etc. Because legislators ultimately depend on their constituents for reelection, they view constituents as a major patron and appeal directly to the voters, voting to please their constituents more than their party organization.

Caucus leaders (Speaker of the House, President Pro Tempore of the Senate, Majority and Minority Leaders of both chambers, etc.) have become the second patrons to legislators, providing campaign funds received from PACs and individuals, distributing key committee positions that give the legislators the visibility necessary to get reelected, and lending professional and nonprofessional staff to aid incumbents' reelection (Bibby et al., 1990, p. 108; Salmore & Salmore, 1989, p. 189; Sorauf, 1988, pp. 267-268). Rosenthal (1989) writes, "The primary focus of the . . . legislative party leadership used to be governing. Now, they are displacing party organizations at state and local levels, taking over the electoral function as well" (p. 88). In short, legislators are pulled into their party because of their dependence on the good will and monetary support of their caucus' legislative leaders. Thus, legislators' loyalty is to their leadership, not the political party organization.

Legislators are also becoming increasingly dependent on the support of [End Page 144] PACs, special interest groups (SIGs) ² and temporary alliances between unrelated interest groups (Thomas & Hrebenar, 1990, p. 97). The PACs primarily target incumbents, especially legislative leaders (Bibby et al., 1990, p. 113). New legislators find that by serving on the "right" committees, they can attract PAC contributions. They also learn that more campaign funds can be obtained from SIGs by taking judicious stands on certain issues (Salmore & Salmore, 1989, p. 190).

Finally, although governors have increasingly taken a leadership role in setting policy, mainly by setting the agenda for action through the budgets they send to the legislature (Van Horn, 1989, p. 3), legislators strive for professional equality with them (Rosenthal, 1989, p. 70).

Professionalization of State Legislatures

Professionalization is characterized by four trends. Over the last 30 years, one fifth of state legislatures evolved from part-time to sessions lasting 8 to 12 months. As a result, the legislative membership changed from part-time citizens, who often treated their state service as a secondary job, to full-time professionals. Today, reelection means job security as much as pride in continued service to the state; and legislators have therefore become even more anxious than their predecessors to please their constituents (Rosenthal 1989, pp. 70-78, 82-83ff.)

The level of education of state legislators has risen so that today most are college educated and some hold advanced degrees (mostly law). Because these educated legislators have been taught to think for themselves, they are less willing to follow the party line than their predecessors. One outcome is that their leaders must work with them differently than past leaders (interview with a Pennsylvania legislator).

State legislatures have formalized and streamlined the rules governing the process of a bill's passage (Rosenthal, 1981, p. 3). Senators and representatives now have a greater ability to trace and influence a bill; they also have less time to alter a bill between its introduction and final action. Thus their job has gained in stature and pressure.

Finally, state legislatures have increased the professional staffs that support the work of the members. As of 1988, it was estimated that nearly 20,000 people worked full-time for state legislatures, an increase of over 200% since the mid-1960s (Van Horn, 1989, p. 4). One consequence of this expansion is that legislators are less likely to depend on information from people they do not trust (such as the governor's office) or on hearsay than they have in the past. Staff support is another reason that legislators have [End Page 145] been freed from control by their party organization, their governor, and their legislative leadership.

Changes in the Role of States

One cannot discuss changes in state legislatures without noting the New Federalism and the Baker vs. Carr decision. The Supreme Court decision not only strengthened the power of constituents but also increased general public support for strengthened state government (Nathan, 1989, p. 18; Sabloff, 1995a, p. 118). And Reagan's New Federalism, whereby the federal government gives block grants to the states which then apportion the funds to various local units, increased the importance of the states in policy formulation and program planning. Thus, state legislative positions have become more attractive and legislative leaders more powerful in setting and implementing policy (Sabloff, 19951, 125-126).

To summarize, in the past, the political party organization was the major influence on legislators' voting patterns. The political party acted as patron to the legislators, their caucus leaders, and their constituents. Today, legislators' major tension is between pleasing their constituents and pleasing their legislative leaders who control access to PAC and SIG support as well as to committee appointments. Therefore, one could say that state legislators act as clients to their legislative leaders and constituents while the political party organization, legislators' former patron, acts as support for the legislators.

Effects of Political Changes on
Public University Autonomy

To help determine whether the new legislative characteristics are related to restrictions on public university autonomy, I have combined two approaches. The first is a statistical analysis of the 50 states, which suggests some correlation between the two variables. The second approach, a case study of one professionalized state (Pennsylvania), suggests considerable influence of political changes on legislative decisions.

The 50 States: Statistical Comparison

I compared laws regulating public universities to certain characteristics of the state legislatures. ³ While the former are the laws selected by the Chronicle of Higher Education (1991, pp. 20-21) to represent trends in regulation and conceivably fit the definition of restricting university autonomy stated at the beginning of this article, the latter are the characteristics of [End Page 146] state legislatures selected by political scientists. The first law requires that higher education institutions report the incidence of crime on campus. This administrative chore is usually not supported by state funding; furthermore, it is designed to influence students' choice of schools. The second law limits or taxes the business activities of colleges and universities, thus restricting administrative decisions. The third offers prepaid tuition plans. While this law may help parents, it may also limit the institutions' future income. The fourth requires that all faculty and teaching assistants be certified as competent to teach in the English language, which directly interferes with the universities' responsibility to hire and retain faculty and teaching assistants. The fifth requires public colleges and universities to formally assess student achievement, which imposes outside standards and means of assessment on the institutions. And the sixth law proposes that prospective secondary-school teachers major in a subject other than education, thereby determining the curriculum for a university program.

The next three laws regulate research and teaching involving animals (National Association, 1991, pp. 6-7). The seventh law restricts the use of animals for teaching purposes, thereby restricting teaching methods used in the universities and colleges. The eighth does not grant exemption from the animal cruelty statutes to institutions that are using animals for research, hence limiting research. And the ninth grants the state power to govern licensing and regulate research facilities that use animals, again regulating research.

The 1995 version of this table includes issues that appear even more regulatory than the 1990 version: certification of English language competence, faculty workloads, assessment of students, and the requirement that high school teachers major in a subject other than education ("Nine Issues," 1995, p. 10).

I summed the total number of laws passed by each state (first column), and the range of scores varied from 0 (Nebraska and Vermont) to 6 (Florida and Iowa). I then compared these sums with variables selected by political scientists to ascertain changes in the legislatures. I tested other variables (Elazar's dominant political culture by state, and dominant political party in each chamber and of the governor) but excluded them from this study for lack of significance and space. I tested the first three variables with the one-way ANOVA and Pearson's Correlation Coefficient and the fourth using Pearson's Correlation Coefficient. I used both tests on the first variables because, while the dependent variable (number of laws passed) is on the interval scale, the independent variables are either nominal or ordinal. Thus both tests were used to cover either interpretation of the independent variables.

Variable 1, impact of interest groups (PACs and SIGs) on legislative decisions, is a possible and logical measure of professionalization as the political [End Page 147] [ Table 1] [Begin Page 149] science literature suggests that increased influence of PACs and SIGs relative to political party organization on legislatures affects legislators' decisions. Thomas and Hrebenar (1990, pp. 147-48) classify states according to the relative impact of their special interest groups, categorizing states as dominant (number 4 in Variable 1, Table 1) if "groups as a whole are the overwhelming and consistent influence on policy-making." They define the [End Page 149] dominant/complementary category (number 3) as "those states whose group systems alternate between the two situations or are in the process of moving from one to the other." The complementary classification (number 2) is reserved for "states where groups have to work in conjunction with or are constrained by other parts of the political system. More often than not this is the party system; but it could also be a strong executive branch, competition between groups, the political culture, or a combination of all these." The subordinate category (null category) is used for states in which "the group system is consistently subordinated to other participants in the policy-making process. Likewise the states listed as complementary/subordinate [number 1] are in a process of transition" (Thomas & Hrebenar, 1990, p. 148). The authors did not include a category of "subordinate complementary."

One of the greatest concerns in the modern political arena is that special interest groups are determining policy. Yet the statistical comparison (one-way ANOVA and Pearson's Correlation Coefficient) of number of laws restricting higher education and the relative impact of special interest groups shows no correlation between the two variables for higher education.

Variables 2A and 2B, strength of the Democratic and Republican parties, respectively, complement Variable 1. Cotter, Gibson, et al. (in Patterson, 1989, p. 161) divide relative strength into four categories: weak state and local party organization (1), weak state but strong local party organization (2), strong state but weak local party organization (3), and strong state and local party organization (4). Scholarly research (Thomas & Hrebenar, 1990, p. 158) indicates that the major political parties have not been strong for decades, but they remain resilient to change. Does relative party strength correlate with the passage of laws restricting higher education institutions? The one-way ANOVA and Pearson's correlation found no significant correlation. Thus it appears that the organizational strength of the parties does not affect decisions regarding higher education.

Variable 3, authority of the state boards, refers to the three major forms of state-wide organization of higher education institutions. The authors of this variable, Wirt and Gove (1990), write that "there is no clear evidence that the type of governing structure makes a difference in the type of higher education" (p. 472), but they may correlate with the amount of regulation by the legislature. Governing boards (4) of all or a group of state higher education institutions (e.g., all four-year campuses) maintain authority over the institutions, including campus president appointments, allocations of state funds to institutions, definition of institutional missions, admission standards approval, tuition and fees set, and campus governance (Hines, 1988, p. 2). A few states have both a governing board and a coordinating board for different groups of institutions (3). While coordinating boards (2) lack management authority over individual institutions, they are usually responsible for a master plan, new degree programs, and recommending [End Page 150] state appropriations ((Hines, 1988, p. 3). Coordinating boards are usually advocates for the state rather than the institutions (McGuinness & Paulson, 1991, p. 6), and institutions may act independently of the coordinating board, including lobbying. Thus, support for issues concerning higher education may be fragmented (Hines, 1988, p. 3). Higher education planning agencies (1) have limited authority as the states in which they coordinate activity also have two or more governing boards (McGuinness & Paulson, 1991, p. 8).

Because coordinating and governing boards affect university access to legislators, it seems reasonable to expect that the type of board would influence the number of laws passed on higher education. However, statistical comparison proved to be insignificant.

Variable 4, average number of months the legislature is in session per year, is the only variable that is part of the formal definition of professionalized states as described in an earlier section that correlates with the number of bills passed by each state (State Legislatures, 1991, p. 2; 1992, p. 2). Pearson's Correlation Coefficient produced correlation at the 95% confidence interval, which suggests that the longer a legislature sits per year, the more laws regulating public universities will be passed. Because Variable 4 is one of two variables that reflects legislative changes (Variable 1, impact of special interest groups, is the other), changes in the political process, i.e., professionalization, may be said to have some effect on legislators' policy decisions regarding higher education.

The Pennsylvania Case Study

Following the statistical analysis, I studied a professionalized state to see if qualitative data analysis would yield a similar correlation between professionalization and restriction of university autonomy. I selected Pennsylvania because both political scientists (Rosenthal, 1989, 70; Squire, 1992, 72) and members of its General Assembly classify it as having a professionalized legislature. Pennsylvania is also significant because Crosson (1983) reported that in 1980 its legislators were not interested in regulating or restricting the autonomy of the public institutions. Her data contradict the findings in earlier studies of other states. Therefore, it seemed particularly interesting to see if her findings held in the 1990s. ⁴

The Pennsylvania public universities consist of fourteen "state-owned" universities--the former normal schools or teacher colleges that have been [End Page 151] expanded to universities--that are organized into the State System of Higher Education (SSHE) and four "state-related" universities. These universities--three comprehensive research universities with twenty-five branch campuses and one traditionally African American university--are not formally coordinated. The state-related universities lobby the state legislature separately.

The methodology for this study is organized around the combination of several different data bases in true case study fashion. In 1990 I conducted in-depth, semi-structured interviews with five legislators of long tenure (three had entered the legislature by 1972; the other two began serving as of 1978) to learn their perception of legislative change and its effect on public universities. I gathered additional data from archival material and structured interviews of a stratified random sample of legislators selected by the University Center for Urban Research, University of Pittsburgh, based on a representative sample of political party affiliation, number of years served in either chamber, gender, and committee assignments.

The legislators I interviewed initially perceive that the pattern discovered in nationwide surveys fits their personal experience. All five note that the role of the Pennsylvania political parties has changed drastically since the early 1970s, for they said that endorsement by a political party no longer guarantees reelection. Several referred to the 1978 election when ten new people were voted into the legislature; of those, eight Democrats overthrew incumbents even without the endorsement of the Democratic Party. This election stands as a watershed in their minds; it symbolizes their concern that, in retaining their seats, they cannot count on their party apparatus. At the same time, less party control means they can maintain greater flexibility and autonomy. To these legislators, autonomy from the party means greater direct responsibility to their constituents. Two of them actually describe the demise of the state's party structure as the collapse of the patronage system, saying that political parties can no longer reward supporters as they had in the past. This is because the parties can no longer distribute federal jobs as paybacks; instead these jobs require specific skills and successful scores on the civil service examinations. In addition, the creation of welfare services precludes the need for handouts from the political parties.

The legislators interviewed also believe that the stature of legislative leaders has grown vis à vis the party organization and the governor. Those interviewed report that, in the past, the governor would tell the leaders how he wanted his party caucus to vote on every bill. The leaders would then inform their caucus members and deliver the votes. Leaders depended on the political party organization to reelect incumbents who voted the party line and replace those who did not. Today's leaders are described as having the power to (a) stand up to the governor and persuade their party caucus to vote in opposition to the governor if necessary, (b) directly affect incumbents' reelection by distributing campaign funds, choice committee appointments, [End Page 152] and chairmanships--all means of increasing the visibility and stature of the legislators--as they saw fit, and (c) improve legislators' standing in their district by endorsing Legislative Initiative funds for legislators to sponsor projects in their districts. In Pennsylvania, the slang name for this fund is WAM--"walking around money"--and the amount distributed grew from $4 million in 1986 to $66 million by 1991-1992 (Reeves 1993, p. C-2).

Informants who have held leadership positions add that the leaders must relate to their rank-and-file legislators differently from their predecessors. In the past, leaders were perceived as strong personalities who could bully their underlings into following their decisions. Today's leaders have to persuade legislators to vote their way by using such tactics as cooptation, moral persuasion, rationalization, and sometimes threats related to reelection support. Informants report that leaders gain legislators' loyalty by giving them what they want, and what they want is to look good in front of their constituents.

The legislators also agree that the legislature and their colleagues have changed. Each informant reported that in the 1960s, the Pennsylvania legislature was a body of part-time people who held other jobs while the present General Assembly is staffed by career politicians. According to the Final History of House Bills and Resolutions and the Final History of Senate Bills and Resolutions (Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 1969-1970a, 1969-1970b), the most frequent occupation reported by members of the House in 1969-1970 was attorney (55 out of 203 members) with only 45 self-reported as legislator; the most frequent occupation for senators was attorney (15 out of 50) and business (3 out of 50). In comparison, the 1989-1990 most frequent occupation of House members was legislator (145 out of 203) followed by attorney (8 out of 203); senators' most frequent occupation was state senator/legislator (30 out of 50), then attorney (8 out of 50) (Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 1990).

Respondents also are aware that the education level of legislators has risen. The Pennsylvania Manual shows that their impression is right. In the 1969-1970 legislative session, 42 representatives (20.7%) and 5 senators (10%) had only completed high school or attended public/parochial school; by 1989, 19 representatives (9.4%) and 4 senators (8%) completed the same education level. In 1969-1970, 75 representatives (37%) and 22 senators (44%) received a baccalaureate degree or completed some higher education; by 1989-1990, 96 representatives (47.3%) and 22 senators (44%) achieved the same level of higher education. In 1969-1970, only 12 representatives (5.9%) and 4 senators (8%) had started or completed a master's, Ph.D., or professional degree (not including law); and 62 representatives (30.5%) and 16 senators (32%) started or completed a law degree (LL.B. or J.D.); in the 1989-1990 session, 44 representatives (21.%) and 8 senators (16%) started or completed a master's, Ph.D., or professional degree (not [End Page 153] including law) while 36 representatives (17.7%) and 16 senators (32%) started or completed a law degree (LL.D. or J.D.; Brittingham, 1969, 1989). ⁵

Finally, respondents suggest that the change in the relationship between legislators and their leaders appears to be associated with their new relationship to constituents: Legislators' major motive seems to be their desire to report to their constituents that their vote on any issue is based on two concerns: their personal ideology/beliefs and their concern for the people who vote them into office (Sabloff, 1995b). To please constituents, legislators engage in some or all of the following. They: (a) propose bills that their constituents request (the Pennsylvania House processed over 2,800 bills in the 1989-1990 session) even if they think the bills are useless, (b) connect constituents to employment opportunities and recommend them for jobs, (c) provide services that help constituents (especially the poor elderly) fill out their tax forms, and (d) help constituents process other state government paperwork, especially motor vehicle problems. Since the political parties no longer provide jobs to party regulars, the individual legislators have stepped into the breach to act as middlemen, or brokers, to state and federal agencies. When I suggested to one respondent that the legislators themselves have now become patrons to their constituents, his face lit up with recognition, agreeing with my analysis.

The result of these trends has been a complete change in the political process in Pennsylvania, respondents report. The hope of one legislator had been that such changes would result in a political body that is truly concerned with the needs of the state. But, he concluded, the result has been just the opposite: despite greater access to information through the proliferation of legislative staff and a greater ability to grasp policy issues (because of their higher level of education), legislators have not become statesmen. Rather, their concern is even more deeply focused on their constituent patrons. The notion that constituents are of paramount importance in the eyes of the legislators is reinforced by the recent development of regional/county delegations. These groups of legislators meet occasionally, with or without local elected officials, and set priorities for their region. They then vote as a block for the top priority issues on the floor of both chambers, largely to please their constituents.

The trends in Pennsylvania show that legislators are aware that their time commitments and responsibilities have increased and that they are caught in a creative tension between maintaining the favor of their constituents and caucus leaders. They appear to be loyal first to their constituents, second to their legislative (caucus) leaders, and only third to their party organization. Does this new patronage structure affect their decisions regarding public universities? Has regulation, which often means restricting university [End Page 154] autonomy, altered in Pennsylvania? A comparison of past and present bills shows that while the number of bills proposed and laws and resolutions passed has not increased since the professionalization of the legislature, there is a shift toward increased regulation in the kinds of laws passed. In the 1969-1970 legislative session, 21 bills and resolutions regulating higher education were introduced into the Pennsylvania legislature; 3 were passed. These 3 laws (a) exempted foreign teachers from taking the loyalty oath in order to teach, i.e., lifted a restriction; (b) provided alternative certification for teachers, i.e., encouraged programmatic flexibility; and (c) established a senate committee to investigate student unrest, i.e., proposed a study before making any decisions on how to protect the campuses from vandalism and disruption during the student uprisings (Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 1969-1970a, 1969-1970b). In the sessions prior to 1969-1970 (i.e., 1965-1968), the General Assembly passed laws (a) requiring workers engaged in hazardous projects to wear eye protection devices, (b) maintaining Penn State's tax-exempt status as the state's land grant college, (c) granting Temple University state-related status, (d) granting text books tax-exempt status, and (e) excluding foreign faculty who have declared an interest in becoming citizens from taking the Loyalty Oath. None of these laws restricts the administration, research, or teaching functions of public universities. The resolutions passed in either chamber those years (a) required the Higher Education Commission to investigate the tuition and fees of all state-funded and state-aided colleges and universities; (b) required a House Bipartisan Committee to study the feasibility of state colleges leasing land to privately owned dormitories (i.e., fraternities); and (c) requested state-related universities to give admission preference to service men and women (Commonwealth of Pennsylvania 1965-1968, 1965-1968b). Only the last resolution is restricting, according to the definition of autonomy used in this article.

In the 1989-1990 legislative session, 11 regulatory bills and resolutions were introduced; 2 were passed. One was a resolution for a House committee to investigate racial relations on campuses in preparation for regulating the acceptance and retention policies of public institutions. The second required public colleges to certify the English proficiency of all faculty and teaching assistants on threat of being fined $10,000 per course, a law that directly reduces the autonomy of public universities. In the four years preceding the 1989-1990 session, the Pennsylvania legislature also passed laws (a) compelling the public universities to publish statistics on campus crime, (b) requiring high school teachers to major in a subject other than education, (c) restricting animal research to conform to animal cruelty regulations, and (d) governing the licensing and regulation of animal research facilities (Commonwealth of Pennsylvania 1985-1988, 1989-1990, 1990a, 1990b). As these laws restrict public university autonomy by regulating teaching, [End Page 155] [ Table 2] [Begin Page 157] research and administration, it is likely that reduced autonomy will be the trend for Pennsylvania public universities.

Two years after the in-depth interviews, I conducted structured interviews with a stratified random sample of legislators (30 out of 253) to try to ascertain whether regulation is related to patronage. In answer to one open-ended question, 31% of the respondents said they believed that the legislature should not manage or set policy for public universities; 35% said that legislative interference in public university management should be limited; and 15% desired oversight responsibility only. In other words, 81% of the legislators surveyed supported the concept of public university autonomy. Yet when asked whether they personally supported a bill that requires public universities to certify the English language competency of faculty and teaching assistants (direct regulation of teaching), 92% said that they did. And 85% planned to support some version of a right-to-know bill for the state-related universities in the 1992 session; the state-owned institutions already operated under right-to-know.

The legislators supported these two bills because they understood that they were operating under new rules. Although they had greater freedom from the political party organization, they felt they must temper their policy decisions with constituents' and caucus leadership's wishes. The first bill (English language proficiency) was proposed by a constituent and kin of a powerful senator. When legislators tested the idea for the bill in their district, they found support for its passage; many students, parents, and recent [End Page 157] graduates recounted stories of classes taught by foreigners whose English was unintelligible to their students. Constituents asked for legislative protection from university hiring practices and got it. The second bill (right-to-know) was proposed by a committee chairman in response to a university's actions. Again, legislators asked the opinion of constituents, and those constituents who responded supported increased comprehensive legislative oversight of state-related universities.

The legislators followed constituents' demands because they sought the favorable opinion of those who control their reelection, the voters of their district. One of the most telling remarks was made by a conservative legislator as we walked to the elevator after the interview. When I remarked that the legislature processes too many bills per session, he rationalized the proposal of any bill suggested by constituents as the democratic process in action!

To the random sample of legislators, voters' opinions outweighed the preservation of university autonomy because the desires of patrons (constituents) overrode the desires of clients (universities). And just as legislators viewed constituents as patrons, so they considered public universities and their lobbyists to be clients. Many of the legislators selected for the stratified random sample mentioned that the major responsibility of public university lobbyists is to build bonds of trust through the dissemination of honest information to the legislators. This means that legislators saw themselves as having the upper hand, for none said that lobbyists needed to trust the legislators! Ninety-two percent of the legislators stated that they used the information provided by public universities as just one information source in their policy decisions. Furthermore, 83% of those interviewed called public university lobbyists to help them work on constituent problems, using the universities to boost their standing with their own patrons. And 35% rejected the proposition that university lobbyists influenced them to sponsor (or cosponsor) a bill, i.e., influence their decision process.

Most telling was the finding that 50% rejected the idea that public universities should form their own PACs. In fact, only 4% of respondents supported the idea. Such an act might turn university clients into patrons. Rather, legislators wanted public universities to remain their clients and provide them with specific services: constituent help, information for policy decisions, bill writing and amending, football tickets, and even limited friendship. However, helping their clients by not passing restrictive legislation that limits their autonomy will depend on the legislators' relationship to their own patrons, namely constituents and caucus leaders.

Conclusion

Research over a twenty-year period has shown increasing or at least continuing regulation of public universities by state legislatures. From the perspective [End Page 158] of the institutions, whether restrictions on autonomy have increased is not as significant as whether restriction will continue. This study suggests that state regulation resulting in limitations on university autonomy will probably continue, as so many scholars of higher education and political science have predicted. One reason aside from others proposed in earlier research is that changes in the state-level political process (as seen in legislators' patronage structure) will result in an increased number of bills and laws that restricts public university autonomy. The Pennsylvania case study provides some proof that the development of a new patron-client relationship between legislators, their constituents, and their caucus leaders may result in limits on public university autonomy. That is, the more strongly legislators feel primary loyalty to constituents and caucus leadership, the more frequently they propose bills and eventually pass laws that they and their constituents feel are responsive to constituent needs, regardless of the consequences to public universities.

Pennsylvania is a highly professionalized state, according to political scientists (Rosenthal, 1989; Squire, 1992). Will the trends noted in Pennsylvania fit other professionalized states? Given the nature of the changing political process described in this paper, it is probable that other professionalized states are experiencing similar trends. Comparative analysis is needed to test this hypothesis.

Would the Pennsylvania trends hold for nonprofessionalized states as well? The statistical analysis and newspaper accounts of politics in other states imply that many other states are becoming professionalized. Indeed, a colleague in state government reported to me that even the New Mexico state legislature, which still meets only one or two months a year, has apportioned funds for legislators to establish district offices to begin constituent service work (S. Gerkey, personal communication, 1994). If more states become professionalized, it is likely that they will emulate the Pennsylvania pattern by restricting public university autonomy, among other consequences. Again, only comparative research can really reveal whether the Pennsylvania case is--or will become--representative of other states.

Paula L. W. Sabloff is a Research Specialist and Adjunct Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania. She was an administrator in New Mexico (Governor's Commission on Higher Education, Commission on Higher Education, and University of New Mexico) and then Pennsylvania (Office of Administration, University of Pittsburgh). She began research on Pennsylvania higher education when she taught at the University of Pittsburgh and plans to pursue comparative research between that state and Mongolia. The author would like to thank the Institute of Politics, University of Pittsburgh, for sponsoring this research, and Ann Dykstra and Dennis McManus, University of Pittsburgh Office of Commonwealth Relations, for their insights into the problem. Carol Baker, Richard Scaglion, and John Gatewood assisted in the statistical analysis.

Notes

1. PACs are defined by Bibby et al. (1990) as "a subspecies of a 'political committee,' defined in . . . [the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1974 -- discussed below in "The Changing Political Process"] and granted conditional rights to solicit and accumulate funds for distribution to candidates" (p. 112).

2. SIGs are defined by Thomas and Hrebenar (1990) as "any association of individuals, whether formally organized or not, which attempts to influence public policy" (p. 124).

3. While laws are used here to mark legislative decisions, they actually mark legislative decisions that are signed into law by the governor of the state. There is no 50-state database to trace the passage of legislative decisions as opposed to laws. Therefore, this article substitutes actual laws for legislative decisions.

4. The legislators she interviewed were all members of the Appropriations or Education Committees (Crosson, 1983, pp. 538-539). Therefore it is reasonable to assume that they told Crosson they would not want to restrict public universities because they had special ties to and probably personal relations with the universities and therefore greater reason to trust them. As will be seen, the data for this study are based on a stratified sample of legislative members, most of whom did not serve on committees that have direct contact with public universities.

5. The numbers do not sum to 100% because of missing data.

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