State Attorneys General, Entrepreneurship and Consumer Protection in the New Federalism

Abstract

Although many scholars have acknowledged the important role of states in regulatory enforcement, few have studied the decisions of the state attorneys general to pursue particular multi-state litigation actions. State attorneys general act as political entrepreneurs because they aggressively seek out market failures in society to justify stronger regulation. Their motivation to serve the public comes from the fact that they are elected in 43 states and the office is often used as a springboard into higher political office. A probit model analyzing the decision to join seven high-profile multi-state enforcement actions that look place between 1996 and 1998 reveals that state citizen ideology and the institutional structure of the office have the strongest effects on the decision to join a case. Copyright 2003, Oxford University Press.