Agenda-Setting in the Florida Legislature

Abstract

The Florida? Policy Agendas Project was founded in?2014?to assess issue attention in the legislature and news media of Florida. Stemming from a multi-disciplinary approach, this project explores individual state legislators’ priorities in the policymaking process and how sub-national actors deviate from longstanding theories of national legislatures. A recent network analysis highlights the role of non-partisan networks in legislators’ agenda-setting. The relatively fixed nature of legislators and their districts promote stability in the legislative agenda. And the interdependence of legislators’ decisions helps explain the infrequent, but rapid shifts in the agenda; occasionally the decisions of a few legislators will reverberate throughout the network, creating a cascade of attention to new topics. Our work helps explain when those transformative shifts are likely to occur. The project is managed exclusively at Florida State University.