Abstract
This article argues that state legislative memorials to Congress are an underutilized tool in the study of federalism. A data set composed of the 4,119 memorials submitted to Congress from 1987 to 2006 was constructed to study the evolution of state priorities in intergovernmental policy and to examine attitudes toward state–federal relations. Analysis shows that memorials have been used by every state legislature to send substantive policy signals to Washington across a wide range of issues. The article concludes that the inclusion of memorials into the study of intergovernmental relations provides researchers rich insight into unexplored issues critical to our understanding of federalism.
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