Abstract
Prior research by Abney and Lauth concluded that governors were losing ground to legislatures in shaping the state budget. Goodman examined Abney and Lauth’s explanations for this change and found empirical support for some but not others. This article’s findings reveal that governors, as a group, have not declined in budgetary influence, although some have gained and others lost during recent decades. The longitudinal analysis arrives at two major conclusions: (1) executive—legislative influence changes that take place stem primarily from political rather than structural changes, and (2) budgetary influence is not unidimensional as governors and legislatures compete in a non-zero-sum game in pursuit of different budgetary outcomes.
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