Robert R. Preuhs

TL;DR: This article examined the relationship between inclusion and benefit levels by analyzing state policies related to the welfare reforms of 1996 which allowed states to decide if recent immigrants would be included in welfare benefits, and subsequently the extent to which this decision affected overall benefit levels offered by states under TANF.

TL;DR: This article used state-level data on welfare benefit levels and a survey of black state legislators to show that black descriptive representation exerts policy influence outside of local governing bodies, but that a highly racialized political context and party control condition the nature and degree of policy influence.

TL;DR: This paper showed that the fastest growing ethnic minority group, Latinos, do benefit from descriptive representation, as increases in Latino representation and legislative incorporation offset the negative effects of Latino population size on social welfare policy.

TL;DR: The authors used an event history analysis of state adoption of English Only laws from 1984 to 2002 to test a model of minority policy influence that is exerted through the possession of state legislative leadership positions, and found that the size of the minority population and the level of descriptive representation in the legislature exert only an indirect effect on legislative policy decisions.

TL;DR: The authors used state legislator ideology estimates (standardized W-nominate values) to examine whether Latino and African American legislator ideological differences can be explained away by traditional constituency characteristics like partisanship and demographics.