State of Pennsylvania

Datasets

Media

• Newspaper Articles

  Note: more detailed datasets are available for download, with the corresponding codebook, via the Pennsylvania Policy Database Project’s website. The Pennsylvania Policy Database Project is a free, online resource that provides access to more than 180,000 state and news media records and enables users to trace and analyze with a few clicks the history of public policy in the Commonwealth since 1979.  

  This dataset contains a measure of the government’s attention to news reporting and opinion on public policy issues in Pennsylvania beginning in 1979 and typically updated to within a year or two of the present. Since there is no dominant news source for the entire state, these data are composed of a 10 percent random sample of news reports produced by dozens of newspapers and electronic media across Pennsylvania as collected by state Capitol press offices and circulated to key policymakers each weekday in the form of news digests.  This is the only dataset that is not universal, i.e., that is composed of a random sample.  The governor’s press office is the source of the news reports during the Thornburgh (1979-1987), Casey (1987-1995), Rendell (2003-2011), Corbett (2011-2015) administrations.  During the combined Ridge and Schweiker administrations (1995-2003), the project sampled similar news digests produced by the press offices of the House Democratic and Republican caucuses.  These reports are collected and circulated by press offices to ensure policymakers and their staffs are aware of what news organizations and opinion writers across Pennsylvania are saying about policy issues.  In simple terms, the articles represent the news media’s “agenda” as perceived by key policymakers. The over 30 years of articles included in the dataset were collected, abstracted, and then coded by researchers at Temple University, Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania State University, Pennsylvania State University Harrisburg and The University of Pennsylvania. On average, there are around 1500 articles per year. A random sample was collected by examining articles on every tenth page from the archived news digests. Once collected, the articles were read and then converted into three to five sentence abstracts by undergraduate researchers. During this process, the researchers also coded a variety of filter variables regarding the mention of important actors or topics, which are explained in further detail below. In addition to the filters the articles’ newspaper of origin, date of publication, original headline, and article type were coded to allow for future researchers to locate the original source documents easily and efficiently. The final step in collecting these data involved the application of the Pennsylvania Policy Database Project’s adaptation of the topic coding scheme used by the Policy Agendas Project to the article abstracts. These data are then combined for each individual record such that for every article sampled the following variables are available for analysis.

  
  67963 observations spanning the years 1979 to 2015
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Parliamentary & Legislative

• Bills and Resolutions

  This dataset includes all bills and resolutions introduced into the Pennsylvania General Assembly beginning with the 1979-80 session and going through the end of the 2015-16 session. The average number of bills introduced into the PA House of Representatives is 2936, while the average number of resolutions was 504. The average number of bills introduced in the PA Senate is 1674, while the average number of resolutions is 235. In addition to the regular sessions, there are six Special Sessions[1] which average only 123 bills and resolutions per Special Session.  Bill numbers, hyperlinks, a four-digit code, filters, and an extensive legislative history have been applied to each record. These will be explained in detail below. For a detailed description of the PA General Assembly and other branches of the PA State government, please go to the PA Government section of the codebook. Special Sessions for the following legislative sessions exist for: 1987-88, 1991-92, 2001-02, 2005-06 and there were two in 1995-96.

  
  102727 observations spanning the years 1979 to 2016
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• House Hearings

  House Hearings

  
  5654 observations spanning the years 1979 to 2016
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Prime Minister & Executive

• Executive Orders

  This dataset is a record of every Executive Order (EO) of the Governor of Pennsylvania from the beginning of the Thornburgh Administration (1979). In addition to new Executive Orders, the dataset includes revisions to existing Orders and Executive Orders that have been subsequently rescinded.

  
  275 observations spanning the years 1979 to 2018
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• Governor's Budget Address

  Note: more detailed datasets are available for download, including the corresponding codebook, via the Pennsylvania Policy Database Project’s website. The Pennsylvania Policy Database Project is a free, online resource that provides access to more than 215,000 state and news media records and enables users to trace and analyze with a few mouse clicks the history of public policy in the Commonwealth since 1979. 

  The governors’ budget messages dataset follows the coding of the State of the Union address dataset in the Policy Agendas Project. Each year in an address to the General Assembly (typically in early February but up to a month later during inauguration years), the governor proposes a budget for the fiscal year beginning the following July 1 and identifies policy priorities. 

  
  11289 observations spanning the years 1979 to 2019
  download dataset   download codebook

Public Opinion & Interest Groups

• Most Important Problem facing Pennsylvania 1994 - 2019

  The dataset includes public opinion data from the Franklin and Marshall College Poll’s "Most Important Problem" (MIP) question using the major policy codes from the Pennsylvania Policy Database Project. The Franklin and Marshall College Poll (formerly known as the Keystone Poll) is conducted through the Center for Opinion Research and collects a representative sample of responses from Pennsylvania residents.

  
  1241 observations spanning the years 1994 to 2019
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Research

Agenda instability in Pennsylvania politics: Lessons for future replication

Daniel J  Mallinson, Stockton University  -  Research on agenda-setting dynamics in American politics has a rich and deep history. Recent efforts to extend this work into other countries provides a comparative perspective on how differing institutional designs shape attention ... Read more

The Role of Redistribution in Mayoral Policy Agendas

Despite rising inequality, Mayors are still focusing on economic development – not redistribution – to help the poorSome studies have shown that addressing income inequality is gaining in popularity.        Michelle Atherton  and  Wesley Leckrone  explore whether concern for ... Read more

PUBLIC PENSIONS, SCHOOL FUNDING, AND ARTS AND CULTURE TOP CORP’S 2014 AGENDA

Read more

Staff

Dr. Joseph McLaughlin

Title: Director of the Institute for Public Affairs
Institution(s): Temple University

As director of the Institute for Public Affairs and of the bipartisan Center on Regional Politics, McLaughlin connects Temple’s intellectual resources – including applied research and student interns — with policy making leaders in the public, private, and non-profit sectors.  He is also associate vice dean for the College of Liberal Arts and teaches American politics and public policy in the political science department.  His work at Temple has included conducting information sessions for the Pennsylvania General Assembly and publishing research summarizing the legislature’s history and evaluating proposed changes in its structure and operations.  He also oversees the free, online Pennsylvania Policy Database, built with the support and cooperation of the General Assembly, which incorporates more than 180,000 government and news media records into more than 200 policy topics and enables users to trace and graph the history of public policy since 1979.  McLaughlin served as senior advisor to Pennsylvania Governor Edward G. Rendell (2003-04), Philadelphia Mayor William J. Green III (1982-84), the bipartisan National Governors Association (1978-82), and the Pennsylvania House of Representatives (1974-77).  From 1984-2002, he was a lobbyist representing the City of Philadelphia under four mayors; SEPTA, business leaders in Southeastern Pennsylvania, and numerous other public and private sector organizations.  As a reporter for the Chicago Tribune(1968-71), he covered state and local politics and government in Illinois.  A 1965 graduate of Middlebury College and US Army veteran, McLaughlin obtained his master’s (1992) and doctoral (1999) degrees in political science from Temple.

Stefanie Kasparek

Title: Graduate Research Manager for the Pennsylvania Public Policy Database Project
Institution(s): Temple University

Stefanie Kasparek is Graduate Research Manager at the Institute for Public Affairs  for the Pennsylvania Policy Database Project. She is also a Ph.D. student in political science at Temple University. Kasparek graduated summa cum laude from the University of Tuebingen, Germany with an M.A. in American Studies, International Law, and Political Science. She is the 2016 Box-Steffensmeier Fellow, awarded by the Society for Political Methodology and the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research. Her work concentrates on international organizations, international security, agenda-setting and decision-making processes, and public policy. She has also taught classes in international relations and quantitative research methods at Temple University.

Michelle Atherton

Title: Associate Director of the Institute for Public Affairs
Institution(s): Temple University

Michelle J. Atherton is associate director of the Institute for Public Affairs, senior policy writer and publications editor for the Center on Regional Politics, staff advisor for the Pennsylvania Policy Database Project, and director of the Pennsylvania Capital Semester, an internship program in Harrisburg for students at Temple and all Pennsylvania colleges and universities.  She also directs Temple’s Washington Semester, a partnership with the Washington Center in Washington, DC that allows Temple students to work and learn in the nation’s capital. Atherton graduated summa cum laude from the University of Pittsburgh with a dual B.A. in English literature and philosophy of science.  She holds a master’s degree in political science from Temple, where she was a University Fellow. She also served as a legislative intern to Philadelphia City Councilwoman Blondell Reynolds Brown, and taught American politics, the politics of race and political philosophy as a teaching assistant and adjunct instructor before joining the Institute for Public Affairs in 2008. Atherton also serves on the executive committee of the Pennsylvania Political Science Association and is an associate editor ofCommonwealth: A Journal of Pennsylvania Politics and Policy.