Motivation

• The growth in special districts has been extensive over the latter half of the 20th century

  • Growth is uneven across states; some states are high users (e.g., Illinois, New York), and some are lower (e.g., Louisiana, Rhode Island)

• Creation of such districts is common

Motivations

• Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act requires local areas wanting to make local governance changes to acquire “preclearance” from the Department of Justice

• This preclearance process covers special districts (political subdivisions) in all the same ways outlined above.

  • Ex: Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District No. 1 v. Holder (asking to be “bailed out” of preclearance requirements)

Section 5 coverage

Expectations

• In counties covered by Section 5, there exists higher barriers to creating new special districts and dissolving older ones

• Therefore,

  • We should expect the pre-VRA 1975 period to exhibit differences

  • If the intervention is “successful”, these differences disappear post intervention (no statistical difference between treated and untreated)

• The 1975 version is preferred because coverage is based on data rather than geographical targeting

Empirical Model

• Time period: 1942-2007
• Sample: All counties subject to the 1975 VRA who were not subject to previous VRA iterations (2,518)
• Treatment: 279 counties in 6 states

Model Specification

\[ y_{ct} = \delta_c + \delta_{st} + \sum_{\tau \ne 1972}\beta_{\tau} I_{\tau t}\times PC_{c} + \varepsilon_{ct} \]

• where,
  • \(y_{ct}\) is the count of special districts in county \(c\) in time \(t\)
  • \(\delta_c\) is county fixed effect, \(\delta_{st}\) is state-year fixed effect
  • \(\beta_{\tau}\), the variable of interest, is the interaction between year dummies (\(I_{\tau t}\)) and the treatment (\(PC_c\))
  • \(\varepsilon\) is the usual composite error term
• This specification follows Ang (2019)

County Characteristics, 1970

Conclusions

• Prior to the imposition of the VRA of 1975, pre-treated group have fewer special districts on average
  • The post 1975 period elevates treated county’s usage of special districts such that they are no different than untreated counties
• Next steps
  • Incorporate the 1965 and 1970 VRAs as a robustness check; requires a different method because of differential timing.