Effective or Evicted: Landlord Lobbying and Housing Policy Outcomes in the Midwest

Abstract

Cycles of evictions and weakened policy responses to tenants in need are undesirable social policy outcomes in the housing policy environment. While previous research shows that the mobilization of bias can affect social policy outcomes, no research has examined the relationship between the lobbying in the housing industry and the level of evictions across the United States. This study asks how does the landlord lobbying within state legislatures influence eviction rates in a community? I study campaign contributions from and hired lobbyists for landlord associations in state legislatures as a measure of the mobilization of bias. I hypothesize that higher expenditures on lobbyists and campaigns will lead to higher rates of eviction for the state. This analysis considers how other demographic factors, such as ethnicity, income, and rent burden, interact with mobilization of bias to create more vulnerability in certain states. I test this relationship in 10 states over sixteen years (2000-2016), using time series cross-sectional analysis on a new dataset that was made available in April 2018. My results illuminate how landlord spending in the housing policy sector can have significant effects on policy outcomes for tenants.