The Voting Rights Act of 1965 and Strategic Policy Making in the South

This study uses historical data from the 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA) to examine the effect of strategic policy making on policy outcomes. Strategic policy making refers to the exploitation of future policy resources by an incumbent government when it anticipates the policy change by a future government. In the South, the segregationist governments immediately after the enactment of the VRA still stayed in office but anticipated the future policy change that would result from minority voters acquiring the right to franchise. This political context provides an ideal setting for testing the theory of strategic policy making. Through analysis of county panel data analysis from the 1960s, this study finds that segregationist governments with large budgets increased long-term debts, education spending, and highway spending significantly when compared with the rest of the country. This finding supports a version of strategic policy making, namely, strategic use of debts, and is consistent with anecdotal evidence indicating that resistance to school integration through the creation of all-white suburban schools is one of the primary motives for bond issues.