LmlOC ocal partisan activities of legislators and their electoral coalitions systematically influence field office activities of federal bureaucracies in their electoral districts. This alternative to centralized democratic controls over bureaucracy occurs because discretionary policy decisions made at the field office level are influenced by local resources generated through partisan activities. Our study of county-level Occupational Safety and Health Administration enforcement in New York finds that county, state, and federal elected officials influence local enforcement activities, with liberal, Democratic legislators associated with more active enforcement. The county political parties are most influential for activities with the most local discretion, while members of Congress are more influential for local activities more readily controlled by the national office.

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This article explores how “New Federalism” under President Ronald W. Reagan manifested itself in the implementation of fair housing policy. We examine the Fair Housing Assistance Program (FHAP) and how it led to state and local civil rights agencies playing an increasingly vital role in implementing the Fair Housing Act of 1968. Relying on data provided by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), we show that a significant number of fair housing complaints were shifted from HUD to state and local agencies.

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This research is an extension of the body of work seeking to explain variation in levels of Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) enforcement as a function of national and local variation in the agency's political environment. Although we examine a number of relationships, the new question is whether legislative oversight affects the behavior of OSHA compliance officers at the district level. OSHA is an interesting test case of the impact of oversight on bureaucratic output because of the way policy is implemented—enforcement takes place in the field by street-level bureaucrats, far removed from the federal office. Using data gathered at the congressional district level(1983-1995), results suggest that variation within OSHA's enforcement behavior is influenced by oversight committee assignment, overall oversight committee's and appropriations subcommittee's attitudes toward labor, and the district representative's disposition toward labor issues. We conclude legislative oversight indeed imposes limitations on compliance officers' district-level enforcement actions.