Problem A Bipartisan Agenda for Change
In a study conducted by Zogby International for the Democrat and Chronicle, more than
700 New Yorkers were polled to determine whether the New York state government works.
Respondents surveyed were asked questions involving pay cuts for state legislators,
restrictions on lobbyists, term limits for legislators, and whether state citizens should be
able to put matters directly on the state ballot for a vote (Democrat and Chronicle, The results regarding several proposed reforms had broad support, crossing all
demographic and political lines.
Suppose that a follow-up survey of 100 individuals who live in the western region of
NewYork was conducted. The party affiliation (Democrat, Independent, Republican) of each
individual surveyed was recorded, as well as their responses to the following three questions
1. Should legislative pay be cut for every day the state budget is late?
Yes ____ No ____
2. Should there be more restrictions on lobbyists?
Yes ____ No ____
3. Should there be term limits requiring that legislators serve a fixed number of years?
Yes ____ No ____
The responses were coded using 1 for a Yes response and 2 for a No response. The complete
data set is available in the file named NYReform.
Managerial Report
1. Use descriptive statistics to summarize the data from this study. What are your preliminary
conclusions about the independence of the response (Yes or No) and party
affiliation for each of the three questions in the survey?
2. With regard to question 1, test for the independence of the response (Yes and No)
and party affiliation. Use α _ .05.
3. With regard to question 2, test for the independence of the response (Yes and No)
and party affiliation. Use α _ .05.
4. With regard to question 3, test for the independence of the response (Yes and No)
and party affiliation. Use α _ .05.
5. Does it appear that there is broad support for change across all political lines? Explain.
