Robert Griffin, a Ph.D. student in political science at George Washington University makes note of the relationship between the TANF program and civic engagement in a recent post on The Monkey Cage, a blog run by political science professors.

Bruch, Ferree, and Soss (gated, ungated) argue that services such as TANF are an important means by which many Americans interact with and form opinions about government. In particular, experiences in dealing with welfare programs can shape our ideas about the efficacy of participation and the general responsiveness of government. Their findings suggest that interactions with means tested welfare programs that are more paternalistic – “hierarchical designs that emphasize direction, supervision, and penalty” – suppress participation.

In other words, when the relationship between a recipient of TANF and the government is more structured and paternalistic, all forms of civic and political engagement go down. This seems to be the kind of relationship that Florida is cultivating with this new bill.

Griffin continues,

This is not to say that Governor Scott’s bill is necessarily bad legislation. Public policy often involves tradeoffs and I’m certainly in no position to argue for or against the value of such a policy on the basis of its overall desirability. However, it is deeply disappointing that this legislation was seemingly passed without seriously considering the consequences of potentially demobilizing a population already predisposed to low levels of civic and political participation.