Policymaking has been studied from a variety of conceptual perspectives. The political bargaining model, used in conjunction with the broader systems framework, constitutes a familiar approach to research regarding education policymaking at the state level. This paper focuses on the conceptual implications of a study which applied that approach to a longitudinal investigation of the legislative process resulting in Minnesota's tuition tax concession statutes for elementary-secondary education. The findings indicate that the political bargaining model is a valid, productive, but insufficient model because it does not directly address two pervasive features of the process--political language and symbolic action. This paper provides a summary of the Minnesota study, a brief illustration of the utility of the political bargaining model, and a preliminary case for the consideration of categories that direct our attention to the symbolic dimension of state level policymaking. (Author/TE)