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Legislative Staff and Representation inCongress

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 November 2018

ALEXANDER HERTEL-FERNANDEZ ,
MATTO MILDENBERGER Open the ORCID record for MATTO MILDENBERGER [Opens in a new window]  and
LEAH C. STOKES
ALEXANDER HERTEL-FERNANDEZ*
Affiliation:
Columbia University
MATTO MILDENBERGER*
Affiliation:
University of California, Santa Barbara
LEAH C. STOKES*
Affiliation:
University of California, Santa Barbara
*
*Alexander Hertel-Fernandez, AssistantProfessor, School of International and Public Affairs, ColumbiaUniversty, ah3467@columbia.edu.
†Matto Mildenberger, Assistant Professor, Department ofPolitical Science, University of California, Santa Barbara, mildenberger@ucsb.edu.
‡Leah Stokes, Assistant Professor, Department of PoliticalScience, University of California, Santa Barbara, lstokes@ucsb.edu.
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Abstract

Legislative staff link Members of Congress and their constituents,theoretically facilitating democratic representation. Yet, littleresearch has examined whether Congressional staff actually recognizethe preferences of their Members’ constituents. Using an originalsurvey of senior US Congressional staffers, we show that staffsystematically mis-estimate constituent opinions. We then evaluatethe sources of these misperceptions, using observational analysesand two survey experiments. Staffers who rely more heavily onconservative and business interest groups for policy informationhave more skewed perceptions of constituent opinion. Egocentricbiases also shape staff perceptions. Our findings complicateassumptions that Congress represents constituent opinion, and helpto explain why Congress often appears so unresponsive to ordinarycitizens. We conclude that scholars should focus more closely onlegislative aides as key actors in the policymaking process, both inthe United States and across other advanced democracies.

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Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 113 , Issue 1 , February 2019 , pp. 1 - 18
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2018 

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Footnotes

Authors listed alphabetically and contributed equally to theproject design and manuscript.

The authors thank Geoffrey Henderson for terrific researchsupport and are grateful to Raymond O’Mara III, Lee Drutman, andKevin Kosar for aid in drafting and disseminating the survey.Thanks to Pat Egan, Jacob Hacker, Tim LaPira, Robert Shapiro,Kent Jennings, Greg Wawro and participants at the HarvardUniversity Inequality and Social Policy Seminar, UCLAOrganizations and Markets Seminar, UC Santa Barbara Psychology,Environment and Public Policy (PEPP), Seminar, the ColumbiaSustainable Development Workshop, the MPSA PoliticalInstitutions and Elite Behavior 4 mini-conference, the NuffieldCollege Oxford Workshop on Money in Politics, and PurdueUniversity for feedback on earlier drafts. The DirksenCongressional Center provided funding for the project throughits Congressional Research Grant program. The authors thank KenBenoit, the APSR editorial team, and the anonymous reviewers fortheir very helpful feedback and assistance throughout thepublication process. Replication files are available at theAmerican Political Science Review Dataverse: https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/OWQNVF.

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