In 2004 the American Political Science Association’s task force on inequality and American democracy released a report highlighting how the United States was failing to provide political equality in representation. This report is alarming because equality in representation – the degree to which politicians act evenhandedly in pursuing each citizen’s preferences and interests – is a standard that is widely used to measure a democracy’s health. Citing a variety of academic studies, the report noted the tendency of the U.S. government to systematically enact the policies preferred by the wealthy.

The members of the task force blamed the existing inequality on differences in political activity.

The task force went on to suggest that increasing all citizens’ various forms of political participation would be the most effective way to end inequality. In this sense, the APSA task force report joins the bulk of political science research, which assumes that bias in participation is the source of bias in representation. Scholars argue that if all citizens exhibited similar levels of political activity we would achieve equality in representation.

While commonplace, this view is wrong. Equality in participation does not guarantee equality in representation. In this book I argue and present evidence showing that even if all voters participate (and donate money, contact their representatives, etc.) at equal rates, we will still observe bias in representation.

Bias in representation, at least in part, traces its roots to the people who are elected to office. We have underestimated the importance of this bias because our dominant paradigm of representation implicitly assumes that politicians are blank slates when they come to office. Politicians are not blank slates, and the information, opinions, and attitudes that they bring to office lead to significant bias in representation.