[gov3009-l] Applied Statistics Workshop: Fowler and Hall on Wed., March 27

Republican and Democratic legislators vote differently on a large number of bills even when representing constituents of identical preferences. Because constituencies care about some issues more than others, representatives may give short shrift to the district's preferences on some topics while carefully mirroring them on others. The more a district cares about an issue, the more loyally we should see its legislators voting. As a consequence, we should expect the partisan gap in representation -- the difference in voting behavior between a Democrat and a Republican representing the same constituents -- to shrink on issues of greater concern to the district. We test this hypothesis in eight issue areas: agriculture, civil rights, defense, education, energy, public transportation, senior citizens' issues, and welfare. Contrary to expectation, we find little evidence that representational quality improves when constituents have strong personal interests. Across all issues examined, the representational gap between the parties is massive and does not shrink meaningfully in especially-interested districts.