Faces in the Office: Racial Employment Segregation among Congressional Staff

Ziniel, Curtis E.

doi:10.2139/ssrn.1434290

Cited by 2 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…State legislatures present an opportunity to advance the study of staffers because of the variation in their roles and utilization across states. Likewise, prior literature has discussed the role of staffers in constituency service (Ziniel, 2009), and we advance the conversation by showing that staffers have a substantive effect on constituency service by reducing discrimination.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 62%

“…Third, prior research suggests that constituent communications in professionalized state legislatures are conducted by a racially diverse group of staffers who might be expected to discriminate less against minority constituents. Furthermore, racial minority staffers are more likely to be assigned constituent communication work in legislatures (Jones, 2017) possibly to help the legislator garner a personal vote with racial minority constituents (Ziniel, 2009). This is particularly important in our case because the legislative audit literature has found that discrimination is mitigated by non-White legislative actors (Costa, 2017).…”

Section: Legislative Professionalizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Staffers, especially in term-limited legislatures, may also have more experience with legislative norms than legislators (Kousser, 2005). Racial minority staffers are more likely to be assigned constituent communication work (Grose et al, 2007; Jones, 2017; Ziniel, 2009), and although the placement of racial minority staffers in these positions may limit their ability to influence policy, it may influence whether vulnerable constituents receive equitable service. These reasons suggest that legislators and staffers may behave differently, but existing studies have not investigated this possibility.…”

Section: Responding To Constituent Communicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Do More Professionalized Legislatures Discriminate Less? The Role of Staffers in Constituency Service

Landgrave

Weller

2020

American Politics Research

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Research suggests that organizational structure can influence the ability of actors to discriminate. In this research note, we examine whether the structure of state legislatures affects observed discrimination in correspondent audit studies. We find that increased legislative professionalization is associated with reduced discrimination against racial minorities. By analyzing thousands of emails collected in a prior study, we find that legislative professionalization is related to a higher likelihood that staffers respond to email contacts and staffers are less likely to discriminate against racial minorities across multiple measures of discrimination. Our findings emphasize the importance of substantively relevant heterogeneity in audit studies and identify a potential mitigator of discrimination—legislative professionalism. Our results also highlight the importance of staffers in representation and the legislative process.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 62%

Section: Legislative Professionalizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Responding To Constituent Communicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Do More Professionalized Legislatures Discriminate Less? The Role of Staffers in Constituency Service

Landgrave

Weller

2020

American Politics Research

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The Partisan Vote: Shared Partisanship and Constituent Service in the U.S. Congress

Snyder

2024

American Politics Research

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The theory of the “personal vote” assumes that constituent service, or the process by which members of Congress help their constituents navigate the federal bureaucracy, is a component of representation that transcends partisanship. However, recent research suggests that affective polarization and negative partisanship may discourage constituents from reaching out to ask for help from cross-partisan legislators. Using a conjoint experiment, I show that shared partisanship has a strong effect on constituents’ decisions about which of their legislators to contact for assistance. However, positive in-party affect is unrelated to these preferences, suggesting that negative partisanship is responsible for this result. Gender and seniority also matter for constituents’ preferences even when accounting for shared partisanship. The results suggest that legislators’ ability to build a “personal vote” by performing constituent service may be weakened in an era of strong partisanship.

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Faces in the Office: Racial Employment Segregation among Congressional Staff

Cited by 2 publications

References 22 publications

Do More Professionalized Legislatures Discriminate Less? The Role of Staffers in Constituency Service

Do More Professionalized Legislatures Discriminate Less? The Role of Staffers in Constituency Service

The Partisan Vote: Shared Partisanship and Constituent Service in the U.S. Congress

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