Understanding and Responding to Constituent Opinion on Capitol Hill

Abernathy, Claire

doi:10.1080/07343469.2018.1482385

Cited by 5 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…Below we discuss issues with temporal validity of using data from 2006, given increasing polarization in the electorate 1 and given the changing relationship of the electorate to communication technology (Settle 2018). In short, there is no evidence that the magnitudes of the effects of deliberation interventions such as the one we examine have diminished in recent years (e.g., Abernathy, 2018), and the platform used was not vulnerable to pathologies recently observed in social media platforms (as in Lazer, 2015).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 89%

“…However, there is no evidence to suggest that the magnitude of treatment effects for deliberation interventions, such as the one we used in this study, have changed over time. For example, Abernathy (2018) reports results with a telephone town hall experiment with members of Congress in 2016 that had similar responses from constituents. Second, the nature and extent of technology-enabled communication has changed over time (Settle, 2018).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Does Familiarity Breed Esteem? A Field Experiment on Emergent Attitudes Toward Members of Congress

Esterling

Minozzi

Neblo

2022

Political Research Quarterly

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Canonical theories of democratic representation envision legislators cultivating familiarity to enhance esteem among their constituents. Some scholars, however, argue that familiarity breeds contempt, which if true would undermine incentives for effective representation. Survey respondents who are unfamiliar with their legislator tend not to provide substantive answers to attitude questions, and so we are missing key evidence necessary to adjudicate this important debate. We solve this problem with a randomized field experiment that gave some constituents an opportunity to gain familiarity with their Member of Congress through an online Deliberative Town Hall. Relative to controls, respondents who interacted with their member reported higher esteem as a result of enhanced familiarity, a mediation effect supporting canonical theories of representation. This effect is statistically significant among constituents who are the same political party as the member but not among those of the opposite party, although in neither case did familiarity breed contempt.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 89%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Does Familiarity Breed Esteem? A Field Experiment on Emergent Attitudes Toward Members of Congress

Esterling

Minozzi

Neblo

2022

Political Research Quarterly

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“…The vignette experiment we report here was designed to closely mimic the salient features of requests that staffers routinely receive in an effort to maximize external validity. Based on anecdotal evidence from in-person interviews and the authors’ own experience working in Congress, we know staffers frequently receive requests for their time, support on issues, and offers of information, often via very brief email and with relatively little additional contextual information provided in the outreach request (Abernathy 2018; LaPira et al 2020). Because lobbyists and constituents, for example, are unlikely to request meetings in the same manner to each other, a vignette that is more specific about the format of the outreach would inevitably lack verisimilitude for either the lobbyist or the constituent.…”

Section: Experiments Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

More than Mere Access: An Experiment on Moneyed Interests, Information Provision, and Legislative Action in Congress

Furnas

LaPira

Hertel‐Fernandez

et al. 2022

Political Research Quarterly

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Campaign donors and corporate interests have greater access to Congress, and the legislative agenda and policy outcomes reflect their preferences. How this privileged access converts into influence remains unclear because petitioner-legislator interactions are unobserved. In this article, we report the results of an original survey experiment of 436 congressional staffers. The vignette manipulates a petitioner’s identity, the substance of the request, and the supporting evidence being offered. We test how likely staff are to take a meeting, to use the information being offered, and to recommend taking a position consistent with the request, as well as whether they perceive the request to be congruent with constituent preferences. Donors and lobbyists are no more likely to be granted access than constituents, but staffers are more likely to use information and to make legislative action recommendations when the information source is an ideologically aligned think tank. Subgroup analysis suggests these effects are particularly strong among ideological extremists and strong partisans. And, information offered by aligned think tanks are thought to be representative of constituent opinion. Our results reveal the partisan and ideological predispositions that motivate legislative action that is more costly than merely granting access.

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“…Using random assignment in a series of field experiments, Bergan (2009) and Bergan and Cole (2015) found direct evidence that legislators were responsive to the constituent contact they received, becoming more likely to support positions after contact. Abernathy (2018), meanwhile, finds that offices that take seriously the task of tracking and reporting correspondence levels across an office staff produce higher levels of policy responsiveness.…”

Section: Constituent Communication and Representationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Are Individuals Harmed by Gerrymandering? Examining Access to Congressional District Offices

Niven

Cover

Solimine

2020

Social Science Quarterly

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Objective We consider proximity and access to the district offices of members of Congress to explore whether gerrymandering affects individuals’ capacity to be heard and thus impairs their representation. Methods In a study of six states, we conduct more than 123 million distance measurements to identify residents whose closest district office is in the wrong congressional district. Based on survey results, we then estimate the likelihood that such mismatched individuals will personally visit the office of their member of Congress. Results We find that in five gerrymandered states, between 28.7 and 47.5 percent of residents have a mismatched closest district office, a rate several times higher than in a non‐gerrymandered state. Extrapolating from survey results, we find that mismatched residents are 38 percent less likely to visit their own district office, and that across five states gerrymandering effectively deters nearly 600,000 office visits over a two‐year congressional session. Conclusion Of significance in both the legal and scholarly arena, we find that gerrymandering increases the prevalence of mismatched district offices, thereby impeding constituents from making in‐person visits that are widely viewed as the most effective mechanism for communicating their opinions and needs to Congress. We believe this heretofore undocumented mismatch warrants additional scholarly consideration of gerrymandering's effects on individual's access to tangible aspects of representation.

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Understanding and Responding to Constituent Opinion on Capitol Hill

Cited by 5 publications

References 36 publications

Does Familiarity Breed Esteem? A Field Experiment on Emergent Attitudes Toward Members of Congress

Does Familiarity Breed Esteem? A Field Experiment on Emergent Attitudes Toward Members of Congress

More than Mere Access: An Experiment on Moneyed Interests, Information Provision, and Legislative Action in Congress

Are Individuals Harmed by Gerrymandering? Examining Access to Congressional District Offices

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