Legislator Characteristics, Constituency Characteristics, and Roll Call Voting

Which matters more when legislators make decisions, their own characteristics or those of the people they represent? This paper uses comprehensive data on the personal attributes of both members of Congress and their constituents to com- pare the relative influence of eight legislator and constituency characteristics–party, race, gender, age, income, education, religion, and occupation–on roll call voting in the 109th and 110th Congresses. Our findings suggest that who governs matters considerably more than the literatures on representation and legislative decision-making have previously acknowledged: the effects of legislators’ own backgrounds are not limited to the handful of issue areas and personal characteristics that previous studies have examined. These findings strongly support recent calls for renewed attention to the “personal roots” of elite decision-making.