Descriptive Representation and the Legislative Agenda: Evidence from California

• In Event: Representation in American Legislative Politics

Abstract

Does descriptive representation change legislative behavior? Efforts to answer this question have typically been hampered by coarsely measured outcome variables. In this paper, we use a novel data set of text and speech from the proceedings of the California State Assembly to test whether the representatives of majority-minority districts advocate more for criminal justice and public safety issues when representatives are racial minorities compared to when they are white. We find that minority representatives of majority-minority districts place greater emphasis on criminal justice and public safety matters than their white counterparts, and we further find that their legislative output related to anti-crime policy (in the form of votes and bill sponsorships) are higher. These results suggest that descriptive representation is particularly significant for policy issues that disproportionately affect minority communities.

Authors

• Pamela Ban, University of California, San Diego

• Rebecca Goldstein, University of California, Berkeley