(iPoster) How Do Legislators' Occupations Influence Their Behavior in Office?

• In Event: Poster Sessions: Participation and Representation & Democracy and Autocracy II
  In Poster Session: Poster Session: Participation and Representation

Abstract

Compared to the population at large, the US Congress has relatively few workers and tradespeople and has many lawyers and business executives. This raises concerns about unequal representation for Americans from different occupations. Yet it remains unclear how legislators’ prior careers shape their behavior in office. On one hand, occupational experience may influence legislators’ area of focus or expertise; on the other, it may shape their ideological positions. To answer this question I compile the full occupational histories of all 3,669 members of Congress from 1946 to 2024. I use a difference-in-differences design to estimate the impact of past careers in education, healthcare, the military, corporate leadership, law, finance, small business and working-class jobs on legislators' behavior once in office. I find that legislators’ occupations shape what issues they focus on beyond what we would expect from constituency or party: when a district elects a representative from a given occupational sector, the share of their speeches mentioning related topics increases by 19%, and the share of bills they sponsor related to those issues increases by 29%. I find evidence that this focus is consistent with a theory of expertise: legislators are more effective at advancing bills related to their occupations. But legislators' occupations also predict their ideological positions along broad class lines: legislators with experience in business are more likely to vote conservatively on a wide range of economic issues, while those with experience in blue collar or education backgrounds are less likely to vote conservatively. Overall, these results suggest that the occupational composition of Congress not only shapes which issues receive attention and expertise, but also the ideological preferences that guide policymaking.

Author

• Fred DeVeaux, University of California, Los Angeles