Representational Congruence, Constituency Groups, and Environmental Policy

• In Event: Politics and Public Opinion in the American West

Abstract

In this paper, we ask: Which constituency groups receive better or worse representation from their representatives in Washington on environmental and public lands issues? Over the last several decades, the behavior of congressional representation has been increasingly structured by partisanship. And while congressional behavior is well-explained by the single-dimension of partisanship, we know there to be far greater diversity of opinion and interests within the parties’ coalitions of voters and constituent groups. As environmental and public lands issues continue to be at the forefront of the political agenda, we should seek to understand who is well represented on these issues in the American two-party system, and who is not.

We utilize the 2020 Western States Survey, an original survey of citizens living in 5 western states where environmental and public lands issues are highly salient, to analyze these questions. Using the survey, we are able to measure citizen attitudes on a variety of environmental and public lands issues and questions, and aggregate their answers to measure the average opinions of different demographic and geographic constituent groups within the Democrats and Republican parties. We can then assess the degree to which these different groups have their opinions and interests represented in the activities of their congressional representatives, including through roll-call votes, bill introduction, and more.

Authors

• Juliet Carlisle, University of Utah

• James M. Curry, University of Utah

• Jerry Michael Stott, University of Utah