The Determinants of Town Hall Participation Among Members of Congress

• In Event: Legislative Style

Abstract

Even before its founding, town hall meetings have been woven into the fabric of American politics as a quintessential tool in a representative democracy. Yet, if this was the case, we would expect legislators would all host these events with routine frequency. Our research, which is the first systematic study of town hall meetings, shows this conventional wisdom is not the case. As congressional districts increasingly favor one party and divisive issues like the pandemic, race relations, and voting rights polarize the public, it is critical to understand how elected officials and their constituents interact.

On one hand, town halls may strengthen the legislator-constituent relationship: a two-way dialogue informs legislators about the views of their constituents and increases public confidence that their voices are heard. On the other hand, town halls carry risk, especially in our polarized political climate: attendees are unlikely to represent the average constituent and members must go on the record on controversial topics.

We consider several factors that might explain the variation of town hall participation among members of Congress, including gender, partisanship, ideology, electoral safety, as well as gerrymandering. By combining a unique dataset of over 10,000 congressional town hall meetings from 2017 to 2021 with biographical and political information about legislators as well as geographic and demographic characteristics of their districts, we are the first scholars to investigate the determinants of town hall participation among members of Congress. We find evidence that legislators make strategic calculations whether to participate in town halls, how often to do so, and where these events take place (e.g., location in the district, in-person vs. online, etc.).

Authors

• Nadine Suzanne Gibson, University of North Carolina at Wilmington

• Aaron S. King, University of North Carolina Wilmington