Are Legislators More Productive When They Run for Higher Office?

Abstract

Bill introductions are a key part of the representation process. Before a bill can be considered, a legislator must propose it. We gain insights into legislators’ behavior at the proposal stage by studying how running for higher office affects the bills that legislators introduce. After exploiting variation in West Virginia and the U.S. Congress to mitigate concerns about selection bias, we find that legislators seeking higher office propose more bills on a wider range of topics. Further, the bills that legislators propose line up with voters' interests; however issues important to underrepresented groups, such as the poor, do not receive the same level of attention. These results suggest that bias in the legislative agenda arises, at least in part, because of the issues that legislators omit to pursue. Our results also have implications for legislative institutional design and highlight the theoretically important difference between legislators' proactive and reactive behaviors.