Legislative success and collaboration in the Texas State House

Abstract

ABSTRACT Women and racial and ethnic minority legislators achieve varying levels of legislative success due to the discrimination they face in elections and the legislature. To overcome these disadvantages, some scholars suggest that legislators employ cooperative strategies to achieve higher success. In a diverse legislature, we ask whether legislators cooperate with each other via bill cosponsorship as a strategy to increase their legislative success. We examine success rates and cosponsorship strategies within the diverse Texas House of Representatives to answer these questions. We find that while white women and women of color have success rates similar to white men, racial and ethnic minority men have lower success rates compared to other legislators. White women, women of color, and men of color all exhibit diverse cosponsorship patterns; yet these tactics do not lead to higher legislative success rates for women and minorities. These conclusions in the Texas House offer a hypothesis-building case study of legislative success and multi-group collaboration in a diverse state legislature.