Multimember Districts' Effect on Collaboration between U.S. State Legislators

Abstract

In this article, I demonstrate that multimember districts form a basis for collaboration between two legislators. In order to maximize the limited incumbency advantages they possess, legislators from multimember districts form coalitions in an effort to generate greater credit‐claiming opportunities and policy benefits for their district. In order to test this conception, I utilize a natural experiment and an opportunity to observe institutional change in North Carolina's elimination of multimember districts during the 2000–2002 redistricting cycle. Coupled with cross‐sectional analysis of several states that use both single‐member and multimember districts, empirical evidence strongly corroborates my conception of multimember districts as a basis for collaboration between representatives.